Perini Navi - Part 2

by Marilyn M. Mower

In 1983, Perini took the helm of his new 131-foot sloop Felicità, and when he pushed the levers, his electric captive winches rolled out all five sails and sheeted them home. While Perini is an entrepreneur and an inventor, he is not a naval architect or boatbuilder. To construct Felicità—and the boats that would follow once news of Felicità’s revolutionary design spread—he therefore assembled a team and named it Perini Navi. He recruited as its chief Giancarlo Ragnetti from Sangermani, which had built Perini’s previous boat. In Ragnetti, Perini found a kindred visionary spirit who prizes innovation, quality, and aesthetics.

Ragnetti understood that uniqueness and exclusivity needed to be part of Perini Navi’s business plan. “We had as our objective making not only a quality product but also one that identified us,” says Ragnetti. “So at least our first dozen boats were all designed and built as we had conceived them and offered for sale only when they were finished. We couldn’t back down on certain characteristics and interior details.”

Rather than lose control of the product, Perini Navi designed and built all the components itself and soon purchased a shipyard. While his boats continue to be made by hand, Perini has applied his business acumen to the process. For example, the steel hulls are welded in Turkey, where it can be done more efficiently and economically than in Italy, and then barged to Viareggio, where the shipfitting and joinery processes are performed.

More than any other builder, Perini Navi has been responsible for a rebirth of the large sailing yacht industry, a fact that was noted when the International Superyacht Society presented Fabio Perini with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. In 1998, only 10 sailing yachts 120 feet or longer were under construction worldwide. In 2006, there are 24, and Perini Navi is building eight of them.