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A tribute to the companies and people who have made Barche a Motore great over these 35 years allowing it to be born, grow, and become great up to this historic anniversary. In these articles the great excellences of boating tell their stories and reveal their projects, making an important contribution to the knowledge of this world, which allows us all to go to sea, in all forms and contexts.
From wooden workboats to sleek, state-of-the-art yachts built in one of Europe’s most advanced shipyards.
Cranchi was founded in 1870 on the shores of Lake Como: the great-great-grandfather of the current CEO, Guido Cranchi, started a boatyard that, at a time when pleasure boating did not yet exist, built sturdy wooden workboats for transportation. After World War II, with the third generation, elegant recreational runabouts arrived in Brienno. But the lake tightens: mountains plunge into the water and productive space is scarce. The family chooses a counterintuitive route: instead of going down to Brianza, they go up to Valtellina, buying an initial 3,000 m2 settlement. From there on, space is no longer a limitation and the distance to the sea does not weigh on those who build “small” boats. But perhaps at the time no one imagined where success would lead them.
The real turning point came in 1970, exactly a century after the founding, when the entry of the Monzino family brought investments that allowed the transition from wood to fiberglass but above all the start of mass production. The classic Cranchi pilot boat – red, small, outboard – becomes the manifesto of an industrial philosophy applied to boating: assembly lines, sequential work stations, repeated operations and trained workers to reduce errors and variability. Not an end in itself, but a way to raise quality while avoiding waste of time and material throughout the supply chain.
That model was soon joined by skill-building. From the beginning of the 2000s, a true in-house “Academy” (at that time a Work School) was born with a twofold objective: to train manpower in an area unaccustomed to the naval art and to standardize delicate processes such as fiberglass processing. Controlled environments for temperature and humidity, clear procedures on catalysis and material handling, timely quality control: this is how the shipyard achieves uniformity of result and durability, as evidenced by the many Cranchi units still sailing after decades. From the small workshop on the shores of Lake Como, production is now spread over two factories in Valtellina: in Piantedo, the headquarters follows models up to 46 feet; in Rogolo, the newer, more modern site handles larger boats, up to 80 feet, where the factory layout is designed to optimize the flow of people and materials. Attention to logistics, from the arrival of raw materials to launching, is not a detail: it reduces downtime, facilitates planning with suppliers and, in cascade, stabilizes costs for the end customer.
Seriality coexists with a capacity for customization. On entry models, “custom” concerns palettes, upholstery and fittings, but on the larger ones, targeted intervention on elements and layout is possible, always in co-design with the study center and designer, to avoid solutions that are beautiful “on paper” but penalizing on the water, without slowing down line times. It is a balance between product identity and owner’s needs. And speaking of identity, design is perhaps the distinguishing element of the new Cranchi course. In this sense, the key was the collaboration initiated with Christian Grande, who coined a new paradigm to the aesthetics of the range. If Cranchi has always built marine boats, with Christian Grande it has returned to rediscover Italian beauty, the kind that should make people fall in love at first sight. Since 2020, with the 78 – the first one entirely designed by his pencil – the product has changed face: more expressive lines, careful proportions, details that express the shipyard’s philosophy. A winning choice applied to the entire range: boats must be fascinating without derogating from technical substance. In fact, engineering remains in the hands of the in-house study center, which accompanies each project up to turnkey delivery.
Visit the Cranchi Yachts sto: click here
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