After three years from the beginning of the Darwin Class history and of Cantiere delle Marche, after two years from the launch of the first Darwin 86, after an amazing 2012 which has seen M/Y “Percheron” riding the Atlantic Ocean waves to reach triunphantly the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, finally “Stella di Mare”, the first exemplar of the Darwin Class 96.

As I already wrote in occasion of the presentation of the first Darwin 86….it seems yesterday that we started, with Ennio, Vasco, Andrea, Michele and their team, which has been enriched of new and valuable people during these years.

The 96’s project takes shape from the 86 experience, with which it shares several technical and aesthetic elements but, as it happens when the VW launches a new series of the Golf, even if at first sight the “family feeling” makes the new car looking like just a restyling of the previous one, for the Darwin 96, as for the Golf, we can talk about, without the fear of being denied, a project completely indipendent that allows to reap the benefits of all the developed experience of the previous projects.

The visual impact is tipically “Darwin class”, even if the different proportions are easily recognizable; these proportions derives from about three meters of the hull elongation which gives a major elegance to the profile and bigger volumes to the interior. Strong efforts have been done to make the hull fitting to the new dimensions and to the installation of higher performance engines, compared to the ones usually mounted on the Darwin 86. In particolar, we have worked on the lines of the bow, refining them to improve the penetration and the seakeeping, while the stern has been completely redesigned intervening on the width, which has been enlarged, and to the shape of the stern sections to improve the support at higher speeds.

Concerning the interior volumes, we have increased both the owner and guests’s spaces, as well as the lazzarette and the engine room. The layout chosen by the shipowner of “Stella di Mare” presents a wide forward Vip cabin, which by reflex, has allowed to obtain a further cabin for the fifth and sixt member of the crew. The space behind the wheelhouse, has been addressed to a large “sky lounge” that, thanks to clever architectural artifices, is a natural continuity of the wheelhouse itself while mantaining the possibility to screen itself in case of night navigations. The exterior spaces have been enlarged, the Flying-bridge zone in particolar giving to the Darwin Class 96 probably the biggest exterior areas of its segment. The foredeck is definitely wider than the one of the 86’s series thanks to the raised surface designed as a result of increas e of length and the insertion of the third crew cabin.

As already said in other occasions, as far as we are concerned, the success of this series can be recognized in her highest quality, immediately perceptible, in her strong identifiability and in the amazing passion of all the Cantiere delle Marche people, a real experienced and well-matched team, together with the intrinsic quality of the project.