... the Darwin Class and Cantiere delle Marche’s history has begun, and to me it seems like yesterday when – having the whole project clear in my mind – we had to start transferring it to the drawing board. Looking at it now: this task seemed like the easiest one if compared to what was happening in those days!!!

There was a shipyard to create, a staff to be relocated in another city, and most of all… There was a Client to be found, who should have been ready to trust and understand the advantage of working with a team of brother in arms, bonded by something much stronger than a professional relationship: a team made of reciprocal respect and esteem and a real and strong friendship. In the first months everything was happening around my office in Varazze.

While the first Darwin 86 started to be more and more defined as a project, Ennio and Andrea Cecchini were starting working on the shipyard’s logistics. At the same time, a Client trusted the Cecchini Brothers, and on March 2010 we started the operational stage of the project and its engineering. Immediately after, the metal carpentry started and was finished, in record breaking time, in August of the same year! Here at my office we all lived a very emotional moment when we received the pictures of the first Darwin 86, moved from the metal carpentry shed to the outfitting one. On May 2011, only 14 months after the start of the engineering, the Darwin 86 named ‘Vitadimare 3’ was launched in Ancona in front of the proud owner, the – even more proud – team of Cantiere delle Marche, the subcontractors and the suppliers, and all the highest local Authorities.

We had 14 months of really hard work on our backs. A lot of efforts, a lot of sacrifices, a lot of up and downs and ‘healthy’ fights. On that day, it was clear that it all worthed it: we all concurred to produce a Yacht with unique characteristics, unseen in our industry worldwide, with such a quality and finishing that the feedback received by every single visitor at the yard and during the 2011 Boats Shows has been unanimously excellent: this is a kind of result which is normally achieved after a few products built and trimmed… not – as in this case – with the so called ‘prototype’!

What people can see on a Darwin built at CdM is one of a kind as far as quality and engineering are concerned. Afew years ago, when I just started working in the Yachting Industry, it was quite common to use the term ‘total quality’ with specific reference to the automotive industry: well, I strongly believe that the Darwin 86, built at Cantiere delle Marche, is an ideal example to represent this concept.

Starting from the President of the shipyard, to the youngest of the workers, passing through all the operational and non operational roles, Cantiere delle Marche is made of people who call each other by name, Ennio, Vasco, Massimo, Michele, Daniele, Giorgione, Turi, Domenico, Roberto, Luca…: they are first of all individuals but at the same time, they have the ability of becoming one and one only team, merging all their knowledge, their experience, their excellence, knowing that they can build the best yachts ever, but at the same time they all remain humble, respectful and able to use their strength and commitment to respect timing and plannings, without never losing control of the company’s targets. Working with this team is absolutely rewarding for me personally and for the whole team at Hydrotec: it goes beyond roles and personal goals, it is an incredible common effort where understanding and agreements are first of all among the people, and only after they become scope of work for the relevant departments managed by them.

The – not only commercial - success of the Darwin Class, and the immediate recognition received by the industry and the market in such a difficult time are clear and evident proof of the fact that, in order to fight the crisis, we need new ideas, new and different lifestyle proposals, and a quality which can be perceived with no frills and uncompromising contents. The latter can be obtained only with the correct planning and an effective integration inside the shipard’s department in order to survive on the market and to keep the correct price positioning. It starts from the people. It is a huge organizational and motivational effort, but once this is up and running, the quality and the contents can be achieved without any effect on the shipyard’s cost and consequently on the price of the Vessels to the Client.

The New Darwin Class models will be thought and realized more and more in this direction, proposing a solid construction, a balanced project and an absolute quality.