Luca Bassani, founder of Wally Yachts, knows this all too well, choosing to go against the status quo when he launched his company in 1994 and sail his vision where no other yacht designer had dared to go before.ĭriven by a deeply-rooted passion for yachting, following summers in Portofino as a child, the first boat he built, Wallygator, in 1989, was actually for himself. The respect in success is great the fall from grace in failure perhaps even greater – nonconformists to ‘design traditions’ are eternalised and castigated in equal measure depending on the outcome of their work. Inherently, this drive for innovation comes with risk. “I love to dream.Setting the standard, in any industry, means pushing the boundaries of convention to their breaking point. And then it goes on and on – it’s never ending,” he says. And once you have the new step, you see the next step. “Because I know this business, I know we can always do something better. Likewise, he could’ve taken a step back when Ferretti Group acquired the shipyard – but that’s not in his nature. They’ll be like the other Wallys but they’ll be bigger and better than any other yachts of their size.”Īfter his family sold their business, Bassani could have rested on his laurels. “I have the ideas to design and build very big motor yachts – 60, 70, 90, 100m. “I have a lot of ideas to go much, much bigger,” he says. In the coming months, the Monaco-based shipyard will unveil a number of new models including the 58X in late 2022, two new Wallywhy models – launching in December 2022 and September 2023 – and a custom Wally 101 racing cruiser 2023.īassani, meanwhile, is already thinking further into the future. I want you to build me a motor yacht like that.’” “I was thinking about how to enter the market when one day a German man – owner of the Mangusta 105 yacht – came into my office and said: ‘I loved your last sailing yacht, Tiketitan, but I will never own a sailboat. “Step by step I was realising that the big market was in motor yachts,” he says. “My first client was Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, owner of Magic Carpet 1, 2 and 3.”īassani then expanded from sailing yachts into racing yachts, creating the Wallyclass division, followed by power boats. “Once I had those two boats on the water, I started to have clients,” he says. This was where Bassani’s design career was meant to conclude, but a few years later, he found himself designing the 105 Wallygator – now called Narida – and the 80 foot Genie of the Lamp. “I wanted an 83-footer with a modern hull, a lot of volume and as much carbon fibre as possible to make her light and strong.” He sought out a New Zealand engineer who’d designed boats for the New Zealand America’s Cup and created the world’s first cruising boat with a carbon fibre mast. So, unsatisfied with what the market was offering, he built his own. At the same boat, cruising boats were too uncomfortable.” “At the time, my opinion was that race boats were too slow – they were following a handicap system which was too old. Years later, in 1989, the family sold the company and Bassani found himself with free time and disposable income so, still a keen yachtsman, he decided to invest in a boat. So, while still studying Industrial Design from the University of Genoa, Bassani and his brother started racing 37-footers. I’ve been passionate about the sea ever since,” he says.Īs Bassani grew up, his father wanted him and his brother to join the family business – BTicino group, one of the world leaders in electric devices – but before doing so, he thought it would be good training to have his sons learn to work together in the context of a sailboat racing team. “In Portofino, I learnt practically everything about the sea – how to swim, how to dive, how to fish, how to sail. The Italian’s earliest memories of boating date back to childhood holidays on the Riviera. Like his yachts, Bassani’s journey into the industry was unconventional. “We are very extreme in terms of style and offer – from technology and design to materials, there is no other boat like a Wally.” “50 per cent of the market loves our products and 50 per cent hate them,” he says. This a fact that founder and chief designer Luca Bassani is well aware of. Whether you admire or despise the Monaco-based shipyard’s yachts, you’ll certainly recognise them. Wally is the ‘marmite’ of the yachting world.
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