2012. The unmistakable style of Tommaso Spadolini’s yachts

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. Here is one of the stories we were most passionate about.

Tommaso Spadolini: how I’m changing your boat retro… but not only that

From Boats to Motor 2002, no. 1, February, pp. 46-49.

White sheet, pencil and bread rubber. This is how Spadolini’s boats are born, and this is also how the Smeraldo 45, the latest project for Apreamare, was born, a rare combination of the classic lines of the Sorrentine gozzo and the cutting-edge technology of Volvo Penta Ips.

I always wondered how a designer could conceive an object on a computer, that is, how he could transfer to a machine the feelings, intuitions, shapes and suggestions of the “thing” he was going to create. It matters little whether it’s a car, a blender or a boat, it was the transfer of the idea that didn’t quite add up for me. After the talk with Tommaso Spadolini I understood it: first there is a blank sheet of paper, a pencil and the irreplaceable bread eraser, the kind that became shapeless balls at school. That’s how the magnificent Akhir from Cantieri di Pisa was born in the 1970s, that’s how a 70-meter custom or a series gozzo like theApreamare Smeraldo 45 is born today. “It’s a matter of culture, tradition and sensitivity,” explains Tommaso Spadolini “a philosophy of life that was instilled in me by my father, who thus designed the Akhirs, and which I have maintained over these 31 years in the profession, working for such important shipyards as Tecnomarine, Canados and, indeed, Apreamare. It is not only a technological issue, I believe that classic lines need those ’roundnesses’ that have to be sketched first on a sheet and then transferred to a Computer program.”

Ties to tradition, a topic that seems tailor-made for talking about the Smeraldo 45, Studio Spadolini ‘s latest design for Apreamare. “The input I was given by Cataldo Aprea was very clear and absolutely shareable, a boat that would incentivize the many happy owners of the 12-meterApreamare, another fortunate project of mine for this shipyard, to move to a larger size” -Recalls Spadolini. “An absolutely fantastic challenge because, starting from scratch, I had on the one hand to recover the tradition of the lines of the Sorrentine gozzo, merging them with the cutting-edge technology of Volvo Penta IPS transmissions. It was precisely these that opened up a number of remarkable opportunities for us: in fact, the hull was designed to optimize their installation, this presupposes a greater bearing surface at the bow, which translates into generous volume for the forward cabin. At the same time, the more stern-mounted engines increased the space available amidships, this allowed for a comfortable guest cabin and sailor cabin. There are also two bathrooms, each with separate shower stalls. The hull retained the classic gozzo lines on the outside, with a restrained bow and a recessed stern with a prominent swim platform. The deckhouse has a very rigorous and important design to give space to the large windows that give light to the main deck and make up for the lack of glazed openings on the hull, as the curved lines of the deadrise impose. It is a boat that must last and will not be swept away by the succession of fashions. My father taught me that a boat must be made of a few lines, and what could be simpler than a gozzo? The Emerald 45 takes that philosophy and mixes it with Volvo Penta technology for a truly unique boat. Even today in port, an Akhir from the 1970s or a Canados from the 1980s is immediately recognizable; their class is timeless. So Apreamare launched a trend by rediscovering the simplicity and charm of the gozzo, and the Emerald is entrusted with the task of giving future to this boat concept. Although it didn’t choose the right time to be born, the numbers prove us quite right. After all, we are confronted with a very watchful market, where owners change boats more wisely and are very attentive to the durability of their investment, value for money, comfort and habitability. All plusses that the Emerald 45 offers, in the wake of tradition as design and cutting-edge thanks to Volvo Ips.” .

Long live classical culture

There is, however, a regretful note to be made of how increasingly this passion for clean, classic lines is waning somewhat, especially on the more popular sizes, say 10 to 18 meters. “It’s true,” Spadolini confirms, “we often witness what I jokingly called a kind of ‘building abuse.’ After all, berths are what they are, now the parking tax is back as well, albeit under a different name, and so there is a need on the part of shipyards and their designers to maximize habitability and comfort over well-defined sizes. At this point the risk is to create parallelepipeds that are all the same, and this is a bit of a feeling in the pavilions of every boat show. If classic design favored soft, round lines, here it is straight lines that triumph, which, as can easily be guessed, provide greater interior volume. Of course, not all bad things come to harm, for example, the large windows on the hull give the interior a brightness that was unthinkable with the old portholes, but their assembly imposes a more linear dead-work that inevitably causes the geometry of the shapes to be lost. Not to mention the flies are getting bigger and bigger, joking that in the future the fenders will have to be put up because that is the widest part of the boat…. The same goes for interiors and some accessories: I happened to find teak planks laid across the hull, and more and more often, visiting certain boat interiors, I almost have the impression of being at the Milan furniture show rather than in Genoa. I am not only referring to sharp-edged furniture, which, moreover, was used even 30 years ago, but to numerous furniture solutions that are borrowed more from furniture design than from nautical design. Within these new trends, however, there are a few exceptions to point out that know how to blend well the need for larger living volumes with solutions that also have their own nautical value. I am thinking of the wide bow of the latest Azimut boats, which has the merit of not affecting the lines of the hull, but of giving more ease in the bow and, again of this shipyard (which I find one of the best interpreters of today’s nautical Made in Italy, a disinterested judgment because it is not my client), the care put into the passages and also to the solutions of the interiors, which have the merit of having considerably increased the living volumes and comfort in life on board.” . Then there are contaminations that can give great insights into creativity and craft development, one of which comes from the automotive world: “Among the other projects I am working on (the two most recent are a 55-meter and a 45-meter custom) professionally I am also having an extraordinary experience. In fact, a large automotive group has entrusted me with the design of some open models from 8 to 12 meters, people boats I would call them, destined to become tenders for large yachts or mega hotels. It’s very interesting to compare with the automotive design world because we are often at the antipodes. What is a pre-series for them may be a few years’ production for us boaters. Then there is the different approach to technological solutions: take for example the sunroof, in the car you use it almost every day, on a boat for a month a year, it is difficult to explain that the same mechanisms are not always applicable to the two realities. However, we are collaborating a lot actively and soon the results will be presented, it will be an important event for the whole boating world.”

We continue to talk about boat design and the often unrealistic quest for originality at all costs. “When confronted with the design of a custom boat, the owner’s ideas dictate,” Spadolini continues, “So the excesses are, if not justified, at least understandable. The desire for the ‘make it weird’ often creeps in, even if, fortunately, for the boats we are working on now the taste for the classic has prevailed, also because when you invest a few million euros it is important that the boat is not overtaken by fashions even before it is launched. The challenge is to combine the two requirements, as when we designed the designer Roberto Cavalli‘s boat, a 42-meter Baglietto, which combined some bold choices, such as the iridescent coloring, with an innovative line but faithful to some classic stylistic features: years later it does not go unnoticed and is always current. In series production, all the more reason to defend this link with tradition even more, because a boat that is too original runs the risk of being overtaken by fashions very soon. Then there are the exceptions, such as the Wallys, which launched a trend, the straight bow, that promises to remain relevant for a long time to come, not least because it has been adopted by a large number of yards. If you will, it is a return to the origins, to the ships of the beginning of the last century, which has managed to win the interest and strike the imagination of today’s shipowners as well. This is a rare case because in emerging markets, the most commercially interesting, the culture and sensitivity to nautical tradition are very different than in Europe, and therefore futuristic and often forcedly original lines are preferred.” .

A well-rounded designer

In his long career, Spadolini has designed boats from 11 to 70 m a Tommaso Spadolini ‘s design philosophy is expressed in his ability to create both models that know how to combine the different needs of a shipyard, which must propose a design that is simultaneously avant-garde but not too tied to fashions so that it does not age too soon, and the most extreme customizations to respond to the wishes, and often the whims, of the owners of custom maxi yachts. All of this must merge without creating any contrast, in a perfect synthesis between the technological elements of the hull and its design, taking into great consideration on-board comfort and the aesthetic and ergonomic vision of the interior. All this finds its natural expression in harmonious and innovative boats: gentle curves and soft profiles that result in aerodynamic shapes in total respect of the traditional lines of a boat. This philosophy has reached its maximum results in achievements such as the “Fortuna”, the 42-meter motoryacht built for the King of Spain, which combines the elegance of its line with 70 knots of speed or the design of a 42-meter developed for fashion designer Roberto Cavalli. On this page some of the boats designed by Tommaso Spadolini during his career for different shipyards: from the successful collaboration with Apreamare to the prestigious Akhir of Cantieri di Pisa, not forgetting the Canados, a piece of nautical Italian history.

By Alberto Mondinelli

• Check out all the articles from the BAM archive in this section.