Genoese and Ligurian shipyards build technologically advanced vessels renowned in the world, and – despite the challenges of globalization and competition – they remain a symbol of Italy’s maritime heritage.
We visited Sangiorgio Marine, that has developed cutting-edge knowledge in the nautical design and construction sector which allows the production and refitting of high-tech composite boats.
With the evolution of advanced composites, many industries have benefited from research conducted for competitive sport, particularly the America’s Cup. Racing boats have provided a proving ground for the fatigue and corrosion resistance of materials in very harsh environments: their control and analysis have become an essential part of high-level competitions and research laboratory boats. Additionally, Italian and European boat builders are leading the quest to build durable and recyclable composite pleasure boats.
Sangiorgio Marine is a reference shipyard for shipbuilding in high-tech composite materials.
New technologies and passion for boating
The shipyard Sangiorgio Marine is located inside the port of Genoa, in Calata Gadda, and therefore has access to excellent shipbuilding infrastructure and supply chain, ensuring local availability of all necessary knowledge and equipment.
The production resulting from research into the development of new technologies and a passion for boating is what characterizes the construction site we toured. The headquarters is a large industrial structure, still growing thanks to the great commitment of Edoardo Bianchi and Cecilia Gallanini.
Visiting this place, what is obvious is the interest towards the most innovative composite technologies and their use for the construction of boats.
The birth of a construction site
Edoardo Bianchi, nautical engineer and co-founder of the shipyard of which he is CEO, was always passionate about sailing.
In 2004, at the age of 19, he was an Olympian in Athens and also in 2008 in Beijing in the Tornado class. In 2010 he graduated in Genoa in naval engineering with a thesis dedicated to the design of the ‘White Dragons’: a flying catamaran with V foils inspired by the prototypes of the 1950s and a rotating mast capable of speeding across the water at over 30 knots, which he would later build.
He is one of the founders of “Blacks Composites” in Faenza where he deals with the production of automotive and nautical components and R&D.
He then moved to Persico Marine (Nembro) as project manager and project leader of the America’s Cup projects for the boat of the English team Land Rover BAR and for two Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli (AC75), dealing with design and production.
In 2021 the great step: the creation of his shipyard, which not only builds fast cruising of the highest technological level, but also deals with the refit of racing boats.
Cutting-edge equipment and young, inclusive workforce
On our visit to this company we’ve had the pleasure of being accompanied by Cecilia Gallanini, Edoardo’s wife and Press & Communication Manager. We were impressed by the cutting-edge equipment such as the cleanroom: a controlled contamination environment to provide a work environment that limits the presence of particles/particulates within it, thanks to a particular air filtration system. The parameters subjected to continuous control are temperature, humidity and pressure, the values of which vary depending on the intended use of the system. The cleanroom is therefore a work area, in which the air is 10,000 to 50,000 times cleaner than normal air.
It is flanked by the cold room for the conservation of the prepregs, which are used for lamination with the cutting plotter and the latest acquisition: a new autoclave for the processing of carbon fiber components, capable of building boats up to 140 feet (42 m) which guarantees the creation of components in very high-quality composite materials quality. The aim of using the autoclave is to apply thermal cycles so that temperature and pressure are distributed in a uniform and controlled manner during the polymerization of carbon fiber materials. The composites department allows the shipyard to satisfy a growing demand for large components with high technological content.
All spans are equipped with overhead cranes suitable for handling and processing.
We were also struck by the youth and commitment of the team, evident as soon as you set foot on the construction site, as well as the presence of many young women among the workforces.
Current and future projects
In addition to the internal spaces, the shipyard has external spaces and docks for the parking, launching, and hauling operations of boats, with a depth of 9.5 m that allows boats of considerable draft to stop.
Sangiorgio Marine built Ambrogio Beccaria’s Class40 Allagrande Pirelli, which in 2022 came second at the famous Route du Rhum 2022: Musa40 is a fiberglass boat, innovative in its lines and, above all, in the scow bow which allows wide glides on the waves optimizing racing performance. Applauded for the high quality of the product, the Class40 fleet currently includes four Musa40s, all built in the Genoese shipyard.
Sangiorgio Marine also just launched the chase boat for American Magic, a hydrogen-powered foiler commissioned by Bluegame (a company of the San Lorenzo Group led by Luca Santella) which will join the team in the next America’s Cup in Barcelona.
A second and third Class40 are also under construction. Unfortunately, as is customary in the industry, many of Sangiorgio current projects are subject to confidentiality agreements, thus the owners do not wish to publish or even inspect them.
The commitment for the future is towards specialized and excellent production, focused on the vision of a highly technological construction site, contemporarily committed to environmental issues and professional training (work is underway in this direction).
The final say on this matter lies with the company CEO
We managed to ask some questions to Edoardo Bianchi who, despite his obvious work commitments, was kind and helpful.
From ten years ago to today, what has changed in the design of high-performance hulls?
Sailing racing boating is always looking for performance optimization: we try to optimize the efficiency of the boats starting from the design and then moving on to construction. As in Formula1 for the automotive world, what we do for racing has important implications for non-racing boating. In our case, the possibility of following the entire development of the boat, from idea to design to construction, allows us to work closely with the designers to help them interpret increasingly efficient lines and solutions. The direct relationship with the skippers helps us as well in optimizing the aspects of liveability and use of the vessel, which for us presents ad hoc solutions for each sailor.
What about the materials?
The materials followed the evolution of the boats’ performance needs. We started with manual lamination, then moved on to the use of vacuum, then to infusion processes, to arrive today at building hulls of over 30 m in pre-preg – always in the search for optimization, both in terms of construction and performance.
Can you tell us about your refit projects?
Sangiorgio Marine is a “one-stop-shop”: a reality in which it is possible to design a new vessel together with a designer and builder, find the necessary support after the construction of a new vessel, and redesign modernization and refit solutions together of the boat. We offer a 360° service for the design, construction and refit of boats – mostly racing and fast cruising – where there is a demand for high technological value.
We have followed very interesting and challenging refits, such as that of the VOR65 of Team Genova which participated in the last edition of the Ocean Race and that of 11th Hour Racing again at the end of the same Ocean Race, which was the winner despite the collision suffered. B
ut we have also carried out other works of great importance in which a very high construction capacity was required, such as those we have today under our spans: a Wally Power 64 for which the deckhouse has been completely redesigned which we are proceeding to pre-roll preg; or a 40-foot boat that was destined to be dismantled and which we instead brought to new life with a major refit job both in terms of composite, systems and design. These are just a few examples of how it is possible to regenerate and bring boats to new life that would otherwise be destroyed with consequent damage to the environment.
What does ‘green’ mean? In your opinion, how much is substance and how much is just communication?
If we think about it, the refit – giving boats a second life – is already green in itself. At Sangiorgio Marine we deal with regenerating boats, both on the composite side and in relation to the systems. The use of recycled or recyclable materials, where possible, is also part of a green vision: for molds it is now consolidated practice to use recycled carbon, and more and more often natural fibers and new resins are combined to create components.
Furthermore, talking about green also means talking about improving consumption efficiency, not just about materials and construction methods. If we think about the latest technology, and the development of foils to fly on water at high speeds, we cannot help but reflect on the strong implication of these objects in terms of energy efficiency and therefore lower consumption.
The strong examples that come to us from the America’s Cup show us boats capable of flying on the water at previously unthinkable speeds: the catamaran that we built for Bluegame and which we will see in the America’s Cup in October alongside the American and French teams is an example of this research. Such evolution will lead the chase boats to fly on the water at 50 kn, among other things by exploiting electricity and hydrogen power – thus generating water as the only emission. Green is real, it’s not just communication – and it must be communicated loud and clear!
Your thoughts on the concepts of: eco-friendly boats, recycling, reuse?
Refitting – that we follow on site, and which is one of the cornerstones of our business – is in itself a recycling and reuse job. The disposal of fiberglass and pleasure boats is currently causing great concern, therefore a refit (which in many cases takes the form of a total revamping of the boat, from the composite to the systems to the deck equipment) allows us to give a second life for boats otherwise destined for dismantling.
Since the establishment of the shipyard, we have created collaborations with companies such as NothernLight Composites and Rymyc:
- with NLComp we are pursuing the Ecoracer project, a 30-foot one-design partly built with flax fibers and thermoplastic resins which at the end of the boat’s life can be separated again and reused;
- Rymyc is an all-Italian company at the forefront of carbon recycling, that supplies us with recycled carbon which we use to create the moulds, such as those used for Bluegame’s HSV.
Of course, today it is still quite hard to imagine in the large boats marine industry the use of completely recyclable fibers and resins even for structures only, but large boats are certainly important test beds for an evolution that is to come. These are materials that I see as more compatible with the world of wind power, industrial and automotive.
