FEATURE | Italian style runs strong in local passenger vessel market
PASSENGER VESSEL WEEK
Italy’s Nautica Store has had a busy 2019 with refits and newbuilds galore. A little less than a year after the move to a new production site in Torre Annunziata, Naples, with more than 20,000 square metres, including 9,000 covered, the large spaces now available to Salvatore Gambardella’s team are busy with the yard’s traditional business as well as new types of work and technical challenges.
“The first objective,” explained Gambardella, CEO of Nautica Store, “is the release of a product that is accurate, reliable and safe, issues necessary to match the growing need for quality linked to the development of tourist activity in Campania.”
The first completed vessel from the new production site occurred in July with the delivery of La Lobra, a tourist boat for the Massa Lubrense Cooperative. The vessel is 18.5 metres long, has a capacity of 160 passengers, and is equipped with two FTP Cursor 13 engines. Used for coastal navigation, Lobra makes two daily runs on the Marina di Lobra – Capri – Sorrento line.
A new 34-metre passenger vessel for Travelmar that will begin sea trials imminently represents Nautica Store’s biggest challenge to date.
“It is our largest job order ever,” emphasised Gambardella. “A unit of 500 passengers with exhaust gas treatment systems: ecological, and therefore in line with more sustainable and responsible maritime services.”
Equipped with four Volvo Penta engines with IPS propulsion, the newbuild is characterised by its fibreglass structure and aluminium superstructure.
“This unit, the evolution of what has been realised with the Antares series, will have a full load speed of about 19 knots and will be used on the Salerno – Amalfi – Positano line as part of a strengthening of the fleet that provides for further orders of this type,” added Gambardella.
Finally, the yard’s tourist boat work includes the Maestrale, a boat commissioned by the Battellieri Group of Amalfi. The 20-metre vessel will be used for coastal navigation on tourist excursions along the Amalfi coast. With a tonnage of approximately 20 tonnes and equipped with two FTP engines of 85 horsepower (63 kW) each, Maestrale will have a total capacity of 170 passengers.
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