T.Mariotti: boatbuilding, refits and megayachts

4Andreas L (60mt) and Rahil (54 mt) mark the yard’s return to the megayacht refit business.

Valentina Solera

Liguria, sandwiched between the sea and the mountains, hosts many excellent companies. Among them, the historic T.Mariotti yard (of the Genova Industrie Navali group) is one of the oldest on the coast. Even during difficult historical periods that over time have affected Italy, the yard has always looked to the future. T. Mariotti is a yard that specialises in the design and construction of ultra luxury cruising vessels, megayachts and supply vessels, and historically in the vessel repair and transformation sector. Recently it has won two orders for the refitting and maintenance of to megayachts. The first is the Andreas L, a 60 m megayacht which was worked on in February at a dock in the port of Genoa with interventions on the mechanics, painting and carpentry. In March the second job began, in the same dock, on the 54 m megayacht Rahil with an aluminium hull and aluminium superstructure designed and built by Mariotti Yachts, the brand under which the yard operates in the megayacht sector. It was a kind of homecoming for the yacht, built in the yard and presented in 2012 at the 22nd Monaco Yacht Show. Interventions were carried out very fast, one shot, and concerned technical aspects of the vessels and left the owners completely satisfied. These two orders are particularly important for T. Mariotti as they mark the return of the Genoa yard to the megayacht refitting business. It must be underlined that the yard has never let up on its continual search for ways of growing and innovating, and even during the difficult years of the crisis invested in finding new development solutions. To consolidate its presence in yachting, T. Mariotti has invested more than €9 million since 2010 to create important infrastructures and new model design platforms. The yard, through its Mariotti Yachts brand, can offer the market a range of new concepts including a 38 m and a 51 m derived from constructions for the offshore industry plus a 54 m, a 59 m, a 73 m and an 85 m, naturally in addition to building yachts of more than 100 m with a tailor-made formula to satisfy customer desires, counting on its consolidated technical and regulatory experience on passenger ships.

Refitting, past and present
Refitting is an integral part of the past and culture of T.Mariotti.
The yard had moved away from the sector to concentrate on building new yachts, but now it has moved back in and is cultivating it once again. It all began with two new 54 m constructions from which two platform projects were developed, step-by-step came new opportunities with the to megayachts. One of these concerned an earlier project by the yard. The return of Rahil to the place where she was built demonstrates the attention of the yard all through the life-cycle of its products. Using the builder of the boat for refitting and maintenance is an excellent idea, it takes less time and technicians, who know what they are working on, can operate with calm and assurance. The yard is also very specialised and has excellent infrastructures, technologies, machinery and high-level manpower.
Refitting has timing that is very different from building new boats or repairs; the interventions are rapid, and must be carried out with seriousness, ability and without wasting time. The yard, since it knows the vessel, clearly starts out with an advantage, and in addition with its past experience in refitting and maintenance offers a specialisation that is rare among similarly yards. These two interventions are the beginning of a cycle that started and is being developed in the months following the two refits; quayside gossip suggests that many skippers, when they learned of the refits, were immediately interested in taking up this opportunity themselves; they were very pleased to hear that the yard had returned to the refitting sector, which can become an excellent opportunity and an excellent visiting card for the future and a step towards a change of course, without abandoning what the yard has done up to now. These interventions can bring a breath of fresh air to the yard, open up new collaboration and important orders. The return of vessels that were built here creates a kind of family relationship between the yard and the owner. T.Mariotti attaches great importance to the family dimension of the company and to customer loyalty. In a difficult moment like the present it is not only product quality that makes the difference but also the faith customers have in the company. In addition, it is necessary to satisfy market requirements, and create an alternative to other yards by offering new interventions, new types of work and not refusing small jobs that could seem a waste of time; everything is part of caring for the vessel and the customer. Quality, alternatives and loyalty are the strong points of the yard and all this means fertile ground for new opportunities in the future. The results can already be seen, the market is on the move and interesting and very serious proposals are arriving at the yard, supported by owners who also invest in engineering and architectural studio is brought in as consultants.

Returning to where it all started
Over time, in addition to the shipbuilding sector, T.Mariotti has also developed yacht building, creating opportunities for diversification and thus having greater appeal for new jobs and interventions. Thanks to these two realities the yard can also use suppliers and technologies in the yachting sector, which is very different from the shipping sector; above all in terms of aesthetics and the quality of materials, they are different sectors with different levels of detail, component accuracy and different ways of working etc. So the yard is able to exploit these two realities even in individual interventions, exploiting the two skills present in the same yard. In this way, if after a technical refit, as in the case of the two yachts, the owner wants the yard to implement other modifications of the interior design, he will find the potential ready to satisfy his needs. These two refits are an important achievement for the yard and show that Mariotti has the infrastructures manpower and technologies; its strong point is that it can start from a small job and then arrive, with the same quality, to a big one. And everything is home-made.

The yard: a family and an industry
T.Mariotti is a company founded on historical craft know-how, but over the years it is grown and developed so as to tackle each new project with the dimensions and potential of an industrial structure in terms of materials, financial resources and operational capacity.
It is never forgotten its family origins, and this philosophy was later transferred to all levels of the company, and this is what makes the company great and different from the others. Even the creation of the holding company  (Genova Industrie Navali) in 2008 from the merger of T. Mariotti with San Giorgio del Porto amplified this family dimension, but on the scale of a large industry. The creation of the holding company, which included over the years other companies operating in various sectors of the ship engineering sector, was an active true courage and intelligence. A larger critical mass is worth more than several smaller masses, similar though they may be. It was a gradual process, step-by-step, and each of the various companies brought its own know-how, knowledge and experience.
The positive signs are there to be seen, the market is open to a large reality formed by a well tried and organised groups such as the holding company, within which each component maintains its own identity.
The success of the holding company is that everyone helps each other but without criticising sister companies or treading on the toes of the various smaller elements and companies in the group such as Gerolamo Scorza which specialises in furnishings and teak decks, Ortec specialising in electrical systems and the Tecnavi conditioning company. T.Mariotti has a twin soul, with its sister company San Giorgio, the former usually operating in building new yachts and San Giorgio in refitting and repairs. Besides this division, in times of difficulty the holding company allows one side to help the other, and the various parts help each other like brothers. Yacht refitting is more a concern of T.Mariotti, which exploits its experience in building luxury cruise ships, projects that are closer to those of big yachts. T.Mariotti works in different ways: construction, repairs and refits. Each of these activities means a different way of working, though with the same people; times, methods and operations change, and it is up to the ability of the staff to understand how to work on the basis of the intervention to be carried out. This great ability comes from the family nature of the company which was founded in one way and developed in another without ever abandoning its past. T.Mariotti never abandons the past but looks to a strategy of diversification to face up to the future, leaving behind it the tough years of the crisis. Diversifying means opening up the range of possibilities the growth and development, always looking for new opportunities. The rule of the yard is to try everything, so long as it is equipped to do so.

The reality of megayachts
The aim of the yard is to go beyond 100 m, while not neglecting smaller vessels, to exploit its shipbuilding know-how and exploit the convergence between the luxury ship sector and yachts of more than 100 m. The yard can thus marry the technical aspect of ships with the luxury spaces of yachts, the project thus has a double identity reflecting the two personalities of the yard; thus the yard with its experience can suggest the right solutions to owners. Thanks to the strength of spirit, the enterprise and courage of those who developed T.Mariotti (old and new generations), the company remains one of the pearls of the shipping and yachting sector.