Perini Navi rises from bankruptcy, new fleet and illustrious customers

“Our goal is to produce two vessels a year. The turnover? I can say that Perini Navi already represents 12% of the global group”. Giovanni Costantino, the founder and CEO of The Italian Sea Group, also adds that “Perini Navi will be able to sail at full speed for the next long years”.

It is an important day for the shipyard founded by Fabio Perini in 1983 in Viareggio and acquired by Costantino, which – as he says – received the keys on 21 February 2022. The founder of TISG unveiled the new fleet today. The new projects of the Genesis class, with which the brand’s production is redesigned and relaunched. Three sailing ships, of 48, 56 and 77 meters, but also four productions already in place and aimed at delivery. Clean boats, very open, which allow you to really experience the wind and the blue. For shipowners “with possibilities, but who also deeply love the sea and have the time to live it”, Costantino continues.

Locations and hiring

Costantino had already explained the first steps on Perini Navi. Starting with the acquired offices. “We have totally restructured the La Spezia site, we have turned it upside down. Today there are 450 people at work, two orders for new boats, six large ones in the refit and we have moved and made the Tecnomar-Lamborghini model supply chain 100% operational. In Viareggio, another site that has also been put back in order, we have two orders, a 60m Perini and the refit of another 60m also Perini”. He also added that he also sold the office building on the Viareggio site, because it is more than the corporate offices in Carrara.

As for hiring, in addition to those already transferred to TISG in the first phase of the acquisition, the group was joined by the 63 who had still remained in the shipyard and 65 new hires. “The acquisition agreements called for 35 hires over the next three years. We’ve done double that in just one year.”

The new fleet

The new 48-metre will be offered in two versions: regatta and cruisingAnd. The shipyard has therefore revisited the 56-metre, Perini Navi’s most iconic sailing ship, with the collaboration of Malcom McKeon Yacht Design. And then, there’s the platform of the 77-metre two-mast, which will have the “Falcon rig”, ie masts and equipment typical of the Maltese Falcon. There is also talk of a possible 90m, a new Maltese, but for now we won’t go any further.

The idea we got when previewing the renderings of the new models is above all that of beautiful boats. The Perini imprint remains and is enhanced in a modern key. Carbon, steel, but also mahogany, in search of the balance between innovation and tradition. Precious materials for the interiors, great work of the craftsmen. Some gems such as the exposed mast in the cabin, the staircase that climbs along the mast from the main deck to the fly deck, the “eyebrown” curves for the deckhouse, the large curved windows that illuminate the saloon, the reinterpreted maintenance of the Perini shoulder, the rounded stern…

Clean superstructures, soft lines, elegant curves; clear decks, large lounges in the cockpits aft and also forwarda, windows camouflaged with the hull, very large stern beaches that descend to the sea, foldable bulwarks that become wings, open stern. Small but important signs, such as the fil blue, the hand cover in blue leather for the stairs inside the hall which becomes a symbol. The reverse bow, but not too much. The silver color of the hull – without prejudice to the wishes of the owner.

Then there are some firm technical points. Easy sailing is reaffirmed, with boat steering made simple – on the 77-metre, for example – by the electro-hydraulic mast/sail management system which is concentrated in the two command consoles, with a series of joysticks which facilitate control full safety without the need for a dedicated crew.

Going into more detail, the new 48 meters – 10.5 m beam, approximately 400 Gt – will have new hull lines to offer limited heeling angles, double rudders and a mobile centreboard (4 meters draft) to facilitate access to remote ports and bays. On the deckhouse, the regatta version may have solar panels, which can be combined with a hybrid/electric power supply. Engine room in the centre, up to five cabins. The cruise version, with an 80m2 flying bridge.

The 56-metre ketch is approximately 11 meters wide and has 499 GT. It was and is re-proposed as a “flah ship (14 built so far by Perini). All in carbon, the aft cockpit is on the main deck and is connected to the saloon, up to six cabins or five with full-beam owner’s cabin, twelve crewmen, cockpit-lounge forward. And finally, the 77 meters, 14 m wide, 1300 GT, mast rotation, Panamax in the sense that it can pass through the canal because it is 62 meters long when floating, 100 m2 of beach, reverse bow.

The other boats

“Mr Larry Ellison’s vessel, a 60-metre ketch (which had run aground in bankruptcy, leaving Mr Oracle in stallion), is in progress and due for delivery in August next year. We will take it to the Monaco Boat Show 2024,” says Costantino. Then there is the project of the largest sailing catamaran in the world, the Perini Arte Explora, which will be a floating art gallery (for the president of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez), designed by Axel De Beaufort and that “we will deliver next August and will always present in Monaco in 2023”.

And, again, a 56-metre ketch designed by Malcom McKeon and interior design entrusted to Winch Design, to be delivered in July 2025 and a 47-metre sloop entrusted to the US broker Bruce Brakenshoff of Edmiston, which will be delivered in June 2025.