You wrote on a previous issue of this Buletin about your positive feelings related to the CdM approach and Customer Care immediately after having signed a contract on a new Darwin Class 96: you are now about four months to the delivery of it, can you tell us now about your CdM experience during the construction of it? I cannot help but confirming the impression I had when I first approached CdM and which continued during the negotiation of the specifications and the contract. What really impresses of this shipyard is the level of commitment towards the clients and their yachts, of each and every person involved. The way we have dealt with customizations, how we have been adviced and guided throughout our decision process when it came to even the craziest requests, the experience that everybody transfers to you day by day is really exceptional. Every visit at the yard (now every month) is a pleasant and anjoyable experience, indeed. What I can really say is that you never feel like a customer waiting for a product, but always as a partner living the birth and the growth of the Creature together with the ones who are building it.

A Darwin Class vessel is definitely a Yacht built to explore and travel: are you planning to cruise also out of the Meditteranean? What is your cruising plan for the years to come? What is or will be your dream cruise? For the first season we will cruise the Med extensively, starting from an Easter navigation in Croatia up to Venice, where we will prepare the boat for the summer season (provisioning, completing the boat with all our personal belongings etc). From Venice we will then start the real cruise southbound, touching Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Turkey and then Sicily and the surrounding Islands (Egadi and Eolie), Sardinia and Corsica. We will attend Cannes Boat Show in Semptember and – depending on the season – we will then move to the Balearics. We are now deciding if we will stay in the Med for another season, finding the most secluded and ‘off the beaten path’ locations (there are many out there), or if we will leave the Med towards Fort Lauderdale Show and the Caribbeans where to spend the 2013 Christmas Holidays. That’s just the beginning... The great thing of a Darwin Class is that the limits to your cruising plans are only dictated by your time and interests!!!!!

We understand that Stella di Mare will be mainly a family boat: can you tell us about the main features of this Yacht which made you think it would have been appropriate for you and your family? First of all, as a family boat which will cruise with all of us including children, the main feature which appealed us has been the reliability, the safety and seaworthiness of the project, of course. Secondarly, the incredible volume for a boat of this length will allow us to have a huge amount of space where to store supplies: we will have a deep freezer dedicated to meat, another one for vegetables, another one to ‘pasticci’, lasagne and fresh pasta. For us - probably as many other italians – food and good company is of paramount importance! Last but not least, we will have a huge walk-in cofferdam underneath the Vip cabin which is climatized and dedicated to about 1000 bottles of wine: a real cellar where good wines: the majority of them will obviously be the ones produced by our vineyard in the Collio region of Italy ‘Cantina Stella’!!! In order to be able to stay onboard extensively, we also have created a workstation in the wheelhouse with the proper communication and videoconference systems, which will allow us to be in constant contact with our companies.

What kind of toys or personal watercraft are you going to carry onboard? We will have two tenders, one for the owners of 5.70 mt and one for the crew of 2.60 mt. On top of that we will also have two electric bycicles, two push bikes and one Hobie Cat Catamaran transformable in kayak and pedal boat, great for visiting small coves, having fun sailing, fishing and to let the kids enjoy the days we will spend at anchor in the most beautiful and secluded bays. We have also a diving station with tanks, wetsuits, a dedicated compressor. Everything we need to enjoy our time at sea and on land.

Now it is time to answer to the same question we ask to all CdM clients who kindly accept to write on this Buletin: could you please summarize your CdM experience in three adjectives? Three are too few to really let people understand what CdM is all about, but let me try: professional (everything is dealt with at very high standards indeed, also if compared to other industries), different (they really think out of the box and you never have answers like: ‘this is the way we have always done’ or ‘this is the way it has been always done in the industry’), flexibility (I do not think that there is nother shipyard building boats of this size which really push customization of every single detail so far). Please let me add one: friends. The exact words to describe the CdM expierence, and what my family and I feel every time we are with CdM, are actually: friendship and partnership. I want to take this opportunity and wish to all of the CdM team a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, thanking them for what they are doing for us.
S.S., Owner of Darwin Class 96 M/Y Stella di Mare