TITANIUMISSUE • n°32 • 2022
ontact with nature and the relationship with it is fundamental. Now more than ever yachts are a form of escape and adventure, and bringing the stylistic traits of a terrestrial home on board is no longer enough. Nowadays design and construction processes aim to make the yacht part of its surroundings, making as little environmental impact as possible. Even more so at a time when the industry has the wind in its sails. According to the Business Research Company, the global yacht market is expected to grow from $7.70 billion in 2021 to $8.22 billion in 2022, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.75%. The global yacht market is expected to reach $9.97 billion in 2026. What this means is luxury tourism with a demand for ever larger craft with spacious, versatile and open interiors. Customisation is at a maximum, comfort is a priority and new areas acquire importance: today’s owners demand extra space for a home theatre, gym, massage rooms, private spaces where they can work or hold online meetings and quiet, isolated areas. Designers and builders focus on introducing eco-friendly material, with ecodecking replacing natural teak and ecological paints and varnishes, linen panelling, bio-resins and recycled fabrics and leathers. A crucial factor in rendering yachts more sustainable is hull efficiency and weight limitation to generate consumption and emissions. The war between the Ukraine and Russia also means that fuel supplies can no longer be taken for granted, so serious consideration must now be given to alternative sources of power. Some in the yacht industry are investigating hydrogen generated from filtered, de-ionised sea water. The route towards this goal has been set. Discover all this in this special section of The One Yacht and Design, with the latest that the yacht industry has to offer!
Désirée Sormani Managing Director
White Glove Service
by Paola Bertelli - ph. Courtesy by Volvo Penta
After sales service and support have always been the jewel in Volvo Penta’s crown. And this year, both have made a further leap in quality as headquarters made the decision to create a dedicated new Marine Service Market division dedicated solely to the nautical sector, spanning all of Volvo Penta’s market units and consequently available all over the world. “Service is changing, applications are increasingly complex, and our clients are becoming more demanding and professional, so we needed to an even more structured and coherent evolution of our network,” explains engineer Raul Lovati, who heads the Marine Service Market at Volvo Penta Italia, which has over 170 service points covering not just the whole of Italy but also Malta, Slovenia and Croatia.
For the last several years, Volvo Penta has been installing triple and quadruple IPS 30 set-ups, throwing opening the door to the mega yacht sector on which it is now focusing with extreme precision and commitment. The natural next step was an ad hoc service managed by headquarters in close collaboration with the service network. In the yacht world, service and support are a very demanding area.
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Volvo Penta is focusing increasingly the superyacht world with an international service organization that provides rapid intervention to cut downtime for owners and their boats to a minimum
Luciano Porcu, head of
is the man
brings it all together, managing client cases and the big shipyards on an international level. “The key to success of any intervention is speed and professionalism. My role is to help cut times, improve internal and external communication, and provide feedback to the main players involved: shipyard, client, dealers, specialists back at headquarters”.
To constantly improve its service, this summer, Volvo Penta also launched a series of target pilot programmes. Porcu picks up the story: “How fast you intervene is all down to having the right people in the right place. We
identified the Costa Smeralda and Majorca as two strategic areas of in the Mediterranean and so we sent engineers from headquarters and the Mar ket Units out there for the season to support our existing extensive service network. Another major move to underscore our presence on the ground to our clients”.
Volvo Penta also shored up its stock of certain pivotal spare parts so that they were available at virtually zero miles in Mediterranean.
“Our clients want to get going again as soon as possible. And we are working in that direction”. volvopenta.com
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global OEM Service,
that
There are 3,500 Volvo Penta dealers worldwide spread across 130 different nations. The Italy Market Unity (see infographic below) has over 170 specialist service points in Italy, Malta, Slovenia and Croatia
