STORY Yacht

Peace of mind in Sanremo

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Katrin Beck, Images by Robert Hack

mtu ValueCare Extended Propulsion Coverage offers yacht owners swift service and a greater sense of security.
Sanremo, Italy

The yacht business is highly select – famous clients with extravagant private vessels. Hardly any of the celebrities want you to feature them or their yachts in a report because that is where they spend their leisure time and enjoy some carefree privacy. Interruptions are unwelcome, especially from the technical equipment or engines. That is why mtu offers its customers a coverage beyond the  standard warranty. It gives clients peace of mind and provides rapid assistance when required.

Sanremo is a  seaside resort on the Italian Riviera just a few miles from the French border. Against a picturesque Mediterranean backdrop, one marina after another lines the seafront. The vast majority of the boats are small sailing yachts but in every marina there are also large, sometimes spectacular motor yachts to be seen. Well hidden, usually far away from any public path, these prized jewels can be 30 to 60 meters long and more – and the bigger the yacht, greater is the curiosity of the onlooker. Who does the yacht belong to? It is someone famous from TV or radio? An international star? And what does the yacht look like on the inside? Imagined interiors range from the costliest materials to the most exclusive furnishings and exotic fittings. Maybe the luxury craft has a helipad or a swimming pool. But the chances of seeing inside the yacht are as good as non-existent. They remain the reserve of the owners.

Customer care in Sanremo
Christian Paolini has seen plenty of yachts from inside. He even knows one or two of the owners of the dream boats and has an insight into that entirely different world. Paolini is a member of the  Parts and Service sales  staff at  mtu Italia.  He is meeting the captain of a luxury yacht in a marina close to Sanremo. Even the captain is so famous in the yacht owner’s home country that he does not want to give his name. So keeping the name of the yacht secret is even more understandable – privacy on and around their boats is sacrosanct to the owners. On the water they can usually enjoy their freedom undisturbed without being watched or photographed for the next issue of some celebrity magazine.

Christian Paolini is a sales technician for mtu ValueCare service products. He advised the client to take out a second warranty extension on the five-year-old mtu engines.

Cosmetic repairs for yachts in hibernation
Although the owner of this yacht is among the more famous of international celebrities, he has chosen a relatively modest yacht. It is a 29-meter standard model from Posilipo Rizzardi, the Technema 90. It is powered by two  mtu Series 2000  Type M93 engines that produce 1,790 kW each. With its gleaming blue hull and silver-grey superstructure it sits serenely in the marina. The blue fenders dangle along both sides of the ship. Now, at the beginning of the year, it is quiet in the marina. In the winter, at a crisp ten degrees Celsius in pale sunshine, only a few clients are in attendance on their yachts. Most of the boats are covered over, concealing their stylish lines from the Italian winter sun. The captain uses the quiet period to oversee maintenance and repair work. He runs the engines at regular intervals and takes the yacht out for short trips. The yacht season does not start until April when the weather and the water get warmer. Then the marina is teeming with leisure sailors. Among them are a few better known faces wanting to enjoy la dolce vita unrecognized and unworried on the water.

Even the captain of this yacht is so well known that we can only show his hands. He looks after the boat for the owner year-round. It cruises the Mediterranean for about 60 days a year.

The captain organizes the sailing trips on the Mediterranean and everything else to do with the yacht for the owner’s family. He is on board almost every day. In the summer he cruises the Mediterranean for around 60 days with the owners, visiting the Balearics, Sardinia or the Spanish coast. At that time of year his working day starts at seven in the morning. He looks over the two 16-cylinder Series 2000 engines, checks the operating data on the Callosum automation system, goes over the final details of the day’s route and gets the yacht ready for one or more days at sea.

Extended coverage for carefree cruises
The friendly and reserved Italian knows his way around yachts. He has been a captain for more than 40 years, and he swears by mtu engines. “If you want a fast yacht, mtu is the only choice,” the likeable skipper smiles. The yacht he commands is capable of roughly 29 knots per hour – something over 50 kph. And the fact that the engines have run so reliably for more than five years is another argument in their favor as far as he is concerned. But should there ever be any problems, he has chosen the safe option for the yacht and her owner –  Extended Propulsion Coverage  from mtu, or EPC for short. After the two-year standard coverage, he signed the boat up for a three-year EPC contract and in June 2013 took out an EPC extension for another three years. The contract covers unexpected repairs outside the standard servicing. The cover for the unforeseen repairs also includes the replacement parts, labor charges for the mtu engineer and travel costs for the call-out. This client also has the engine checked over once a year by an mtu service engineer. “I actually only see the mtu engineers once a year for the annual checkup,” relates the captain. He does the rest of the maintenance work himself, having even attended an mtu engine maintenance course at the mtu Training Center in Friedrichshafen.

“Nevertheless, it is reassuring to know that someone from mtu will immediately come to my assistance if there is ever a problem,” the captain explains. After all, nothing is more annoying than having your precious leisure time interrupted by repairs. The EPC package can be customized according to the client and operating profile. It lasts for three years or a specified maximum number of engine hours. The mtu engines in this yacht run for about 120 hours a year. “That is relatively long for a yacht in this power class,” recounts Paolini. On most yachts, the engines are in use for about 70 to 80 hours a year.

Das berühmte Casino von Sanremo lädt zur Ablenkung auf dem Festland ein.
Gut versteckt zwischen vielen kleinen Yachten oder ganz am Ende des Hafens, weitab von Fußgängern, liegen häufig die großen Yachten reicher Besitzer. So behalten sie ihre Privatsphäre.
29 Meter lang ist die Serien-Yacht aus dem Hause Posillipo Rizzardi. Zwei mtu-Motoren der Baureihe 2000 beschleunigen sie auf bis zu 29 Knoten pro Stunde.

Personalized trimmings not for everyone
Dark rain clouds are gathering over the marina near Sanremo – it is still winter in Italy, after all. So Paolini takes a quick look in the engine room of the 29-meter yacht with the captain before departing. “All systems OK” reads the message on the display of the Callosum automation system. The engines gleam in their standard silver-painted livery. Asked if the owner might not have preferred a more exotic color or maybe even chrome-plated cylinder head covers, the captain just laughs: “Whims and fancies like that are not important to us. What counts is that the engines work properly!”

The content of the stories reflects the status as of the respective date of publication. They are not updated. Further developments are therefore not taken into account.

Point of contact

Christian Paolini
Phone:
+39 0187 9526 20
E-mail:

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