History of Your Classic Boats: Genesis (43), the watershed in sport cruising

More than 200 of you have sent us stories and images of your Classic Boats, enriching theonline archive dedicated to them and making so many of these great designs of the last century available to all. Keep up the good work! Now, however, after recounting dozens of them through your words and descriptions, it is time to also see the history and details of some of these great projects. So here is Vallicelli‘s great Genesis 43, the iconic 13.10-meter Comar.

Genesis (43) | History of your Classic Boats

A design watershed for Studio Vallicelli, the Genesi 43 is the project with which the firm fully enters the world of mass-produced designs for the SPORT CRUISE. It will be a special boat, extremely innovative and even more design oriented, a series boat connoted by such a strong ability to incorporate all the accouterments of a high-end boat into production, that she herself is almost a one-off with every hull produced. Born in 1989, commissioned by Comar, it was then almost a unicum in the Italian shipbuilding scene.

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Genesis 43 | Origins

In the late 1980s Comar commissioned Britton Chance Jr. to design the Phoenix, a design that management failed to appreciate, however. The Vallicelli studio took over to redesign the superstructures and interiors, an experience that would prove crucial for the immediately following Genesis, a streamlined, vaguely classical hull totally freed from any forcing dictated by IOR criteria.

The boat is absolutely revolutionary, as much for the shipyard as for the market, ushering in a segment and a trend that is not insignificant. One enters, precisely, the world of the design-oriented series, where every single component is specially designed and custom manufactured, almost to the levels of a gran turismo, taking every conceptual and production canon to extremes.

Genesis 43 | The Project

To address Comar Genesis 43, it is necessary to start with an assumption. It is the late 1980s, the IOR is in crisis, and nautical design is experiencing a period of transition. In this context, Comar opts for a cruising hull that is highly performing but equally oblivious to the limits imposed by regulations, a hull that is absolutely an end in itself, devoted to the purest sailing and the pleasures of it. And so Vallicelli executes, designing an absolutely innovative 13.10 meters. No one had ever dared so much.

Genesis 43 | Lines and interiors

The central maximum beam is restrained, gently connected toward the ends, in complete contrast to any previous logic. The deckhouse and splash guard are harmonized to the utmost with the hull, with tremendous effort put into making the transition as smooth as possible, strong with a variable leapfrog that dilutes the freeboard inspired by the 12-meter SI. Just aft of the mast, the deckhouse is cut by a huge window overlooking the dinette, perhaps the most iconic and distinctive element of the entire design.

The deck is then also lightened to the maximum, very clean, with the components and rigging reduced to a minimum thanks to a quasi-annihilated rig: fractional sail plan, quartered spreaders, no flying and self-tacking jib. All materials are optimized and weights with them, right down to the production technique, which sees extensive use of countermolds and vacuum infusion.

The same philosophy is espoused in the interior, where the layout breaks with previous patterns. In fact, two separate cabins are located aft, complete with a shared bathroom recessed under the entry ladder. In fact, the engine is moved to the middle of the boat, between the bilge and the lower structure of the large horseshoe-shaped sofa that populates the port section of the dinette, mirrored to starboard by a galley that runs broadside. A cabin remains in the bow, set back just forward of the mast, while the second bathroom is moved to the far bow, just before a sail-calving locker.

Galatea & Giorgia Now or Never

Returning to our online archive dedicated to YOUR Classic Boats, if we talk about Genesis 43 it is because, first and foremost, some of you did. Specifically, it was T. Villa and F. Brazzolotto to share with all of us their Genesis 43, respectively.

Galatea

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Giorgia Now or Never

, from 1992 and 1998. You have seen a few photos of them along the article, but if you would like to know more, click on the names of the two boats and the link will take you to their fact sheets.

If you would like to see your boat appear, or even if it was just to celebrate it with a community of enthusiasts, keep uploading them on the page dedicated to them. You can find it here!

Genesis 43 | Data Sheet

Three “tidbits” about Classic Boats

• Want to learn more about the world of Classic Boats (1967-1998), the iconic boats of the period, the legendary designers, the stories and races of the “golden age” of sailing? Check out our section dedicated to Classic Boats!
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