Out at sea, there is a moment every sailor waits for…

The engine falls silent and the sails begin to rise. One after another they open into the sky, catching the wind as the yacht settles into a new rhythm. The change is felt before it is understood: movement no longer driven by machinery, but by the elements themselves. 

“When you raise the sails and cut the engine, you feel something most people will never experience.”

For Captain Pierfrancesco Cafaro, the man at the helm of the Maltese Falcon, this moment still carries the same sense of wonder. Now part of Jumeirah Privé, the 88-metre vessel brings the brand’s spirit of hospitality into open water. To understand what makes the experience so rare, it helps to begin with him.

When he was sixteen, Pierfrancesco began reading about sailors who had chosen the ocean over everything else. “I didn’t know it then,” he says, “but I was reading about myself.”

At twenty-one, with a newborn daughter, his girlfriend beside him and a life in Rome waiting, he found himself at a crossroads. One path was already laid out. The other required stepping into the unknown. “We could settle into a normal life, or we could sail around the world,” he recalls. “We chose the ocean.”

The journey that followed lasted three years on a modest 18-metre yacht, often far from land and without reliance on modern systems. “During those years, we crossed seas with nothing but a compass, nautical charts and the stars,” he says. “Those years taught me everything.”

Pierfrancesco sees life at sea as a series of crossings: some carried by easy winds, others met head-on, with pressure, uncertainty and repairs along the way. The lesson, he says, is to know where you are going, then trust the instinct that carries you forward. It is this philosophy he now brings to The Maltese Falcon.

The name itself reaches back to 1530, when Malta was given to the Knights of Saint John with a single trained falcon requested each year in return. At the time, such a gift represented patience, discipline and devotion. “This yacht carries the same spirit,” Pierfrancesco says. “Something powerful. Something rare. Something that has to be felt.” 

With three masts towering nearly 60 metres above the deck, her proportions seem almost improbable at first sight. “She shouldn’t be possible,” Pierfrancesco says. “But she is.”

At the centre of her design is the DynaRig system, first imagined in the 1960s and realised here through modern engineering. Across three rotating masts, 2,400 square metres of sail can be raised in just minutes, each one adjusting precisely to the wind. Guests feel the difference most clearly when the mechanical sound disappears and the yacht begins to answer directly to the elements.

Following a recent refit, daylight now flows more freely through The Maltese Falcon’s interiors. At the centre of the yacht, a staircase curves around the main mast beneath a three-deck atrium, while the guest suites draw the eye outward to the sea beyond. 

Days settle naturally into the rhythm of the water. Mornings may begin with a swim from the stern before breakfast on deck, where crystal-clear water offers glimpses of shoals below and, often, dolphins breaking through the waves nearby. Later, guests can explore by tender, kayak, paddleboard, JetSurf board, or spend time snorkelling in the warm waters before returning to the flybridge as the light begins to soften. By evening, the lower sail becomes an outdoor cinema screen against the open sea.

Meals drift between long lunches on deck and late dinners after sunset, while wellness treatments and unhurried service settle quietly into life on board. Sailing seasonally between the Caribbean and Mediterranean, The Maltese Falcon carries guests from Antigua, The Bahamas, Saint Martin and St Barth in winter to the Balearics, French Riviera, Amalfi Coast, Sardinia, Croatia, Greece and Türkiye in summer.

For Pierfrancesco, the heart of it remains beautifully simple. “The ocean gives me something I can’t find anywhere else: balance. A sense that I’m exactly where I need to be.”

In many ways, this is what Jumeirah hopes guests will discover aboard The Maltese Falcon too: a deep-seated sense of peace found in close contact with nature. Surrounded by endless blue, the rush of life recedes, leaving only open sky, waves against the hull, and the rare feeling of being entirely present.

Reserve your stay aboard the iconic Maltese Falcon, a Jumeirah Privé Experience, and explore the world’s most beautiful coastlines from the privacy of an 88-metre sailing superyacht.