The Assassin (Sha ren zhe Tang Zhan)

This time on "impossible engineering"...

The largest sailing yacht on the planet...

Nobody has attempted to do anything like this before.

This is one of a kind.

Nautical construction on an epic scale...

It's like a living animal.

There's so much engineering in this structure,

it's mind-blowing.

And the pioneering historic innovations...

Eventually, this airplane will stall

and fall out of the sky.

This is not how I usually start my days.

That made the impossible possible.

captions paid for by discovery communications

sailing is the passion of millions around the globe,

but when it comes to harnessing the wind,

there's often a choice to be made...

Size versus speed.

The two seldom go hand in hand.

But now a brand-new boat is rewriting the rule book.

Black Pearl, the world's largest sailing yacht.

Welcome to the Black Pearl... 106 meters,

7.2 meters of draft,

14 1/2 meters of beam, sails at 22 knots.

We expect her to do 30 knots.

Without a doubt, that is unique.

Never before has a yacht of this scale

been built to sail so fast.

Good morning.

Welcome on board the sailing yacht Black Pearl.

Today, this $200 million feat of engineering

is setting out on crucial sea trials in Tarragona, Spain.

Captain Chris Gartner heads up its crew.

The Black Pearl is completely different

from almost every other sailing ship ever built.

She's just designed to sail.

Drop the ground lines.

It is really a modern-day...

Miracle.

The world's largest sailing yacht,

Black Pearl is the length of 10 city buses.

Its tri-deck design is equipped with a helideck,

state-of-the-art tender garage,

and can accommodate 38 guests and crew,

all powered through the sea by an innovative three-masted rig

equipped with over 31,000 square feet of sail.

It is a sailing machine.

It is so on the cutting edge.

Yeah, it's exciting.

However, creating such a vast vessel

poses many impossible engineering challenges.

Looking good.

How do you ensure the largest hull of its kind

will glide through the water...

- 14 close. - Two, two, one.

And stand up to the unpredictable ocean?

Every time we leave the dock, it feels great.

But perhaps the biggest problem is making this 328-foot-long,

nearly 3,300-ton superyacht a world-class racer.

And we're only 10 degrees starboard

on turns that quick.

Peeewww!

We want to sail fast.

Sure, there's a lot of boats out there that are real fliers,

but they're a quarter of the size.

To get up to speed, this marine giant requires

a staggering 31,215 square feet of sail area,

but how do you rig and control such a vast amount of canvas?

Could a marvel from the past

help with this seemingly impossible problem?

Well, this is not how I usually start my days.

Naval architect Nick Bradbeer

is in Greenwich, London,

scaling a supersized 150-year-old speed machine...

I am climbing up a tall ship's rigging,

and I've never done this before.

I'm a little bit nervous, as well as excited.

That incredibly could provide

an answer for Black Pearl's design challenge.

Equipped with 154-foot-high masts,

the 278-foot-long maritime masterpiece

was once one of the fastest ships on the planet.

This is the Cutty Sark,

one of the last surviving clipper ships,

and back in 1869, when she was built,

she was an astonishing piece of engineering.

This amazing vessel was the result of a nation's quest

for a decent cup of tea,

a thirst that started 200 years before it was built.

Tea was imported from China, from India,

and it was all imported by the east India company.

They were the only people allowed to bring tea

into England.

With no competition, their ships,

known as east indiamen, weren't built for speed.

Their slow, bulky boats now had a major problem.

Wealthy Londoners were willing to pay a premium

for that first batch of tea back from every harvest.

So an enterprising group of merchants and sailors realized

that they could make a lot of money,

and that meant they would need a new kind of ship,

something that was much faster

than anything that had gone before.

Scottish shipping entrepreneur

John "jock" Willis and engineer Hercules Linton

came up with a trailblazing solution.

The Cutty Sark was a legendary British tea clipper named

because of her ability to clip off the miles

at breakneck speed.

The Cutty Sark was a very fast ship.

She did speeds up to 17 knots,

which is about twice as fast as the ships that came before her

and actually is about the same speed

as a lot of merchant ships do today.

Her secret... A towering square-rigged,

three-mast design,

a sailing powerhouse that could inspire the Black Pearl's team.

One of the things that really sets a clipper apart,

because she has to go fast, is the sheer quantity of sail

that she's designed to carry.

Looking up, we've got 11 miles of rigging, 32 sails,

nearly 3,000 square meters of canvas,

which is just an unbelievable amount.

I can't even quite fit them all in my field of vision.

She's just a machine for carrying as much canvas

as possible because it's all about speed.

The more sail she carries, the faster she can go.

The Cutty Sark and this new class of ship

slashed 20 weeks off a round trip to China,

its awesome rig making the most of whatever wind was available.

If you're in light wind, you want to cram on

as much sail as you can.

If you're in a heavy wind,

then there's only so much sail you dare pack on.

But the clipper captains were driven by speed,

so even in high winds,

they keep packing it on to keep that speed up.

The Cutty Sark spent the 1870s

speeding tea across the world's oceans.

By the 1880s, she was working

the Australian wool trade routes,

holding her own against a new breed of ship.

Even in the age of steam, she was still far outstripping

the speed of those steamships over that long run.

She's a piece of history,

and she's an incredible piece of engineering.

Like the Cutty Sark,

the Black Pearl is built for speed.

In 2016, its super-sleek hull is delivered.

But this engineering marvel only comes to life

when its epic rig is installed.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

That's it. We're down.

Get the bolts in.

Inspired by the historic clipper,

a trio of masts resembles the Cutty Sark's iconic design,

but their 216-foot height would tower above it.

Engineering on this scale produces something special...

The world's largest sailing yacht.

Chris Gartner captains this extraordinary vessel

that's shaped by the past.

Based on all the principles of the clipper ship,

we've incorporated everything that worked for them

using modern-day technology and materials,

and now we've built a flier.

Black Pearl's standout engineering

is its game-changing square-rigged mast system.

This is the dynarig of the Black Pearl.

It's a carbon-fiber structure that stands about 66 meters

from the water up to the masthead.

There's so much engineering in this whole structure,

it's mind-blowing.

Each of these three masts is flanked by a series

of rib-like structures known as yardarms.

These subdivide the rig into 15 low-loaded sections,

allowing the engineers to unfurl over 31,000 square feet of sail.

Today, a sail test is about to get underway.

First, a manual inspection must be carried out

on one of Black Pearl's massive masts.

Going up there, I leave that for the young guys.

In case they fall, we're not really losing as much

as if I were to fall off the rig.

The vertigo-inducing job falls to rig master Declan clamp.

It's basically getting hoisted up by winch.

And stop.

He's on truss number six,

and he will begin his inspection from up there.

View's great.

Always a good view from 60 meters up.

We take a lot of safeguards

in order to prevent any mishaps.

Everything's okay up here.

Cool.

You get a real scale for the boat up here.

You realize how big it all is.

Now that the checks are complete,

Chris can automatically bring this engineering marvel to life.

And I'm going to set the sail.

Right now, the four outhaul winches are pulling on