A Big Boatload of Ego

Now it was Perkins's turn to talk. He'd already had some sport with the event, unable to resist the chance to tweak both himself and Baykal in particular. The jet-black Falcon was all lit up by halogen lights, her fixtures freshly polished and her 16-member crew in dress uniform. Perkins had decked out the square-rigger in full plumage with dozens of signal flags—running from bow to stern, across the tops of the three carbon-fiber masts. Any guest would assume the Falcon was merely festooned with random, colorful pennants. But in the system of international maritime signals, each flag represented a letter. Ever the paragon of capitalism, Perkins's playful message spelled out: "Rarely does one have the privilege to witness vulgar ostentation displayed on such a scale." Perkins loved his Falcon—"the Big Bird," he'd taken to calling it, though to some she looked more like a strange duck—yet he was surely aware that some of the locals may have deemed it excessive. To them, he wanted to get in a shot, even if they wouldn't get it since they didn't know nautical-speak.

And then he had a bigger dig, one that everybody would understand. In his remarks, delivered with a few well-rehearsed Turkish sentences spliced in, Perkins praised the work ethic of the Turks. "This yacht will stand up against the craftsmanship of any of the great shipyards of Europe," he said. "Some questioned the wisdom of my decision to build the boat here. They said it was too big, too complicated, too much for the Turks." He proclaimed that had the Falcon been built in Italy—like his two prior superyachts—he wouldn't have been able to set sail for years, given the Italians' insistence on a 35-hour workweek. But then Perkins added that he'd been annoyed for weeks that a shipment of fine sheets for the Falcon's staterooms and china for the dining table had been held up by Turkish Customs. Among other things, officials apparently wanted proof the British porcelain didn't pose a threat to human health, which raised the question how the identical merchandise was selling in retail outlets all around Istanbul. "This is what gives Turkey a 'Third World' reputation," he said in a tone that sounded both supercilious and oddly helpful.

Before Perkins finished, Baykal and others in the embarrassed government entourage were on their cell phones, calling the airport to see if the Customs shipment could be located. Sure enough, at 2 the next morning, the sheets and china arrived at the palace and were taken by high-speed tender to the waiting crew aboard the Falcon. "He is an extraordinary gentleman, isn't he?" observed a Turkish businessman while witnessing the frantic phone calls that Perkins had instigated. "But I guess you shouldn't screw with him." Countless others in his life had come to learn the exact same lesson.

From Mine's Bigger: Tom Perkins and the Making of the Greatest Sailing Machine Ever Built, by David A. Kaplan. © 2007 by David A. Kaplan. To be published by HarperCollins Publishers.

© 2007