Italia Yachts makes sailboats under a great moto: “Our mission: to build fast, elegant and safe boats with timeless design and a quality going far beyond the beautiful lines.” And they do that pretty well, a pity the brand not being more known by the ones that love sailing and beautiful sailboats. The main reason for that has to do with the brand being relatively new.
The first time I heard about it was in Croatia, almost ten years ago, when I was test sailing a Salona 38, a new boat at the time. The other sailor that was doing the same told me that he was undecided between the Salona and the Italia 10.98.
I had never heard about the boat and thought that he was talking about a 10.98 made in Italy and asked about the brand, Italia he said, not the country, but the brand. I remember that I thought odd a boat that had as brand the name of a country. Now I am used to it but I guess the same happens with the ones that never heard about it.
Anyway, the brand exists since 2011 and the first boat, that is still produced, is the Italia 10.98. The shipyard was in Chioggia, near Venetia, on the lagoons but when they started to produce bigger boats with more draft they had to move to San Giorgio de Nogaro, more to the North, near Monfalcone, on the Laguna de Marano, that has a channel to the port that allows for bigger drafts.
The 10.98 is a fast boat with a very traditional IRC/ORC line (not far from Jboats hull), light and fast, well built, designed by Cossutti and meant to be a cruiser-racer with a good interior, but also able to achieve top places while racing. The boat was a mixed success, a nice performance cruiser and a very good club racer, with some top racing results, but never able to win the ORC European or World Championships.
The 13.98 followed, a very beautiful boat and a performance cruiser, with a traditional line and a luxurious well designed interior. It was not a cruiser racer, neither intended to win races at top level, just a great fast cruising boat and a successful one, having won the 2013 European yacht of the year award.
In 2014 they launched a 60ft (15.98) with the same characteristics, a well built, fast, traditional lines performance cruiser, but in that year they also launched a small cruiser-racer that would be much more successful than the bigger boat, the 9.98, both designed by the in-house Architect , Matteo Polli.
The 15.98 is a nice boat in a traditional way, maybe a bit too traditional in what regards hull shape, but the 9.98 was another story, with a very modern hull, the boat quickly became a racing success winning two world ORC racing championships (2015, 2016) and many national European championships.
With the 9.98 they separated the offer into two lines, one more pointed to racing, that they called
“Fuoriserie” and one for performance cruisers that they called “Belissima”. Next year, in 2015, they launched a 43 ft performance cruiser, the 12.98, fast and elegant, with a more modern hull than the 13.98, but still with some traditional all around flavor.
But the demand of an Italia 9.98 with a comfortable and beautiful interior was unexpectedly big, so, in 2017 they began producing the 9.98 with two different interiors, one more naked for racing and other with a beautiful interior, for performance cruising. The 9.98 was the first Italia yacht produced on the two series, with the same hull, but very different interiors.
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And that was a turning point because from then on all the new yachts, the 11.98, in 2019 and the 14.98 this year, were produced on the two lines, with the same hull, one developed for top performance, without no concessions to tradition.
On the two lines, “Fuoriserie” or “Belissima” the boats have very different interiors and also different running rigging, different keels and draft but with interchangeable parts.
For the ones that like fast cruising boats and beautiful boats these can only be good news.
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| IY 14.98, GS48, Solaris 47 |
There is no reason for the hull of a top fast cruiser-racer not to be the same as the one of a fast performance cruiser and the ones that love sailing find beauty on the hulls that come directly from the racing ground, designed for overall best performance. That can only contribute for a more beautiful and desirable performance cruiser.
While being too early to tell about the 14.98 racing performance, it is not the case with the Italia 11.98 that in the launch year won the ORC World Championship… and that is quite a feat.
The 14.98 is designed by Maurizio Cossutti and not by Matteo Polli, 9.98 and 11.98 designer (that recently designed the Grand Soleil 44). Cossuti is better known for designing the new C Bavaria line but also designed the NM 38 that won two ORC world championships and curiously Matteo Polli worked several years on Cossutti design cabinet.
Anyway, the design is a very nice one, on the lines of the 11.98, and even if the 14.98 proves not to be so competitive at top level as the 9.98 and the 11.98, it surely will be a very fast performance cruiser and with the 11.98, comparatively faster than previous performance cruisers from Italia Yachts.
I find the 14.98 a very beautiful sailboat, one that joins a top performance hull with the great interior design and top quality interiors that are a trademark of Italia yachts. The build quality is high using Infusion with vinylester resins, e-glass on a cored hull and deck with pvc foam as core. The bulkheads are made of maritime plywood, glued and laminated to the boat’s structure, hull and deck.
The boat structure is a huge integral matrix, with carbon reinforcements, a bit like the one used on the Bavaria C line, with all furniture and bulkheads connected. It gives the boat a big rigidity but it can be a problem in repair costs if the keel hits violently something and a big repair is needed.
I am taking so much time with an introduction because it seems to me very important to explain the change this yacht represents in what regards Italia yachts cruisers, as well to explain what type of boat we are talking about, one that like Grand Soleil (Performance line) can be adapted to owner’s request from an almost pure racer to a fast performance cruiser, that can become faster with interchangeable parts from the “Fuoriserie” like 6 winches, a traveler for the main, carbon spars and so on.
A different proposition than what used to be Italia’s performance cruiser offer, a less traditional and faster yacht.
The Italia 14.98 is really a 47.7ft boat, with a 14.55m hull length, slightly bigger than the Solaris 47 (14.35) and smaller than the Grand Soleil 48P (14.90), being less beamier than any of them with a 4.33m beam while de Solaris has 4.36 and the GS 4.50. More than beam, the bigger difference between the three hulls is the transom and aft part of the hull, where they are substantially different.
The Solaris has all the beam brought back and has a transom that being very well designed, with a chine that restricts more heeling, diminishes upwind performance and increases drag in light wind. This has advantages in what regards control rolling or making the auto-pilot task easier while sailing downwind, all positive points while cruising. Even so it is much more rounded than for instance the transom of an Oceanis 46,1, that being much smaller in length (13.65m) has already a much bigger beam (4.50).
The Italia 14.98 and the grand Soleil 48P have hulls maximized for overall performance, similar in not having all beam brought back, but having a different transom design. On the Italia the transom design is very similar to the one of the GS 44 (designed by Polli) while the one on the GS 48, designed by Lostuzzi, has an older design, one that is a bit less effective in what regards downwind sailing, or in increasing hull stability without increasing much drag.
Of course, the difference in performance is minimal and will have no impact in what regards cruising and a small difference in what regards racing, but a big difference in what regards the looks of a sailboat.
Because beauty in a fast boat is directly related with the shapes that perform better in competition, the transom of the GS 48P looks a bit outdated and the one of the Italia 14.98 looks gorgeous.
The Italia 14.98 Fuoriserie displaces 9980kg, the Bellissima 10 250kg, the GS 48 Race displaces 10 500kg, the performance version 11 500kg while the Solaris 47, that has no race version weights 12 600 kg.
Not a big difference in weight in what regards the cruiser-racer version (Italia/GS) taking into consideration that the GS is bigger, but already a very considerable difference on the performance version and a much bigger one to the Solaris , even a bigger difference if we consider that the Solaris is a smaller boat.
Inexplicably Italia yachts do not have on their site ballast information regarding the 14.98 but when asked they provided very detailed information regarding ballast, types of keels, different ballasts on different versions, and even information about the keel CG, with the weight of the steel foil and torpedo weight.
And that allows to have a pretty good idea of the differences in RM regarding different options and permits to see that the more sportive boat will not only be lighter as it will be more powerful, unless you want to mount its 3.00 draft keel on the Bellissima, even if it limits the cruising potential.
On the Fuoriserie version the Italia has 4438 kg ballast, 3889kg on a bulb and 549kg on a steel structure, a foil, that holds the torpedo on a keel with 3.00m draft. This gives a 44.5% B/D, truly the one of a racing boat, that compares very positively with 37.9% B/D that the racing version of the GS 48 has (assuming the ballast on the racing version is the same as in the performance cruising version) on a similar keel with the same draft (3.00m).
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| IY14.98, GS48, Solaris 47, Oceanis 46.1 |
This ballast, 88% of it in a torpedo, will give the Italia 14.98 Fuoriserie a huge stability making it a more powerful boat than the GS 48 race, unless this one is made of carbon (an option) and it becomes much lighter, certainly an expensive option (they don’t disclose the displacement).
On the cruising performance version the 14.99 has a similarly designed keel with 2.50m draft with slightly more ballast to partially compensate the bigger RM provided by the deeper bulb position on the Fuoriserie version.
With a total ballast of 4478 kg, but with a bigger proportion on the torpedo (90%) due to the smaller foil, the Bellissima has 43.7% B/D, much more than the GS 48 performance that has 34,6% on a 2.60m draft keel. The 10cm difference in draft, on similar keels, reduces a bit the effectiveness of that difference in B/D but it is far from compensating it.
The Solaris 47 has a 2.80m draft, a similar keel with a 34.3% B/D. The extra 20cm draft probably will more than compensate the small difference in B/D for the GS but will stay far from the one in the Italia 14.98. It is true that the GS and Solaris with a bigger beam will have a bit more hull form stability but the difference in beam is not as considerable as the difference in B/D and more beam (and more weight) means also more drag, specially upwind with waves on in light winds.
Regarding B/D it is just fair to say that if the Italia 14.98’s 43.7% B/D on an efficient keel with 2,50m draft, is an exceptional good value for a performance cruiser. The ones of the Grand Soleil 48 (34.6%) and Solaris 47 (34.3%) on keels with a slightly bigger draft (2.60 and 2.80) are very respectable values and have nothing to do with the ones that are usual on mass production cruisers, like for instance the Oceanis 46.1 that has a 24.3% B/D on a much less efficient keel (bulbed cast iron/lead) with 2.65m draft.
The Italia upwind sail area is 133m2, 129m2 for Solaris and 127,4m2 for Grand Soleil. Lighter, with more sail area with more RM and less drag, the Italia wins in all chapters and it is clear that it is the most powerful of the three and the faster, assuming it is well designed, and I have no doubts about that.
The boat dimensions and the shape of hull can say much about the boat sailing potential but there are other many factors related with design integration and harmony that can only be revealed in several boat tests, in different sea and wind conditions. I will be waiting for them to make another post about a boat that risks entering on my absolute favorite list.
The price is not as nice as all other data about the 14.98, it costs standard (Bellissima) at the shipyard without VAT 450 000 euros while the slightly smaller Solaris 47 costs 396 000 euros and the bigger Solaris 50 (15.40m) costs 480 000 euros.
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