The renowned Cantieri di Pisa historic Italian shipyard, founded in 1945 in Pisa, Tuscany, began as a production and repair facility for small boats, before growing to larger-scale production, from which its reputation grew. It was bought by today’s owner Enrico Gennasio in 2021, after a period of closure.

The new era of Cantieri di Pisa has been marked by robust growth and passionate aspirations under Gennasio’s ownership, Marco Massabò’s day-to-day leadership and last year’s appointment of Antonio Luxardo – co-founder of Optima Design – as Chief Designer.

This new chapter has commenced with the introduction of a new range of motoryachts with three series blending traditional elements that respectfully nod to Cantieri di Pisa heritage, with contemporary touches. The Pisa yard continues to promise the highest quality of builds, aided by the abundance of quality marine suppliers in the vicinity.

Tell us about your background, how you ventured into the shipyard business by acquiring Cantieri di Pisa in 2021, and your directions since then.

Enrico Gennasio: We have a strong industrial background since my main business is Lombardy-based Alfagomma Group, which operates globally in the production of integrated systems for industrial and hydraulic fluids, employs close to 5,000 people and has had a presence in the Asia Pacific Rim since 1989.

It’s a group with a very strong engineering background because of the high technology required in the sector. Alfagomma is vertically integrated, involved not only in product research and development but also in the development, design, research and manufacturing of machinery and equipment. As we construct our own machinery for processing, we keep our technological innovations confidential. Our customer base includes key players with high-content technology in the oil and gas, mining, shipping, shipbuilding and defence sectors.

Linking a strong industrial background and a very long-held passion for motorboats – being a boat owner since I was 19 – I was given the opportunity to acquire Cantieri di Pisa. I saw this shipyard venture from an owner’s perspective, with a lot of aesthetics needed but often insufficient technical content in the manufacturing.

As my main business is an integrated one where subcontracting is non-existent, I looked further than Cantieri di Pisa and saw that too much of the boating industry relies on subcontracting. From my point of view, this can lead to losing a grip on the progress of a brand’s production and manufactured product technology.

For example, the first boat we designed and have started to manufacture – the fast 80 Veloce – is a fully carbon-fibre boat, which was an exercise in technology, from the construction of the moulds in-house for the hull to the superstructure and every piece of the composite material. That’s the direction we want to go for – we want to be in control of our technology and therefore of our quality and future.

When I acquired the shipyard, Cantieri di Pisa had a fantastic brand image thanks to a brilliant history, iconic name and products. However, it was sitting idle for a few years. To draw a parallel, when you don’t play tennis for three years, no matter how good you were before, you must start again and shake the rust out.

So, we decided to start in a strong way by focusing on refit, prioritising Cantieri di Pisa boats. Over 740 units had been produced historically, so we worked on presenting the ideal refit centre for the existing fleet. We’ve already done quite a few refits of Cantieri di Pisa boats. It was a good ‘warm-up exercise’ for the team and ideal timing for us to fine-tune our organisation.

We’ve made great achievements over the past three years, and we received very encouraging testimonials from satisfied customers. In fact, our shipyard has more requests than it can handle, and we are actively looking at three additional facilities. Currently, we have 50,000sqm of facilities including a 600m-long quay equipped with a 300-tonne travel lift and a 20-tonne crane.

Simultaneously, we started to design the new-generation Cantieri di Pisa range, which we displayed at the Cannes Yachting Festival and Monaco Yacht Show in September 2024.

During the Cannes Yachting Festival, the vision projected by Cantieri di Pisa really stood out as a ‘comeback’, with the presentation of nine new projects. Some asked whether this might be overly ambitious. How would you respond?

Marco Massabò: We are happy to hear that, as this is the result of a long perseverance, knowing all the resources, shipyard employees and subcontractors mobilised. You can imagine the stress involved; a lot of fine-tuning is needed.

A lot of passion is also needed, you breathe with the shipyard and probably after three years of due diligence, we’ve assessed the problems at the shipyard, with manpower, the facility and suppliers, and we’ve improved those areas. We know managing nine upcoming models is a huge target, but we will manage it step by step and are concentrating on the smaller models first.

In my view, we can start to focus and manufacture within the 30-50m range – to a maximum of 58m – in Cantieri de Pisa’s shipyard, and for the 60-100m range, outside of Pisa but still in Italy. With our other models like the 38m and the 48m yachts, made in steel, with a superstructure in composite or aluminium, we can find such expertise not only in Italy but also in the Netherlands and in Germany.

I imagine that in the case of a 90m yacht, an order of, say, €120 million, it would take eight months to a year to sign a contract for us, as we are new to this kind of superyacht build. We do have a strong partnership with megayacht builder, the T. Mariotti shipyard, and we would thoroughly assess such a project with them as a consultant.

You spoke of the expansion of production facilities, the historic Polaris and Saturno lines, and the sale of Cantieri di Pisa Custom Division’s first explorer. You also unveiled a third line: Akhir, the previously successful range, now “redesigned to meet the needs of modern owners while staying true to the brand’s historical legacy.” Are these areas progressing well?

Marco Massabò: Cantieri di Pisa had three existing product lines historically linked to names derived from astrology: Polaris, Saturno and Akhir.

The Polaris line, a name inherited from the prestigious mythical yacht of the dolce vita era, began in 1961 with a 13.2m cruiser, which became the Super Polaris in 1964 with the introduction of a flybridge. The new Polaris series includes yachts of 38m and 48m, extending to the 60m Super Polaris and even larger sizes.

The adventure began with the 48m steel-hulled voyager with a displacement hull featuring EHPH (Eco High Power Hull) wave-piercing technology for long-range cruising and low fuel consumption, and an aluminium and carbon superstructure.

With this new model, the aim was to preserve the shipyard’s DNA by entering a new voyager-explorer segment, which boasts different proportions and volumes but still maintains the shipyard’s stylistic features such as the ribbon windows, the particular design of the air intakes, and the power.

The second line, Saturno, is more traditional, derived from a reinterpretation of the lines of the 1960s models, in which the very generous stern, typical of the previous models, has been retained. The main feature of this line is the connection between the beach club, the main deck and the upper deck directly from a transverse external staircase without passing through the interior.

The third line is dedicated to Cantieri di Pisa’s most famous line of yachts, the Akhir, including the 44m completely in carbon-fibre.

How did you decide to ask architect and designer Antonio Luxardo – co-founder of Optima Design – to collaborate with Cantieri di Pisa as Chief Designer?

Enrico Gennasio: During the first three years of my ownership, I spoke with a number of naval architects and designers, and he was the one that seemed most convincing to be able to handle what we need across design for a whole project.

Design is key because we are involved in luxury items with sexy shapes. Yet design goes beyond aesthetics, it’s the total concept for each project. Antonio is positioned like no other to understand the full DNA of the shipyard and oversee all new projects of the shipyard, or else he would not have been able to present nine new models.

You mentioned heritage, as the shipyard celebrates its 80^th anniversary in 2025. How can you remain faithful to its DNA while evolving into a new era?

Enrico Gennasio: We have significant archives and drawings, since its birth in 1945, not to mention the living testimonials of boats still operating since the shipyard’s launch.

It’s very important to identify what were the reasons for the success of the legacy products of Cantieri di Pisa. Lines like the Akhir were superb in design and quality, with high performance. These yacht characteristics must be the common denominator of Cantieri di Pisa’s strategy for the future.

In the case of the Akhir line, though, it’s certainly challenging to modernise such an iconic product: we must evolve the legacy projects to current requirements of owners without losing their distinguished style that always stood out from others in the industry.

We don’t want to ever be a mass- or serial-production shipyard. We want to have a limited number of hulls produced every year, paying attention to those fundamental points that are sometimes not in a product made in high numbers. We cannot confuse yachts of this type of size with something like the automotive production process, for instance.

We also want to maintain the flexibility of personalisation that boat owners might naturally require. These specific points are totally underestimated and disregarded by some manufacturers.

At this moment, customer care and after-sales assistance are pretty much unknown in the industry, at least on the Italian manufacturers’ side. If you have a guarantee issue, they don’t even have the facilities to solve the problem. The fact we do refits and want to maintain this service exemplify a shipyard that’s able to be a problem solver.

It should not be possible to buy a US$15-20 million yacht, and then if you face a problem, the manufacturer doesn’t step in to help solve a problem they created. Yet this is the case in the industry right now.

I’ve seen companies in which their legal department receives more attention and resources than, say, the technical or R&D department. This is clearly a sign of disease. Our motto is we endeavour to take a constructive approach to any problem that may arise, and we stand alongside our yacht owners to help with any problems.

How was the feedback from the Cannes and Monaco shows, and where will you continue your roadshows from 2025 to develop internationally?

Enrico Gennasio: I’m extremely positive about the outcome of these two shows for our company. We will continue our roadshows, displaying our products and capabilities between the United States, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific in 2025. There is no pressure: we plan, crawl and walk. We are interested in any conversation and potential contract anywhere in the world.

At a later stage, we will approach selected markets in a substantial manner, to set up local structures. We can consider a dealer network, for instance. All we need is to have an organisation that can stand behind our products.

This article was first seen on yachtstyle.co.

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