Italian yachts, like Italian fashion, have become a hallmark of
the country’s national flair for design and innovation—what Vincenzo Poerio, CEO
of Benetti, calls a "mixture of art and science." Over the last quarter-century,
the Italian yachting industry has had to overcome political indifference,
excessive fiscal pressures, economic crises and, in some cases, problems in
transferring from small-scale to professional management. So it is hard to
pinpoint a year when Italian yachtbuilders began their inexorable climb up the
ShowBoats Global Order Book charts. But I would put it close to when the
first issue of the current glossy magazine iteration of ShowBoats
International appeared on newsstands in February 1989. It took another
decade and a world recession, but by the end of the millennium, Italy displaced
the United States from the No. 1 slot as the top builder nation, a position it
has held ever since, with Azimut-Benetti and the Ferretti Group leading the list
of top 20 builders.
Top: Lorenzo Benetti founded his
shipyard in 1873. Middle: Azimut’s Paolo Vitelli took over Benetti in 1985. Bottom: The
company introduced its Benetti 85 last year at the Cannes International Boat and
Yacht Show. Middle photograph by Chris Warde-Jones. Bottom photograph by Giuliano Sargentini. (Click images to enlarge)
Of course, Italy had a thriving boatbuilding heritage well
before anyone thought to coin the term "showboats." Codecasa was founded in
1825, Baglietto dates back to 1854 and Lorenzo Benetti founded the shipyard that
still bears his name in 1873. Amazingly, the Picchiotti yard, now owned by
Perini Navi, can trace its history back as far as the seventeenth century.
Leisure yachting is a relatively recent pastime in Italy, but
from the 1950s and throughout the 1970s, an Italian motorboat was the yacht to
own. Ironically, this success was based on outdated styles of management and
production methods.
The turning point came when Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi
went to Benetti to build 86-meter Nabila—a decision that later would
prove a painful lesson for the yard in particular and the industry in general.
Khashoggi’s negotiators pared down the contract price and insisted on severe
penalties for failing to meet the delivery deadline and promised performance.
This is standard practice nowadays, but the Benetti family, unused to written
agreements, did not even ensure that these penalty clauses would be readjusted
if the client asked for changes during the build. The yacht was launched in
1980, and over the next several years the Benetti yard was bankrupt.
Family-run Codecasa launched Jonikal (top), in 1989. The May 2007 launch Emerald Star (bottom), was Ancona-based CRN’s
largest composite yacht to date. Top photograph by Maurizio Paradisi. (Click images to enlarge)
Paolo Vitelli took over the company in 1985. Vitelli had
already made a name for himself by building the Azimut range of production boats
in his hometown of Turin. In the years that followed, he would apply his
technical know-how and flair for marketing to Benetti and turn the company into
the powerhouse we know today as the world’s largest producer of luxury yachts
over 24 meters.
All this was fairly fresh in the mind of former ShowBoats
editor-in-chief Jim Gilbert when he took over the magazine, but since then
the industry has changed beyond recognition. The Nabila episode was a
rude awakening at a time when the superyacht industry was in its infancy. It
served to remind Italian shipyards that yachtbuilding is as much about efficient
management as it is about skilled craftsmanship. Most industry commentators
still feel there is room for improvement.
Perini Navi is known for its sailing yachts but has 50-meter motor yacht Vitruvius (top), on the drawing board. Fabio Perini
(bottom), founded Perini Navi in 1982 to build a yacht of his own
design. Bottom photograph by Carlo Borlenghi. (Click images to enlarge)
Gianluca Fenucci, CEO of ISA, for example, believes that
Italian yachtbuilders can further improve their international standing by
"better integrating craftsmanship with industrial principles of design,
engineering and production, without losing sight of the ‘Made in Italy’
ethos."
CRN President Lamberto Tacoli, on the other hand, maintains
that the industry is in danger of becoming victim to its own success with market
demand outstripping human resources and suppliers. Azzurra II was the
first CRN yacht to be featured in the second edition of ShowBoats. The
latest was 43-meter Emerald Star, the company’s largest composite launch
to date.
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