Journey Into The Past

With the success of the new 2018 launched Maritimo X series aft cabin sport yacht, it is time to go down memory lane and tell the story about what I like to call the Italian aft cabin sport cruiser and yachts, which had so much success in Italy onward from the eighties.

It is fair to start that the Italians where not the first to put an aft cabin in a sport cruiser.  A British firm Fairey Huntsman had so much success in the advent period of power boat racing in the sixties, presented what might have been the inspiration to the Italians with the 31 Aft Cabin in 1968.  The Fairey Hunstman 31 Aft Cabin cruiser was also available in the Aft Cockpit version, of which six where sold, in a total of 32 builds.  

With Magnum Marine dominating the large open Italian sport cruiser and yacht market with its 45 and 53 models in the seventies and early eighties, Mochi Craft tries to reinvent the wheel and present the new 42 Tuxedo, which creates a revolution of space in the Italian sport cruiser market, which at the time had a production standing still sub fifty feet.  Just like the Fairey Hunstman 31, the Mochi Tuxedo was offered without an aft cabin choice, though these versions are very rare and few where made of what it is a production run of around seventy units.  The Mochi Tuxedo sets a revolution of space and comfort and by mid late eighties over half of new Italian sport cruiser and yacht models at upwards of thirteen to sixteen meters in size are with an aft cabin.  The aft cabin gives a second large en-suite cabin aft something which the Magnum 45 and or Baia B40 did not have, as both of these where single cabin sports cruisers. 

Worth to mention in this period is also the Pershing 45 launched in 1985 the first model of what at the time was known as Cantieri Navali dell Adriatico Pershing, and will eventually become a status symbol sport yacht builder for its unique combination of performance and space.  The 45 was also one of Fulvio de Simoni first designs and in a size of just under fifteen meters offered three cabins three bathrooms, and the largest exterior area in its class.   The first Pershing 45 was a success selling 47 units in a production which lasted seven years till 1992.  The 45 will be the brands best seller till the 1995 presented 54, which will sell above fifty in a similar eight year production run, and continues the aft cabin theme, but with the surface drive high performance option which in later models becomes standard.  The 54 was Pershing and Fulvio de Simomi most important design to date, and still considered a head turning classic nowadays.  If you can call the Pershing 54 a classic, cause looking at one it does still look modern.

The Pershing 54 came in the golden era of the aft cabin sport yacht with tough competition all of which came from Italy, with its closest rivals being the Sarnico 55 which was later revamped as 58, and the Rizzardi 50 and 53 Topline, this last also being a top seller with some seventy units sold for the smaller unit.  Other interesting aft cabin sport yachts where the classic timeless looking Itama 54 and 56, Alfamarine 50 and 60 models, and the Italcraft X54 Ipanema.
And the British who started the style with the Fairey Huntsman what happened to them?  Sunseeker did have a shot at the aft cabin sport cruiser in 1987 with the Travado 40, and in 1990 with the 46 Camargue, the later one more successful then the first.  But it did really stop there!