Giovanna Vitelli: “This is how design made us change boating”

Giovanna Vitelli, the president of the Azimut/Benetti group, couldn’t bring herself to go to sleep and not follow the Bagni Misterìosi operation. So, she got into the car and from Livorno where she had been for a meeting she drove to Milan in time to follow the challenge of flying one of her boats, the new Seadeck 6 – about 18 meters long – over the Milanese rooftops and beyond the surrounding walls of the Bagni Misteriosi, where from today it will become an installation for the Design Week 2024. A boat that left Savona by road and reached the Lombard capital just before midnight, when the yacht was “unpacked” and prepared and then taken over by a maxi-crane which placed it in the illuminated swimming pool. “We finished between transfer and toast” at three in the morning”, he tells us. “But I couldn’t miss it.”

Bringing the sea to Milan

Let’s start from here, to pursue the meaning of this performance. Which starts from afar, with the display of Azimut’s first boat, the S6, at the Triennale and then always the same model, 18 meters with 25 tons of displacement, in Times Square, up to the Bagni Misteriosi in Milan for the Design Week 2024, where from today the nautical brand brings to the stage “Mooring by the Moon”, an emotional journey through beauty and sustainable innovation, an installation journey in four acts (work by AMDL CIRCLE and Michele De Lucchi) which – says the presentation – “invites visitors to be surprised by the wonder of the natural world, seen as if for the first time from a boat illuminated by the reflections of a large moon and lying on the water in the heart of the city.” “We bring the sounds, but also the smells of the sea,” Vitelli anticipates.

The question is: why? What does it mean to bring a boat to Design Week? Why “trespass” from the natural environment of the boat, which is the sea? “It’s not about trespassing, but about telling our message in a more engaging way to a wider audience. At Design Week we are going to talk about the awareness of our product, both technological and design. In the last fifteen years we have developed research which, speaking for example about carbon ten years ago, was of interest to few, whereas today it has become a story that the world is more willing to listen to, because it is linked to the reduction of consumption and emissions. This is the challenge that sailing, as well as humanity more generally, must face and measure itself with.”

Let’s focus on the challenge. We are already talking about and experimenting with alternative, green fuels. “Yes, all very interesting, but to come because it is linked to many aspects, not only relating to research, but also to their distribution, to their storage on board. We instead want to focus on today, on what can be done now. And this is what we are also going to tell at Design Week, with a journey that explains how to enjoy the beauties of sailing – the sea, the moon, etc. – with a highly technological object. Not only in theory, but we show it, touch it by bringing a boat that is projected into a more sustainable future. Moreover, the main theme of the Design Week”.

This means bringing you a boat that uses carbon, which weighs less than fiberglass (and costs 30% more), which has a more efficient hull so as to reduce fuel consumption (for the same speed), which uses more sustainable like cork instead of teak for the deck, which rationalizes the on-board systems and related energy expenditure, which has hybrid propulsion… The maximum, in short, of Azimut’s low emission range, the one which already ensures -20/30% of emissions compared to other boats as well.

The discovery of design

We can also go further into the discussion. And talk about design, taking a phrase from Giovanna Vitelli. “The world has discovered that a boat is a design object. Both in the external lines and in the interiors and furnishings”. He wasn’t obvious. Fifteen years ago, but perhaps even less, the boat was a boat. A world unto itself, a niche, for professionals. “Today there is a great, more transversal interest, for example many interior and lifestyle magazines have approached our world”.

The exceptional transport of the Azimut Seadeck 6 yacht to the Design Week

And if there was this discovery, it is also thanks to ventures such as the yacht in front of the Triennale (with the maximum weight allowed for transit on trucks over the subway tunnels). “Decontextualizing the boat from its element made the design object come alive in its purity, arousing interest in the object itself and what it represents, which perhaps the non-enthusiast public wants to delve deeper into”. Also because, adds the president of Azimut/Benetti, “is there perhaps a more fascinating object from a design point of view than a boat?”.

Here, this is the passion. Certainly also biased. “It will also be biased, of course. But what can it be assimilated to?”. To the car?, perhaps, we answer. “But a car only has the aspects of exterior lines and technology! The boat also has interiors, furnishings and decorations. For me it is an absolute uniqueness and the world has discovered it. And we made him discover it.”

Let’s continue. The boat has changed in the last fifteen years. Also thanks to non-nautical designers, who brought different styles and concepts less traditionally linked to nautical. “We were the first with the architect Achille Salvagni, when all the other shipyards still had collaborations with nautical designers. We turned to him with the aim of modernizing our boats, because even if you are very good, in the end you repeat yourself. The idea was to go further, not to remain disconnected from the lifestyle trends of the rest of the world. While in homes, I’ll give another example, the kitchens opened up, we still had the dining room with the backlit onyx. There was dystonia. They wanted to bring a fresh vision from the outside.”

Also giving a bit of a jolt to the sector, which perhaps had lost that avant-garde spirit that it had experienced in the 70s and 80s when – says Vitelli – “innovations, including stylistic ones, arrived first in the nautical sector and then elsewhere, because whoever owned a boat he had great economic possibilities, but also because he didn’t live on the boat itself every day and therefore allowed himself to be daring”. Money also brings with it experimentation. “But then there was a bit of a lull. And so we had experimented with contamination, successfully.”

And then? “They called me the queen of contests. This is because at Azimut and Benetti we expanded the search for designers who responded to our vision, which was not to bring the house on a boat, but to interpret it. And it doesn’t mean that even a good architect would respond to our briefing.” And maybe we didn’t forget that a “floor” couldn’t be slippery anyway…

We are talking about interiors, but also exteriors. “There are those who design the exteriors, a dress, which has also had its evolution, and then there are those who have to conceive the interiors, on that starting layout. On the exterior design it is more difficult to bring designers from other worlds, because the boat has its own rules, while it was easier to bring contamination with other worlds into the interiors”. Vitelli gives as an example the boat “flown” over the rooftops of Milan. “We have the exteriors designed by Alberto Mancini, who also introduced the concept of large openings and clean lines to a small hull, where it is more difficult. While we have hired the studio of Matteo Thun and Antonio Rodriguez, to translate the concept of technological sustainability into interiors too, with a rapprochement with the sea that is not only ecological but also stylistic. Slightly Zen atmospheres, more delicate colours, a feeling of well-being”.

“A positive evolution”

The use of the vessel has also changed. “It’s true, and I think it’s been a positive evolution. The aspect of ostentation and formalism has disappeared, while the need to have large spaces for convivial activities, to be shared with family and friends, has grown, a use also emphasized by Covid. Less Jacuzzi and models, but a more real use of the boat itself, from the pleasure of going to sea. Which does not mean less stylistic richness, which can instead be found in the search for detail, in the architectural one and not in gold taps and glittering ebony”.

And then to Design Week

The boat has grown, the interest in the boat has grown. So that today you can browse a boat magazine for the sake of design, even if you are not a boat enthusiast. The object of design comes first. “This is why we are at Design Week (last year there was an installation in Daserna by Azimut, ed.). There is no commercial reason, but the desire to tell what we are doing to the world outside of boating and to a wider audience, and this leads the brand to position itself. I talk about my brand and my values, not my product, which I instead illustrate in nautical exhibitions”.

The challenge

Boating faces the same challenge as all machines and objects that consume diesel. Reduce consumption, find alternative fuels to reduce and possibly eliminate emissions. “At Design Week we tell it in a less technical and more emotional way”.

Attention, now we are entering a delicate path. “We have promoted the creation of an Index that can measure and certify the energy efficiency of a boat”. Just as we read the A with the various + next to it for a refrigerator, just to understand. “To date the only existing references are the self-declarations of the shipyards. How to move to the next step? First of all, a third party was needed, which we identified in Lloyd’s of London. Then, an Index was needed to have a scale of values. We have therefore adapted the Sea Index, developed by the Yacht Club de Monaco for boats over 40 meters in length, and which we have also promoted for those under 24 metres”.

Azimut, therefore, began to submit its boats to certification. “It’s not easy and everything has a cost. Even the same certification. But we feel the duty to do so, in our primary market position.” There’s a problem, though. Does it make sense to be the only ones with certified boats? “Well, it wouldn’t be bad if we weren’t alone. We started a wave. Above 40 meters there are starting to be more and more yachts undergoing the Sea Index. We are also starting to do it below 24 metres. Maybe it will get to the point that potential buyers will also ask other shipyards.”

Another point. The Index is left to the individual’s decision. What if it were, instead, suggested, recommended, even imposed by international and/or national trade associations? “Eh, this would be optimal. Although I think that today such a proposal would be met with some discontent in construction sites that are not ready. In this regard, we are trying to understand whether we can activate benefits in terms of tax relief, but also credit for those who purchase a boat that meets certain sustainability criteria. As happens with the hybrid car.” Benefits promoted by whom? “I see an associative trend, which would be the ultimate. I see a political one, which would also be fair because I don’t see why for the car yes and for the boat no. And, finally, I also see a branch of bank financing that can be linked to a merit of this type, a merit of sustainability. But since I don’t see any of the three mature for now, in the meantime I’ll do it alone and move forward.”