Andiamo!

The Tankoa T450 Go presented a welcome challenge for designer Giorgio Cassetta, who was glad to have IYG by his side.

Though Giorgio Cassetta has been designing boats for 18 years, he is still a fresh face to many. That’s because the Rome-based 40-year-old prefers to keep a relatively low profile, picking and choosing his projects carefully, creating a niche for himself in an already niche field. Cassetta began to seep into the industry’s consciousness when hard work met a stroke of luck. He had been drawing boats for years, when one day in 2012 a 90-meter concept he had sketched made its way to the grand master of Italian boatbuilding—Benetti chief Paolo Vitelli. Vitelli immediately liked what he saw and wasted no time seeking Cassetta’s services for his company. The relationship perhaps met its pinnacle when Cassetta was tabbed to pen the 351-foot Luminosity—one of Benetti’s famed gigayachts.

With a 300-footer under his belt, Cassetta has acquired rare air in the yachting industry, and the yachts he now designs come with a certain hard-won esteem. His latest project in that regard is the Tankoa T450 Go, a 147-foot beauty that encapsulates the very best of what Cassetta can do. Go is Hull No. 1 of the T450 line, which is pre-engineered for Tankoa (two others are under construction). However Cassetta relished this project because the owner allowed him much leeway with the design—a welcome challenge. “We were lucky to find a client who allowed us to push through a vision of what the model was in terms of coherent design,” he says. “So I very much enjoyed the project because I was able to put together a boat that had the same vibe as you walk through different spaces.”

Cassetta created the interiors to be balanced and elegant for a younger American owner that he says has excellent taste in art and interior design. “There was no room for useless decoration,” he says with equal parts pride and bemusement. Go’s interior has a masculine twist with dark colors and contrasts, but it’s done with elegant proportions that soften the look ever so slightly. Black ash and anthracite are featured prominently, and the furniture was designed to be extra comfortable, for a homey feel. As far as the exterior, Cassetta says Go was designed to be the archetype of what a yacht could be. “She has straightforward lines with lots of attention to proportion,” he says. “She is a bit of mix, with borderline sporty lines thanks to her long bow, but there are also high ceilings and a beautiful upper deck.”

The designer says that the Italian Yacht Group, and in particular Boomer Jousma, was extremely helpful in the project from start to finish. “Boomer and his team were lovely and had a fresh approach that I appreciated,” says the designer. “Communication in particular was very easy and straightforward, as opposed to some of the political madness that sometimes happens in yachting. It was clear that this was one of the larger builds they had been involved in, but they were definitely up to the challenge. In sum, it was a very pleasurable experience working with IYG and I’d be happy to collaborate again.”

Cassetta also praised the way that IYG managed the client relationship. Go’s owner was not new to yachting, but this was their biggest build yet, by a fair margin. “For him, the process of building a boat this size wasn’t always extremely clear, I don’t think. But Boomer was indispensable in making the experience straightforward, so that he fully understood a project of this magnitude.”

Cassetta says the three major prongs of building a boat include input from the owner, designer, and the yard, but also stresses the importance of a broker like IYG in the process. “They helped make everything more simple, and helped the project flow along easily all to completion. They were most definitely instrumental in getting this project to the finish line.” And now for one lucky owner, it’s time to go.