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Wally founder Luca Bassani: The man at the cutting edge of yacht design

• October 1, 2020

Luca Bassani, the visionary founder of Wally Yachts, created an iconic brand and shaped the trend for clean aesthetics in yachting. Mark Chisnell interviews Luca Bassani

Photo: Guillaume Plisson

Try a game of word association with any superyacht industry professional and I’d be surprised if the word innovation didn’t bring the response Wally. Since 1994, Wally Yachts has – initially in sail and then in power – brought to the market a series of game changing initiatives. It’s often true that innovative companies (think Apple or Dyson) are driven by a singular mind, a powerful creative force and vision. In the case of Wally, Luca Bassani is that man.

“I had the freedom and the possibility, the financial possibility to realise my ideas,” he told me. “When you just have the ideas, but you never have the chance to realise the ideas because you have to find the finance to do the prototype and then the product… it becomes very difficult. I had this big, big chance to be able to finance my ideas, my innovations. That freedom was extremely important, because it put us at a completely different level from any competitor.”

Luca Bassani was born to a successful Milanese business family, and his early career followed a conventional roadmap. He was educated in Milan, attending Bocconi University where he earned a PhD in Economics. He then went to London for a year, to work at the St James’s office of McKinsey & Company before returning to Italy to join the family firm, BTicino, a manufacturer of residential and industry electrical equipment, where Bassani was CFO.

The latest Wally, a 45m/148ft Frers design, is currently in build

The family sold up in 1989, and Bassani could then give more attention to his life’s real passion – and his path started to diverge from the expected. “Sailing has been my passion since I was very, very young because we were spending a lot of time in Portofino during the summer, where we had a house… I learnt everything about the sea. How to fish, how to sail, how to paddle, everything.”

Sailing roots

“My family always had a power boat and a sail boat, and when I was 12, the captain of the sail boat told me, ‘Hey, why don’t we spend more time aboard, because we are only using the boat during the weekend when your father is here?’

“I said, ‘Okay, let’s go.’ We sailed 5,000 miles during that summer and the big passion started – from there I’ve been sailing, sailing, sailing.”

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The boat was an S&S 37-footer skippered by Tito Prato, and they would sail her from early in the morning to late in the evening. Soon the attention turned to racing . There were several of the top Italian boats in Portofino at the time and in 1971, when Bassani was 15, the S&S 37 was changed for a Swan 43.

“We started to race – I’m going to say seriously – but seriously for that time. Nothing to compare to what seriously means today. So, we started to build up a crew and were doing all the races in Italy, between Italy and France.”

They won the Two Ton Cup in 1972, and an Ericson 46 followed in 1973 and then in 1975 a C&C 66 called Phantom . “At that time, it was considered the first maxi,” said Bassani. “We raced two or three years with that boat. Then we went to the International 6-metre class and we had a long career and five different boats.” Bassani raced for almost 15 years in 6-metres, winning two European Championships (1986 and 1990) and placing third at the 1983 World Championships.

During this time Bassani also raced a Laser, introduced the J/24 to Italy, and then moved into the Mumm 30 when it arrived on the scene in the mid-nineties. He won the world championships at Hilton Head in 1998 and was 2nd at the Europeans the same year. It’s a long racing pedigree and, unsurprisingly, when he came to build a cruising boat for his family, he looked for speed and efficiency.

The first Wally emerges

It was the tail end of the 1980s and the International Offshore Rule (IOR) still held sway over the world’s racing fleets. “Racing boats were absolutely uncomfortable. Also, [they were] not very fast, because the handicap system was producing slow boats. At the same time, cruising boats were just following this formula. They were racing boats just transformed into cruising boats and they were again, not so comfortable… and slow.

“I knew that… there were already technologies and materials that could have made the boats much faster, much easier. That’s why I decided to choose a naval architect to design and build the boat that I had in my mind. It was the first Wallygator [named after the cartoon character], the 83-footer, designed with Luca Brenta and built by Sangermani… That was the mother of all the Wally’s, actually.

“I built that boat only for myself and my family. I didn’t have the idea of starting a company, but I really wanted a boat that could be fast and comfortable, and easy to manage. Once I launched the boat in 1991, I used it for a couple of years and I was very, very happy with it; everything was beyond my expectations, in terms of reliability, in terms of performances and easiness to use.

“I said, ‘Oh, why is nobody trying to copy this boat?’ Something that I wouldn’t say today… at that point we had sold the family company, so I had more time, more finances available, and I said, ‘OK, why not start a small business around this idea?’”

The first Wallygator was sold in 1993 to an Italian owner, becoming Mr Gecko. Luca Bassani then built another two boats to his own specification to get things moving. Wallygator II (now Nariida ) a 105ft ketch that was launched in 1994 and was sold in 1997 to a Norwegian owner. It was this boat that introduced the hydraulics-led push-button handling that enable the sweeping, open and uncluttered decks that have become synonymous with Wally design.

Bassani describes the 32m Wallygator II (now Nariida ) as “the first big sailing yacht with a modern racing hull, changing the look with a plumb bow, a very beamy hull and stern, a very flush deck and carbon fibre construction and sails”. Photo: Guy Gurney

In 1995 the ketch was followed by Genie of the Lamp , a 79-footer also sold in 1997, this time to a Swiss owner. “Between these two boats,” said Bassani, “I finally convinced the market that that was the way to go.”

The proof of that was really the first person to commission a Wally: former Chairman and CEO of L’Oreal, Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones. He saw a photo of Genie of the Lamp and knew almost instantly that it was what he wanted.

Bassani explained how Owen-Jones asked if he could test the yacht and how he then lent it to him for a week’s cruising. “He came back saying he wanted to buy the boat. I convinced him to build a sister ship, which was the first Magic Carpet .” Owen-Jones is now on his third Wally, Magic Carpet3 .

“The first new generation yacht, [ Magic Carpet 3 ] brings very high performances, but also a lot of comfort for cruising,” says Bassani. Photo: Nico Martinez

It’s an ambition that has always found its expression in the boats, through the wide range of designers and shipyards that have been involved in the Wally yachts.

“I think, let me say, sorry, but we influenced them,” said Bassani, of the designers he has worked with – a list that includes Luca Brenta, German Frers , Bill Tripp and Reichel Pugh.

Bassani in his office in Monaco in January 2019. Photo: Toni Meneguzzo

Function before form

“What is today recognised as Wally design style was a result of the systems that I wanted to build for our boats… always to be faster, to be more comfortable, to be easier to manoeuvre, easier to maintain, and the aesthetic was a result, it was not a target.

“It’s what they call the fault of function… I just applied my personal style when I was deciding that I liked that line or the other line, this kind of finish or a different finish… but it was not a target for me to do something stylish. I wanted beauty – for my eyes – but mainly very functional.”

Luca Bassani can identify three core features of the boats that have driven much of the design. The first is the sail plan. In the dying days of the IOR when the first Wallygator was designed, a big overlapping headsail and a small mainsail was the norm. “We abandoned the big, overlapping genoa because we wanted to have self-tacking and we wanted the boat to be fast.”

The serious racing side of Wally – a big fleet start at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2017. Photo: Carlo Borlenghi

That concept at that size required a carbon fibre mast. It was the only way to make a mast that would stay up without runners and an inner forestay. “If you have an inner stay, you cannot have a self-tacking [headsail],” said Bassani. The carbon fibre mast was inspired by the Kiwi big boat [KZ-1] that was built for the 1988 America’s Cup . Laurent Esquier sailed with Bassani in the 6-metre, was with the Kiwi Cup team and told him about the impressive new material.

The second and third features were the hull, and the appendages. “We wanted the boat to be wider, to be much faster reaching, but with the right appendages to have good performance… so they surf easily, but they are still very, very fast upwind. This was made possible by all the new materials, the composites, carbon fibre and titanium.” And it’s really the materials that have enabled the innovation in all these three areas and driven the journey that Wally has been on for the last 25 years.

“Innovation is based mainly on the new materials. The computer, cars, aeroplanes; it’s just the materials that have allowed the big steps forward. I come from an industry where technology and engineering are fundamental; the electrical industry, and also from the entrepreneurial philosophy of my father, who always said that the product is the company… I mean, you cannot make a product by a brand, but you can make a brand by a product. The product, in this case, is based on engineering and materials.”

The clean lines of the Wally 110 Barong D . Photo: Kurt Arrigo

An innovative future

Twenty-five years ago Bassani had to rely on himself and his team to find the materials that could drive the next innovation. “Today, there is a huge movement of people that are inventing, that are proposing new ideas and new materials. We have a position, an image in the world, and everybody looks at us as real innovators. So, we receive, practically every week, some new ideas and, at the end, we find some that are very, very interesting. So, not only do we have our own team, but we have the world helping us.

“Today, there are so many new ideas in naval architecture… they will allow it to be more sustainable, to be more comfortable, but you have to be brave enough to follow this path, otherwise you remain as everybody is now… There are innovations that will be applied both on the big displacement yachts, or in the medium semi-displacement, and in the planing yachts. In sailing, you see from the America’s Cup that there are extremely interesting new ideas about the sail plan. In a few years we will see yachts that are very, very different from today.”

I talked to Luca Bassani during the Düsseldorf boat show , not long after the announcement of the sale of Wally to Ferretti. Bassani was clear about his motives.

Photo: Toni Meneguzzo

“I realised that I didn’t have any more of the energy, the finances that the size of the market today needs, and I realised that was the moment to have a big partner. Alone, I was no longer strong enough to go on with the development of the company.

“I found, in the Ferretti group, the right mentality. A very young group of managers, very motivated, who were loving what we did. They love Wally, and they are very confident that together we could do a lot of things. So, I think this is the next step that Wally deserved to go on.

“I will be doing what I love to do. Inventing and designing, and promoting the development, promoting the innovation.”

And, let’s hope, doing it for another 25 years.

Luca Bassani on his milestone designs

“The sailing yacht would be Genie of the Lamp . On the power boat I would take the 118 Wallypower. They both looked very crazy when they were launched but, after many years, you can recognise they radically changed the industry.”

1995 – Genie of the Lamp [24m/80ft] “In terms of deck layout [this boat] changed the market. Today, practically 95% of the yachts up to a 100ft are a copy.” Photo: Guido Grugnola.

1998 – Tiketitan [27m/89ft] “ Tiketitan was the first boat with the ‘terrace on the sea’ — today, you see all of the boats, mainly the motor yachts, need to have the famous beach on the stern. There were also the metallic colours, a fully battened mainsail, and a canting keel.” Photo: Guy Gurney

2001 – Wallytender [14m/46ft] “The Wallytender opened a huge market that didn’t exist 15 years ago.” Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

2003 – 118 Wallypower [36m] “This was commercially a flop… but in reality, everybody else in power boats then changed following the Wallypower. Both in the hull, with the vertical bow, in the superstructure and with all the glass.” Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

2006 – Esense [44m/143ft] “It was kind of a traditional boat with the high bulwarks, and inside the bulwarks the boat is absolutely flush. So, I created a kind of open space cockpit, instead of having the usual little cockpit on the traditional big yachts.” Photo: Gilles Martin-Raget

Photo: Pedro Martinez

Luca Bassani Biography

Born: 24th November 1956

Nationality: Italian

Education:  1980, graduated in business/economics from Bocconi University, Milan, Italy; 2004, honorary degree in industrial design from the University of Architecture, Genoa, Italy.

Honours:  Two-time winner of the Compasso d’Oro (in 2004 and in 2008) – the leading industrial design award.

Inspirations: “He [Tito Prato, skipper of the family’s yacht] was my teacher. He was really the person that, more than anybody else, introduced me to the sea and to sailing, yes… and then, also, to racing.”

Career highlights and lowlights

“On the sports side, OK, I can say the things that I won; the world championships or the European championships. From the business side, it’s difficult to say because it’s a high when you are able to sell a new boat, not just because it’s new but because it’s different, it’s innovative.

“When you find a client who accepts your new idea, this is a fantastic moment, this is a real high in your career. And it’s a low when you don’t find a client accepting or understanding your new ideas. So, you cannot sell it. I mean, ideas are the base of everything for an entrepreneur, and if you’re able to sell your idea, that’s a high. If you’re not able to sell it, that’s a low.”

First published in the April 2019 issue of SuperSail World.

Shipyard Stories: How Wally Became one of the World’s Most Loved – and Hated – Shipyards

Written By: Rachel Ingram

We speak to Wally's founder and chief designer Luca Bassani about how its distinctive, stand-out vessels continue to shape the industry to this very day.

Wally is the ‘marmite’ of the yachting world. Whether you admire or despise the Monaco-based shipyard’s yachts, you’ll certainly recognise them. This a fact that founder and chief designer Luca Bassani is well aware of. “50 per cent of the market loves our products and 50 per cent hate them,” he says. “We are very extreme in terms of style and offer – from technology and design to materials, there is no other boat like a Wally.”

Like his yachts, Bassani’s journey into the industry was unconventional. The Italian’s earliest memories of boating date back to childhood holidays on the Riviera. “In Portofino, I learnt practically everything about the sea – how to swim, how to dive, how to fish, how to sail. I’ve been passionate about the sea ever since,” he says.

As Bassani grew up, his father wanted him and his brother to join the family business – BTicino group, one of the world leaders in electric devices ­– but before doing so, he thought it would be good training to have his sons learn to work together in the context of a sailboat racing team. So, while still studying Industrial Design from the University of Genoa, Bassani and his brother started racing 37-footers .

A designer is born 

Years later, in 1989, the family sold the company and Bassani found himself with free time and disposable income so, still a keen yachtsman, he decided to invest in a boat. “At the time, my opinion was that race boats were too slow – they were following a handicap system which was too old. At the same boat, cruising boats were too uncomfortable.”

So, unsatisfied with what the market was offering, he built his own. “I wanted an 83-footer with a modern hull, a lot of volume and as much carbon fibre as possible to make her light and strong.” He sought out a New Zealand engineer who’d designed boats for the New Zealand America’s Cup and created the world’s first cruising boat with a carbon fibre mast.

This was where Bassani’s design career was meant to conclude, but a few years later, he found himself designing the 105 Wallygator – now called Narida – and the 80 foot Genie of the Lamp. Suddenly, a business was born. “Once I had those two boats on the water, I started to have clients,” he says. “My first client was Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones [the former Chairman and CEO of L’Oréal], owner of Magic Carpet 1, 2 and 3.”

Bassani then expanded from sailing yachts into racing yachts, creating the Wallyclass division, followed by power boats. “Step by step I was realising that the big market was in motor yachts,” he says. “I was thinking about how to enter the market when one day a German man – owner of the Mangusta 105 yacht – came into my office and said: ‘I loved your last sailing yacht, Tiketitan, but I will never own a sailboat. I want you to build me a motor yacht like that.’”

Bassani rose to the challenge. Tiketitan was aggressive, fast, sleek and modern, so the first challenge was figuring out how to achieve her speed in motor yacht form without slamming over every wave. After doing a lot of research, he designed a unique hull to cut through the water, which would become a Wally signature.  The team, based in Monaco, went on to design a number of distinctive motor yachts with this hull, including the 2002 118 Wallypower Galeocerdo – a yacht so special it was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

A new chapter for Wallly

In 2019, following a period of financial uncertainty, Wally was acquired by Italian boat manufacturing powerhouse Ferretti Group. The shipyard joined the group as the contemporary extreme to Riva, a classic brand on the opposite end of the market. In his role as chief designer, Bassani continues to work with the team, led by CEO Alberto Galassi, to expand the fleet.

Stefano de Vivo, Managing Director of Wally and Chief Commercial Office of Ferretti Group, says: “On one side, I have Bassani, a volcano of ideas, and on the other, I have the atomic battery who is Galassi – he doesn’t stop. It’s great to have them both because a battery on its own has nothing to propel and a volcano has no direction. I’m in the middle to bring them together.”

In 2021, Wally launched the Wallywhy range, inspired by Bassani’s 24m displacement motor yacht Wally Ace. “When we launched Wally Ace 10 years ago, we didn't have the production to fulfil the demand. When we started the collaboration with Ferretti, we wanted to go on with the range, but at the same time, I think we realised that the market was moving toward semi displacement, so we decided to do something different,” Bassani says. The range premiered with the Wallywhy200, a 24m motoryacht with a distinctive bow allowing it a huge volume that almost doubles its space in comparison to other yachts of its length.

Bassani and Ferretti also worked together to enhance the Wallypower range, launching the wallypower58 at the Venice Boat Show in June 2022. “If the wallywhy200 is like a Mercedes-Benz Vito van, the wallypower58 is like a Ferrari,” Bassani says. “ As on the first wallypower, the wallypower58 features pure lines dominated by the double chines in the hull and the air intakes. Its bow meets the water with a smooth, swooping line that extends all the way aft.”

It’s an eye-catching, fast-speed day cruiser with the added benefit of an overnight cabin for up to four people, which opens up a whole new realm of cruising possibilities.

In the coming months, the Monaco-based shipyard will unveil a number of new models including the 58X in late 2022, two new Wallywhy models – launching in December 2022 and September 2023 – and a custom Wally 101 racing cruiser 2023.

Bassani, meanwhile, is already thinking further into the future. “I have a lot of ideas to go much, much bigger,” he says. “I have the ideas to design and build very big motor yachts – 60, 70, 90, 100m. They’ll be like the other Wallys but they’ll be bigger and better than any other yachts of their size.”

After his family sold their business, Bassani could have rested on his laurels. Likewise, he could’ve taken a step back when Ferretti Group acquired the shipyard – but that’s not in his nature. “Because I know this business, I know we can always do something better. Each innovation is a new step. And once you have the new step, you see the next step. And then it goes on and on – it’s never ending,” he says. “I love to dream.”

 Photo credits: Giles Martin Raget; Guy Gurney

Read Next: 

Why pendennis shipyard is the best of british, how giovanna vitelli rose to the heart of azimut benetti, discovering sunreef yachts .

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Take a bow: Luca Bassani, founder and president of Wally

From the moment he launched Wally Yachts in 1994, Luca Bassani has never looked back. Sailers, powerboats, tenders, displacement superyachts – his Wallys are distinctive, unforgettable vessels that have shaped the industry says Stewart Campbell.

If mimicry is flattery then Luca Bassani should spend his entire life blushing. His company, the world-famous Wally Yachts, is one of the few boat brands to go mainstream, like Riva or maybe even Chris-Craft . Car designers will point to Bassani’s iconic WallyPower 118 as an inspiration, and if the sharp, faceted model cruises into port anywhere, the cameraphones come out. His sailing output generates slightly less attention but has had an even greater impact, not just setting trends but a whole new direction for superyacht design.

“You look around the market today and I would say that 95 per cent of yachts from 40 to 140 feet have copied Genie of the Lamp ,” Bassani says, referring to the 24.24 metre sloop he launched in 1995. “That kind of layout, that kind of style and deck, it’s clear. I don’t think it’s too much to say that Genie has influenced the last 20 years.” But there’s an obvious flip-side to any new thinking. “I think we’ve deserved to sell more than 46, 47 boats. It’s a good number, for big sailing yachts like this, but I think the market could have trusted us a bit more. When you look and see that everybody is doing the same as us, you say ‘why didn’t you just come to Wally?’”

Those who do choose Wally don’t regret it. We’re dockside at the Les Voiles de St Tropez, weather-bound on board 32.72 metre Kenora . Racing has been cancelled for the day and the Wally fleet is lined up in the heart of town, attracting admiring glances from all who pass. The owners are sitting around their cockpits, hopping from boat to boat, and when Bassani appears from down below their faces light up. Throughout our conversation, meanwhile, the 59-year-old Italian stops to take calls from customers. It’s clearly a connection that doesn’t end with delivery. “The kind of relationship that you are able to maintain with the client is extremely important,” he says, sagely.

There’s definitely a feeling of “us” among Wally owners, which is partly maintained through the Wally Class, which competes in regattas all over the Med. And you can imagine owners of Wally powerboats nodding knowingly as they pass each other in port. When so much is safe and conservative in boat design, it takes a special kind of owner to trust Bassani’s vision. “When we have a new client coming and saying, ‘you know, I would like to have a Wally, but I also like that other brand’, that’s not our client. Our client is someone who comes to us and says, ‘I want a Wally. Finally I have decided.’”

His approach to boatbuilding has lost him orders over the years, he freely admits, but he’ll make those sacrifices to maintain the integrity of the brand. “I’m probably too arrogant,” he says, “but this is my way. Every time I build a boat, I design a bit of it for myself.”

The first boat he ever built was actually for himself. In 1989 he got rich after the sale of the family firm, BTicino, a world leader in electrical components. Well below 40 and with a very deep wallet, he did what most people would do – he went looking for a superyacht. “Finally, after a long period of being very, very busy, for a while I was free, very rich and I said, ‘OK, now I want the boat of my dreams’.”

Finding it was easier said than done. No boat then on the market matched his requirements and nor would any boat designers take his commission. “They were scared to put their reputation at risk in delivering a boat that could be too innovative. The industry was 20 years behind and nobody wanted to progress,” he says. “We are talking about 1989 and first of all I wanted a carbon fibre mast, and at that time the only boat with a carbon fibre mast was the New Zealand America’s Cup boat. I also wanted a forward master cabin, a self-tacking jib and no backstays. The only designer that would listen to me was Luca Brenta . He was young, he was new in the market and he didn’t have anything to lose.”

The boat that resulted from the collaboration was the first Wallygator , 25.3 metres long and super-clean. The angled slivers of glass that illuminate the yacht’s interior and its clutter-free decks were a declaration to a pretty static yacht market: here was something new. The yacht’s name came from the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon of

the waterskiing Cajun alligator forever trying to escape from the zoo. Bassani loved the cartoon and wanted something child-friendly for his young son. The name also handily matched the dark green of his new yacht’s hull.

He spent two years cruising and racing Wallygator , occasionally beating genuine raceboats to line honours. “People started saying, ‘but that’s a cruising boat, with teak and air-conditioning and everything, and she’s as fast as we are’.” Despite the attention, his boat remained apart; Bassani could not understand why no one was copying him. “So I thought I should try to set up a little business to promote this kind of new generation of boat.” And with that, in 1994, Wally Yachts was born, the company capitalising on the name of Bassani’s first boat – “and because our boats would also be a bit ‘wally’!”

It was a neat end-of-chapter in Bassani’s life: a return to the sea. He grew up in Milan but holidayed in Portofino every year, for the whole three months of summer. When he wasn’t sailing on his father’s boat out of the town’s pretty port, he was with his friends. “We would go fishing very early in the morning and then go diving, picking up urchins or starfish to sell in the town square to the few tourists who were coming then, all so we could buy our glass of Coca-Cola. There I learnt everything about the sea and sailing.” He’d also spend time with the pro sailors on their boats, to complete his immersion. He was soon racing himself and, in 1979, introduced the J/24 class to Italy. He went on to win two European championships in the Six Metre class, and placed third in the worlds in 1983. He took gold in the Mumm 30 class at the 1998 world championships and silver in the European championships that same year. His love of competition meant the birth of the Wally Class in 1999 was inevitable.

For most people, though, the Wally brand is synonymous with angular powerboats. Impossible to witness without an instant emotional reaction, these boats exploded into the public consciousness in 2003 when the WallyPower 118 slipped into the water. Part weapon, part spaceship and wholly beautiful, three gas turbines propel the 36 metre superyacht to more that 60 knots.

It changed everything. “It’s probably the best known boat in the world,” Bassani says. “The soul of that design is really, really strong. She looks just like an airplane. She looks like a missile designed to go to the moon.”

The only other boat on the water that Bassani can bring himself to compare to the 118 is Andrey Melnichenko’s landmark Motor Yacht A , designed by Philippe Starck and built at Blohm+Voss . “In my mind that’s the only yacht that is as uncompromised. Everything is hidden, everything is closed. You don’t see any of the menial details and that makes a big difference.” Bassani points to the 118’s upright bow, now a staple of modern superyacht design, as a market-mover. “Today, everyone has ‘invented’ the vertical bow. We didn’t invent it, it was invented in the 19th century, even before that, but when we introduced it in 2003, everyone was against it. Even the naval architects, they were saying, ‘no, this boat will have big problems’. And now everyone understands that there are a lot of advantages in having a vertical bow. And everyone is claiming they invented it!” It feeds into Bassani’s belief that Wally operates ahead of the market but he rejects the idea that his boats are futuristic. “We just want to do something that for decades nobody has done.”

His tenders had a similar impact at a time when the concept of a luxury tender mostly meant a RIB with some canvas up. The first one was launched in 2001, with the range going on to be “very, very successful”, says Bassani. So far 70 WallyTenders have been sold, bringing to 122 the number of Wally powerboats on the water. Bassani doesn’t pen the designs for each himself, instead relying on a team of designers to translate his vision. And at the turn of the millennium, his vision was to revolutionise the tender market. “You know the Cala di Volpe and the hotel with the little harbour? From six or seven in the evening, everyone was coming into harbour to have their drinks at the hotel in little inflatables and I was arriving in the WallyTender. People were thinking, ‘so I have a 70 million euro motor yacht and such a small, stupid tender?’ And they started to buy the WallyTender.” Business wasn’t the only benefit. “Plus at the time I was separated from my wife, so the tender was attracting even more attention…”

The inspiration for his shift into the world of power came from a Mangusta owner. They met in 1999 and the owner told Bassani he didn’t like sailing but wanted a boat with the look of his 27 metre Tiketitan . “That gave me the intuition of how Wally’s powerboats should be designed, because Tiketitan was a very innovative sailing boat and was the first one with a canting keel. It looked like a navy boat, a warship, but one with sails.”

The industry needs brave owners like this, he says. “When you invest so much money, you have to do something important.” But there aren’t too many of them around, he admits; people like to keep things a few degrees either side of normal. “That is humanity and humanity doesn’t easily change,” he sighs. And that, fundamentally, is why Wally hasn’t sold more boats.

But Bassani won’t be stopped, or compromised. In fact his most recent output suggests his focus remains as sharp as ever. The fourth hull of the WallyAce series has now been launched . His first attempt at a displacement superyacht was greeted, like the rest of his output, with open mouths when hull one appeared in 2012. “They’re extreme boats but extreme in terms of comfort and energy consumption. That boat is very, very efficient.” Bassani read the wind and decided the future was green. Always ahead of the game.

Portraits by Guillaume Plisson

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