BENETTI YACHTMASTER 2020
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Benetti Yachtmaster this edition introduced an all-new format: Benedetta Moreno, Benetti’s Global Head of Marketing and Communication, explained that Benetti’s aim this year was to balance networking opportunities and time for fun with structured learning sessions promoted by the Shipyard’s own talented personnel. The first stage of the 2020 edition was a balance, alternating presentations, workshops and interviews with leisure and team building activities.
More than 230 attendees – including 102 captains, 21 crew members, 16 surveyors, 12 owner’s representatives and 34 partners – guaranteed the success of the European stage of the twentieth edition of Benetti Yachtmaster, held at the end of February 2020, at the exclusive W Hotel in Barcelona.
Day 1.
Work got underway with a warm welcome and a reminder of some of the past year’s highlights for Benetti, stressing the shipyard’s commitment to environmental sustainability with support for two foundations, BLUE Marine and WATER REVOLUTION, and the launch of B.YOND, a new category of Expedition yacht designed according to tradition and owners’ desires. A standard-bearer for the practical rationalisation of onboard volumes and settings, the yacht is designed for long, comfortable cruises with reduced environmental impact thanks to the E-Mode propulsion architecture developed by Siemens for Benetti.
The afternoon continued with a presentation of the Benetti fleet by Toby Walker, Benetti Sales Area Manager. Benetti is the only yacht builder in the world to offer owners yachts from 29 to over 100m, built from composite materials, aluminium and steel, and divided into five categories - Class, Oasis, B.Yond, B.Now and Custom.
Event moderator David Seal then introduced the much-anticipated “Owner’s Team Perspective” event, which featured on-stage guests Thomas Jones, Captain of the 90m Benetti M/Y “Lionheart”, and Marine Coating Consultant Rory Marshall. Jones shared his own experiences, and described the professional career path that led to his captaining one of the world’s most famous yachts - the epitome of Benetti’s timeless elegance, hand craftsmanship and ‘Made in Italy’ culture. Using as his slogan “Find the Owner not the Boat”, Jones addressed a like-minded audience of Captains and industry professionals, covering some of the aspects are of managing a crew of 45 people (31 on board, plus 14 for crew rotation) and the importance of fostering a family-like working environment and establishing a relationship of trust with the owner. Marshall then went on to look in more depth at coating issues for the hulls of superyachts like M/Y “Lionheart”, which suffer from wear caused by the weather and passing time, and require guarantees of high quality standards.
There was a parallel workshop entitled “Guest - Host - Body - Mind - Soul”, organised with Gillian Kennedy, The Wellness Gypsy, a well-known Holistic Nutrition & Lifestyle Coach. This event, dedicated to crew members and the work they do, was the first in a series of meetings intended to demonstrate the continuing importance of a customer-centric approach long after the construction and delivery of any yacht.
All Yachtmaster participants finally got together for dinner at the Eclipse Club on the 20th floor of the W Hotel for a chance to network and exchange views before bringing the first day’s events to a close with cocktails accompanied by live music at Marina Port Vell.
Day 2.
The Benetti management team was on hand to offer guests the benefit of their own experience. David Seal, Moderator, introduced a series of workshops that considered all the aspects in the lifecycle of a custom yacht - customer engagement, design, planning and construction, all the way through to the importance of a customer-centric approach in the post-delivery phase – and then on to the dedicated services offered by Lusben (the A|B Group division that plays a leading role in the refit and repair business) and Yachtique (A|B’s decor and interior design services section).
Customer Centricity: Sebastiano Fanizza, Benetti Chief Commercial Officer, demonstrated the value of the customer’s central role throughout the entire sales process, from negotiation to contract signing. Fanizza explained which stakeholders are involved in the decision-making process, and how every aspect of this phase, from both a commercial and a psychological perspective, is managed with the greatest care and attention by Benetti.
Design your Dream: On-stage guests Andrew Collect (Senior Project Manager, Redman Whiteley Dixon), Rossella De Luzio (Benetti Interior Style Manager), Andrea Mazzolari (Designer,Yachtique) presented a workshop that discussed the approaches the shipyard uses to turn even the boldest projects into reality. The three speakers described their own experiences, and showed guests some examples of the designs, techniques, working processes and products cleverly devised by Benetti in response to customer requests.
From a Blank Sheet to the Sea:
Ferdinando Pilli, Head of Custom Engineering
Marco Tommaso Coiatelli, Cost Estimation Manager, Precontractual Custom Design
Sebastiano Vida, Custom Megayacht Project Manager
Daniele Moltedo, Manager, Production Engineering and Warranty Department
Together, Benetti management representatives illustrated the specific technical aspects of the approach Benetti uses to fulfil an owner’s expectations, from understanding the project and construction right through to the delivery of a 100% custom yacht designed from scratch. The session highlighted how the working process is subject to continuous quality controls, and how a precisely-organised timetable is the only way to meet a yacht’s delivery deadlines, and at the same time maintain the highest quality standards guaranteed by Benetti from the outset. The Tuscan shipyard is, in fact, one of very few in the world capable of managing the parallel construction of multiple superyachts and megayachts over 100m in length, as it recently demonstrated during the iconic Benetti Giga Season: a period of hectic activity for Benetti during which over 2,000 technical staff, engineers, designers and suppliers worked in parallel.
Caring Beyond Time and Space: On stage representing Lusben, Fortunato Di Marco (Sales Manager) and Mirko Marani (Technical Manager), analysed various case histories, demonstrating Lusben’s ability to meet owners’ needs not only in terms of engineering, but also of logistics. Lusben’s facilities in the Viareggio, Livorno, Varazze, Malta and Moscow marinas offer Captains and crew assistance across the board through specific training and refresher courses. Also on stage was Andrea Mazzolari from Yachtique, who looks after owner assistance for both yachts under construction and those undergoing maintenance and refit operations.
Further demonstrating that this 20th edition of Benetti Yachtmaster is an event devised to show how the customer remains the focus of attention even after their yacht has been delivered, the workshops planned on the second day were dedicated to crew members and the work they do. Three members of the IYCA (Italian Yacht Chef Association) gave live demonstrations of how to optimise the management of a megayacht kitchen, both organisationally and from the perspective of ethics and quality; Kiyra Rathbone, The Green Stewardess, demonstrated what resources to exploit and tricks to use to manage a yacht in the most environmentally sustainable way possible.
The day ended with an exclusive celebration, followed by a gala dinner in the Museu Marítim de Barcelona. Symbolically, the dinner was scheduled to take place at 20:20, on February 20, 2020, to pay a final tribute to the 20th edition of Benetti Yachtmaster. The celebrations continued with a party staged in the Arsenale Reale complex in the Old Port area. As well as offering a huge collection of objects and artifacts that speak to the close ties between the city and the sea, the museum also plays host to some impressive and unquestionably fascinating historical ships, and was chosen as a way to pay tribute to great explorers through history.
Day 3.
Taking advantage of the hospitality that permeates Barcelona, for many years the world’s graffiti capital on account of the sheer number of talented artists who have come to its streets to express their chosen artform, Benetti decided to dedicate the third day of the event to team building, with a guided tour of the Ciutat Vella district. During one session, guests were split into teams to produce cubist-style artworks on subjects linked to Benetti’s past, present or future. They were asked to paint the Custom yacht of their dreams, while drawing inspiration from the art of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalì and Antoni Gaudì, three iconic twentieth century artists whose history is entwined with the city of Barcelona. A panel of experts judged the work produced, awarding prizes and acknowledgements to the paintings they felt achieved the right sense of aesthetic harmony from the perspective of their quality and the team spirit created.
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