How is a super boat born? Journey into the world of Mylius

When one thinks of made in Italy in the world of industry, something beautiful, refined, objects where design meets tradition generally come to mind. Even in boating, this paradigm related to our industry has great value, and Italian shipyards have always been important players in the boat market. One shipyard that has certainly focused on made in Italy and craftsmanship since its inception is Mylius, which today is based in Podenzano (Piacenza) and specializes in building semi-custom sailing yachts from 60 feet and up. We were on a tour of the factory, where boats are born that can be considered almost like one-of-a-kind pieces: in fact, each Mylius is a little different from the other, to be tailored to the needs of its owner.

A FAMILY HISTORY

Mylius today is not only a shipyard, but also a great family history, that of the Gandinis in particular. Luciano Gandini and his daughter Valentina are entrepreneurs, and pro-prio in the Podenzano area are based the fa-mily companies, those that existed before Mylius. The meeting between the Gandinis and Mylius was, as is often the case in such cases, a story linked by passion, for the sea and beautiful boats. Telling us about it was Valentina Gandini herself, with whom we reconstructed the site’s journey from its origins to the present. “Mylius is something that has given us great satisfaction over these years,” he tells us as we begin our chat, “now it is also beginning to give us satisfaction with its growth, albeit with its ups and downs that we have had, but we have more than tripled turnover in two and a half years. The market is giving us reason, in the meantime we are studying new horizons since we have high growth potential abroad, for example in the United States and Du-bai which are a basin we are targeting.” Growth, yes, but always sustainable and without upsetting the shipyard’s fi-losophy: “We build about 8 boats a year, but now the powerboat line, which will be a bit more mass-produced than the custom Mylius line, will make the numbers grow a lot since we already have more than 10 on order. It will be a product that will allow us to grow even more, and make Mylius remain what it is, still a quality custom and handcrafted product. The engine will be the pretaporter for Mylius, the sail will remain the tailoring part.” No upheavals in short, but a clear and precise idea of what the Mylius product should and will be, today and in the future.

On our visit to Mylius we did not limit ourselves to observing the boats in production and how they were being co-built, although this was one of the focuses of our tour of the Gandini family headquarters. We also wanted to breathe in the air of the construction site, understand how work is done, and touch the craftsmanship of the artifacts being built here. We found an average young team, from the technical offices down to the skilled workers working on the boats. Very interesting was the tour of the carpentry shop, where we could see how Mylius furniture really comes from the hands of the craftsmen who, millimeter by millimeter, smooth out every roughness until they become the fine pieces of wood that we later find on Mylius cruisers. In fact, these sailboats are not only carbon, which is still the most widely used material for the construction of their hulls, but to meet the needs of pure cruisers, essences of first-rate woods are handcrafted to make the boats comfortable and warm.

MYLIUS: A STORY THAT STARTED FROM AFAR

It all started much further back, however, when Mylius in Luciano and Valentina’s heads did not even exist. “We approached Mylius as a customer, because we ab-ut a family history as owners: the first Twin Soul was a First 40.7, which introduced us to the world of offshore racing, then we were also Grand Soleil owners with a nice 40 Race by Pape-rino, we have always liked sporty boats, there was also a Wally 77.” “We then got in touch with this small shipyard in Gaeta, which was making small carbon boats, a bit of a day sailer. When they did-to a 48 we took it, but a boat with a different idea was already brewing in us. We sat in-turn around a table with Alberto Simeone, who was one of the three partners who owned Mylius, and we conceived of a 65 one off, the Twin Soul, was the boat that we started thinking about going into Mylius with. But we wanted to position ourselves in a 60- to 80-foot niche, with a different brand development. We decided, once we got in as a May-ranza share, to move the shipyard here to Piacenza. The product was already there as design and performance, our idea was to reposition it. Moving the shipyard to the Piacenza area was a natural choice to move this process forward.”

WHAT BOATS ARE MYLIUS TODAY

But how can Mylius boats be defined as boats? It is not easy to attach a precise label to them: “we could define them as cruiser racers,” says Valentina Gandini, “but they are equipped for maximum comfort and this in regattas can sometimes pelanize us, but more than all this and labels they are objects of high craftsmanship, built with the maximum technology that the market offers, which give the owner the possibility-ty to have fun sailing in brilliant sailings and, why not, also compete in regattas.”The boating world, being a market considered more luxury than others, is prone to suffer the “up and down” of the economy, and even for Mylius there were perhaps not easy years, where growth was low: “In the years when growth was low we also thought many times of changing the type of product, of doing something more industrial and mass-produced, but in the end the choice remained to be faithful to the ori-ginal philosophy of the shipyard: boats almost completely custom and made in a handcrafted way. In the end time proved us right, and now even in numbers we are reaping the benefits of this bet.” And the shipyard will continue to churn out new things: 66 and 72 are the latest, with 72 seeing water in 2024. Two more new boats are coming, a new 60-footer, which as a concept is the younger brother of the 72′, and an ’80 that will instead be an evolution of the 66 RS. In Podenzano we were able to see up close not only the joinery where the interiors are made but also some of the hulls under construction.We enjoyed a Mylius 66 RS, the new Mylius 72, and the motor 47 up close and found a shipyard working practically at full capacity. Three boats may be considered a small number for a large series reality, but for a shipyard that builds one-offs and semi-customs it starts to be a considerable commitment already, and it is by containing production numerically, the sailing one especially, that one can succeed in guaranteeing quality on top-notch craft stanrdards. What shipowners are looking for Mylius today? Answering us again is Valentina, who explains, “The Mylius customer was so much Italian in the first years, now we can call it more European, with a good presence for example in the German market, owners who then like to keep the boat in the Mediterranean. They are sailors who like to own objects that let themselves be looked at, that do not go unnoticed in short. Then there are those who like racing more and those who just like to travel, either way they choose us because they come to us because our brand has already left an aesthetic mark on their desires.

CULT MODELS.

All of the sailing models produced by Mylius have left their mark on the shipyard’s history, but some of them have special significance, and should be regarded as cornerstones of production. One of these is certainly the Mylius 60, designed by Alberto Sime-one whose ori-ginal design dates back to 2013 but was redesigned in 2017 with the FD version and also declined in a pure racer version, the CK with canting keel and canard. The Mylius 60 somewhat fully represents the yard’s philosophy, which from a starting platform of design has evolved it over the years and declined it in different ways, more cruiser in al-some hulls and more race-oriented in others.

Mylius 60CK The 60 CK Cippa Lippa, a pure racer, and the 60 FD Fra Diavolo, the boat with which owner Vincenzo Addessi sailed around the world, best summarize the way the shipyard sews its designs to the needs of the owners who ask for them. The hull is in fact the same, but the two boats are radically different in appendages, sail plan, interior design, deck and rigging. For this reason, each Mylius is in some way a unique boat, and this is the strength of the shipyard, in addition to the fact that the boats of this brand have a very recognizable aesthetic that lets them stand out easily. And speaking of the yard’s cult boats, we certainly can’t not ci- cite the flagship, the Mylius 80, Twin Soul. A name that fully represents the Gandini family, since all of Lu-ciano and Valentina’s boats have been named that way.The Mylius 80 is now the shipyard’s most prominent boat, capable of switcha-re from offshore racing courses or between buoys to cruising, the balance that Mylius has always sought.