Ugo Pellegrino, the CEO of Arcadia Yachts, is a businessman who has applied a typically industrial approach to the nautical sector, making customised items for owners throughout the world.
by Francesco Michienzi – photo by Alberto Cocchi
GENEROSITY IS NOT A QUALITY THAT YOU CAN BUY OR GET GIVEN IF YOU DON’T HAVE IT TO START OUT WITH. The story of Ugo Pellegrino is first and foremost one of courage: the proof that without bravery you won’t do anything, and that if you don’t have it not even intelligence can help you. And courage has a lot of different faces: that of generosity, curiosity, necessity, pride and recklessness.
When Pellegrino recounts how the Arcadia shipyard started out, he lets the depth of spirit that typifies certain very sensitive men shine through. «In 2006 we were called by somebody who had made an investment in the model-building and fibreglass moulding sector. Since he wasn’t a businessman, he asked for advice on how to progress. He realised that it was too difficult for him on his own, and so he asked us to buy into 33% of the share capital. After the premature death of the third shareholder Benny, who was a close family friend, we bought a further 33% and thus found ourselves with 66% of a company in a sector that we didn’t know, but one which we were starting to understand. We then also bought out the rest of the firm, and became hundred per cent owners of a very nice, but complicated, company».
Since 2008 Pellegrino has made investments totalling around 40 million euros, of which 31 million were made in the first ten months of the company’s existence. The most recent investments were in warehouses in the former Apreamare areas, a part of the marina that has meant that the firm is autonomous in terms of moorings, launches, service and after sales.
After careful analysis of the fact that the models and moulding sector wasn’t going to pay, Pellegrino came across a design for a strange boat, of a type never seen before. He fell in love with it, and decided to start off with a 85-footer. Pellegrino continues,
«Selling the first boat was a really nice, and unrepeatable, story. In 2010 we took our first model to Düsseldorf, and on 23rd January, the first day of the show, we sold it. The German magazine Boote Exclusiv had published a rendering and this owner immediately fell in love with the design, to such an extent that he came to the show to buy the boat without ever having seen it».
The owner in question is a person who is very much aware of the environment, and who has internalised the concept of a slow boat with reduced levels of fuel consumption. He is investing part of his personal fortune, which amounts to around five billion dollars, in third-world countries, by buying entire, untouched territories, restricting deforestation and returning them to the country of origin.
A clearly emotional Pellegrino described him thus: «A special man who is fascinating and who has interior beauty, someone from whom I have learnt a great deal. I met him again many years later in Hong Kong. I can say that this is a bit our typical client, a man who has plenty of nautical culture who is not used to showing off». Since then, of the thirty boats produced, eleven have been Arcadia 85s.
Pellegrino is proud of the culture of his company. «With our business vision, we have enabled a very new yard like Arcadia to grow. The yacht sector is very dangerous, and it is one in which a lot of operators live beyond their means. I think it is important to keep your feet on the ground. Business logic is to have an industrial-type organisation and management to create a product that is completely handmade by craftsmen, like a Ferrari or an Aston Martin. At Arcadia, everything is done in house including moulding the fibreglass, so we have complete control over the quality of the production process».
The Sherpa XL ha appeared at the Cannes Yachting Festival, and for Pellegrino that is just as emotional as the launch of the first 85-footer. «It is an incredible boat, it has nothing to do with its size. The interiors and the external areas arehuge, it is a very beautiful product».
The concept of the Sherpa XL, which was developed in partnership with Hot Lab design studio in Milan, which had already worked with Arcadia Yachts on the interiors for the A105, turns on the layout of the three decks. The decks are staggered in the bow, allowing the central stair block to feature reduced differences in level. A special system of fitting things together that, as well as providing a lot of space despite limited overall height, has meant that the designers could play around with the volumes.
Ugo Pellegrino’s shipyard has, to its credit, introduced new concepts in how a boat can be experienced: in the past, cockpits were small and difficult to use, whereas Arcadia has joined together external lines, in a break from tradition, with a functionality in the interiors that previously was unthinkable in a boat of this size.
(Arcadia Yachts, generosity and courage – Barchemagazine.com – September 2019)
