TARANTO – Fifty meters of steel and luxury. This is the FB616 yacht, the first built in Taranto which yesterday morning was baptized in the waters of the Ionian Sea, in the area of the Cantieri Navali SGM Srl. and then left towards Livorno where the fittings will be completed. For Taranto it is a return to the past to its old shipbuilding vocation. The mega yacht, in fact, was built on behalf of Azimut Benetti and entirely built by local workers in the SGM shipyards. «She is a 50 meter unit – recalled Pasquale Di Napoli, general director of Seastyle Company and president of the engineering and naval section of Confindustria Taranto – built in 12 months of work with the employment of 80 workers, for a total of 180 thousand hours of work. In parallel we have a sister boat under construction, FB618 which will be launched by the end of October. We have also started construction of a 60-metre vessel, again for Benetti, which will be delivered in a year.” The agreement between the shipyards and the company envisages starting a new order every six months, with a delivery time of one year. «We chose Taranto – said Di Napoli – not only because our roots are in this area, but also because it is a city that has been tormented by big industry for years. We are trying to tell the city that if we unite we can get out of the crisis that is gripping us.”
It is a flourishing moment for the maritime market, in which the nautical sector has recorded a plus 20 percent turnover in the last year. «Having the skills and knowledge of the subject we tried to bring this market to Taranto. When we arrived here we focused on training local workers, with good results both qualitatively and temporally.” The set-up phase will begin in Livorno, it will be completed with the plant engineering and fittings and then delivered to the owner in the USA. «In this first phase – added Di Napoli – we were not able to complete it because this site is located in a Sin area of national interest, within the Mar Piccolo regional park. We have constraints that do not allow us to produce finished boats.” In order to produce a complete yacht in the Taranto shipyards there is a need to create a table with the institutions. To this end, entrepreneurs are asking for fewer bureaucratic constraints, such as the re-demarcation of the construction site area located within the Mar Piccolo Park. «For Benetti – said Ferdinando Pilli, director of customer relations – it was a more than positive experience and this is demonstrated by the fact that in addition to this one, there are two other boats under construction in Taranto. This construction site could have enormous potential, if logistics permitted it.”
