2003. Carlo Nuvolari: this is how my boats are born

Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. We begin with one of the stories we were most passionate about.

Boats Mon Amour

From Boats to Motors 2003, No. 11, December-January, pp. 70-73.

How the idea for a boat is developed and born, The difficulties in making a project happen, and the passion that allows you to overcome them. Carlo Nuvolari Duodo, one of the two partners at Nuvolari & Lenard, reveals what goes on behind the scenes.

Here are some significant dates to go through important milestones in the life and career of Carlo Nuvolari Duodo. 1960. Carlo Nuvolari Duodo was born in Venice. In the late 1980s he graduated from Trieste with a degree in naval engineering. 1989. Signs first design, a Fastline 38′, a boat that is successfully built in Australia but remains little known in the northern hemisphere. 1990. In Zerman, a small town between Treviso and Venice, he and Dan Lenard open the design firm Nuvolari & Lenard. 1994. The Sarnico 45, the first of the designs for Cantieri di Sarnico, is born, to be followed by the Sarnico 65, flagship of the range. 1998. Signs Baronessa, a 59-meter megayacht for Palmer Johnson, a U.S. shipyard specializing in aluminum megayachts. Baronessa causes a stir with her eye-catching design. 2000. The collaboration with Palmer Johnson continues. This is the turn of Mostro, a 35-meter motoryacht. 2003. The present of Italian shipbuilding still sees Cantieri di Sarnico among the firm’s clients. A Sarnico 50 is the firm’s most recent project.

Carlo Nuvolari Duodo and Dan Lenard. They are partners in the firm Nuvolari & Lenard of Zoman, in the province of Treviso. Naval architect the former, designer the latter. “Realizing a project is a team effort because the boat is a means, like a ‘car or an airplane, – Carlo Nuvolari begins – a set of success factors that do not depend only on its beauty.” And the taste for beauty has a great significance in this activity: for Nuvolari, the passion with which he approaches each project is in fact combined with the desire “to make a beautiful boat,” he reveals without mincing words. How did the marriage between the two architects come about? A meeting that took place at a boat show, strengthened by their shared passion for the sea: “I go boating as soon as I have five minutes and Dan does the same.” It’s a partnership that has lasted since 1990, with results that speak for themselves: the firm’s commissioning builders include Cantieri di Sarnico, Crn, Carver Yachts, Cantiere Nautico VZ, Raffaelli, to name a few, as well as custom megayacht projects. “Our combination has worked from the beginning. I think it’s difficult to do this business in two because design is a subjective thing and ego is key. We sell a rather complex product, made up not only of design and styling, but we do the whole boat and also sell the engineering, naval architecture and interiors. In short, we are complementary.” One has to go back 14 years to trace Carlo Nuvolari‘s first design, a 38-foot boat. “I realized that in those years it was not appropriate to try to go to a shipyard with my design under my arm and, nemo propeta in patria, I went to Australia. As an Italian it was quite easy. I found a shipyard that was making very good boats from the point of view of quality, but not styling, and I sold them a design. I convinced them that they needed to improve some aspects, and I made a little-known boat here.” From here to opening the studio was a short step.

Series and Custom

Today the business is divided into two main strands: large boats and series, “two completely different worlds. The series is a very exciting job, where you have to look very far into the future because investment and molds are very expensive. It requires a lot of design effort and a lot of responsibility, because the company demands to know if what we are designing today, will be what the market will be looking for in five years. The relationship is direct with the shipyard and we act as the development and style office. Having identified the idea, we choose strands to follow within a line. It goes without saying that not all proposals are accepted. It can also happen that, for production boats over 70′, where customization is possible, the studio plays the role of project manager on behalf of the owner.”. This is different for large boats for which the demand comes from the owner. “We study the project with the client, select 2/3 shipyards, and the boat is built based on the bids received. The relationship with the owner is more than ever based on trust. He wants a contact person and he wants the boat. It can also happen that it is the shipyard that commissions the project, as in the case of CRN with Magnifica and Kooilust Mare, steel megayachts, one 43 meters and the last 46 meters. Another long-standing relationship for megayachts is with the U.S. shipyard Palmer Johnson: “Baronessa, a 59-meter with a distinctive design, and an aluminum 120′, a construction in which they specialize, were born. An aggressive express of this size was previewed in Fort Lauderdale.”

An uphill path

Is all that glitters gold? Not always. Even in this profession there are obstacles along the way. Without constraints, creativity would perhaps have no boundaries because, generally speaking, the designer knows what he or she wants to design. It becomes difficult when the owner or the shipyard presumes to know but does not, and then the object to be made must be identified. Sometimes an idea is accepted in part, quartered and the design loses its proportions. “In large yachts it happens that there are too many consultants at the expense of an overall vision of the project. There is a risk in this case of losing the balance that makes that boat a good product; it takes a mind to hold everything together, but that often does not happen. Also, the lack of time to decide cheats the skein even more.” But who is the ideal customer?“Those who love the product, dream about it and know what they want to improve their idea, otherwise I am forced to start from scratch” And how does Carlo Nuvolari see the future? At a time when boating seems to be a white fly in the global economic landscape, Nuvolari wants to be cautious in his predictions. “The market has developed a lot, but the places to use boats are not infinite.” But how much does design affect the price of a boat? Sometimes a lot, but you get paid back when you resell the boat, maybe after 30 years. Design has a bearing on the boat’s commercial value over time. “Like all quality expensive objects, it must also have a formal appearance that reflects this.” In summary, the more you spend, the better you spend. If conceiving a boat is not easy, inventing something new is even less so. Today to make a boat “you have to find the right compromise between space, which involves weight, and performance, which is the opposite. The changes can be seen: with the same length, today’s boats have interiors that were unthinkable only 30 years ago.” Where to intervene then? “The transfer of power to the water, the operation of the propellers depend on physical phenomena. Nothing can be done here, so you can only play with efficiency regardless of fuel. There are trends in this, too: from diesel electric propulsion to expensive gas turbines. In the development of planing hulls much was done by the Americans in the middle of the last century; today there have been more innovations in materials, more sophisticated and better used, the boats weigh less and run faster.” Safety is also an issue felt, but “difficult to judge by the user who is more knowledgeable today, but still far from the level of awareness of cars that he knows very well, because boating is still a small world.” And future plans? “A 60-foot steel boat for an owner, a 130 and a 140-foot custom.” And the game goes on.

by Gabriella Cottignoli

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