HOW A TURIN STUDENT’S CHARTER BUSINESS BECAME ONE OF ITALY’S DEFINING YACHT BRANDS
A Student in Turin
Azimut was founded in 1969 by Paolo Vitelli, then a university student, who began by chartering sailing boats to people in Turin. In 1970 the Amerglass brand chose his company to distribute its boats in Italy, and from distribution it was a short step to building. The AZ 32 Targa arrived in 1977, a compact fibreglass cruiser that Azimut itself has likened to the Ford Model T of the boating world: not the finest boat ever built, but the one that put cruising within reach of a great many more people.
Scaling Up
The ambition grew quickly. In 1982 the yard unveiled the 105-foot Failaka, which Azimut describes as the largest fibreglass production yacht of its day, and in 1985 it acquired Benetti, the Viareggio shipyard that had been building boats since 1873 and is often credited with defining the modern megayacht. The combination was unusual: a young, industrial approach to production alongside one of the oldest names in Italian shipbuilding. Today Azimut’s production is centred on a large facility at Avigliana, a short drive west of Turin, with the group’s headquarters in Viareggio.
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