Sail Away

Wally yachts have been making waves in the Mediterranean for over two decades now. As the Monaco based boat maker launches their latest yacht, Tango, finds out what steers them—on, and offshore

- Pallavi Pundir

The word on the street, or seas, is that, to be able to sail a Wally, you need to stick to one rule: “You’ve got to be on top of your game,” says Luca Bassani Antivari, his voice soaring almost dramatically over the phone, all the way from Monaco. It’s just noon there, and the sexagenarian owner and president of Wally makes this and other theatrical pronouncements as if he’s been delivering them for decades. And perhaps he has. Wallys, over time, have come to represent an ethos of innovation and performance that its regatta-frequenting patrons often bask in the reflected grandeur of. “The perfect Wally client is successful—which is why they can buy the boat—and courageous. They are not people who follow the crowd; they stay ahead of everyone else,” says Antivari, adding, “And the Wallys reflect that; they are always ahead of the fleet.”