The scene of Crown racing a catamaran replaced a similar scene in the original script (and the original movie) that was set at a polo match. Director John McTiernan deemed a polo match to be too much of a cliche, and wanted a scene that conveyed more action and excitement, and not just wealth.
The catamaran that Thomas Crown is seen racing in Long Island Sound is a D-Type Catamaran, an extremely fast and highly unstable yacht design from the 1980s. The D-Type’s were designed by California based aeronautical engineers to try to break inshore multihull speed records. Today there are only a handful of them left in the world.
Amazing footage! Great find! Thanks for sharing it.
Note that when Pierce Brosnan goes to grind the winch, it’s not loaded with a sheet…
How do they steer those boats? I don’t see rudders.
@ Tom: Actually there is a line going to the winch. Not sure what it is and whether he is actually working it (it certainly is not in the self-tailer) but it definitely is visible very briefly as the camera pans down.
@ T.: There are rudders. In fact, each boat has two rudders (one from each hull). Quite clearly visible at various points of the video, including 0:10, 0:26 (very briefly), 0:31, 0:39, 0:57, 1:31, and 1:42.
The line on the winch would have to be the spin halyard. It seems silly to grind at that point, because it’s obviously faster just to pull with a couple of wraps on the winch. The reason it has to be the spin halyard is that the main is already close hauled and the traveler is centered in the few frames before. He couldn’t be trimming a spin sheet yet because you have to wait until the chute is made before you can trim. That leaves us with the spin halyard as the only possible line on the winch.
Great footage. This is one of my favorite parts of my favorite movie!