While on holiday the last two weeks in the Isle of Man, I heard on the radio that the 'Maltese Falcon' had moored in Douglas Bay. For those who don't know of this mind boggling yacht, see here for more information.
http://www.symaltesefalcon.com/about.aspThere's only one statistic needed really, it cost £160 MILLION to build!
The next day I happened to drive past Onchan Head on the coast road and my wife nearly screamed when we came over the top of the hill and the 'Falcon' was still there, and quite close to the road too. Needless to say we parked up and took a few photos, then to our amazment the engines started and she moved off toward the south east and out of the bay. Even better, as she went she unfurled her sails and I was able to take an entire sequence of shots from bare poles to the full set of sails being set.
The sails unfurl sideways, from their storage positions INSIDE each mast, and travel along the yards till they are fully deployed. It's not very clear, but there is a HUGE Falcon motif on the centre sail of the main mast, and there are better pics of that on the web link above.
An amazing co-incidence that we just happened to be there at the right time, as she was in Sardinia two days before and off the coast of Portugal by last night!
[Hmm, the piccies didn't load. I'll try another method.....]