CRANCHI ZAFFIRO 34

Cranchi is not shy when it comes to expressing the romantic side of things. "Builders of Yachts, Creators of Beauty" purrs its website, as if dripping honey.

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Scroll down a bit further and you're invited to "Treat Yourself to Endless Emotions". Well such may be the way with Italian boat builders but, as any boat owner will testify, boats really are things of beauty - and Cranchi ought to know that better than most, because it's been building boats for nearly 160 years.

The Cranchi story goes all the way back to 1866, when Giovanni Cranchi began a modest boat-building enterprise on the shores of Lake Como. As later generations of the family moved in, production was ramped up to the point where, in 1932, the mass production of wooden boats began in new premises in the town of Brienno on the southwestern arm of the lake. Today, Cranchi builds its fleet in even larger, albeit less romantic, premises near a busy motorway intersection in nearby Piantedo - and its range of boats really is astonishingly broad.