The Benetti story is a dramatic one, a story in which the fortunes of a family and of a shipbuilding tradition are closely entwined. Everything started with Lorenzo Benetti, a shipyard worker turned yard owner, who founded the yard bearing his family name in 1874; for the next forty years he directed the shipyard which rapidly gained reputation far beyond the confines of Tuscany. After the death of the patriarch Lorenzo, his two sons Gino and Emilio, continued their father's life's work, renaming the shipyard Fratelli Benetti. In the inter-wars years the yard contuinued to build wooden sailing ships for coastal trading as well as larger ships employed in trans-oceanic trade. The Benetti shipyard's name gained recognition outside the waters of the Mediterranean sea, and with this recognition the first contracts for yachts began to arrive.
In the early 1980's the management of the Benetti family began to falter and by 1985, a new player appeared upon the scene, Azimut SpA, the Turin based yacht building company which took over the yard's management and control. This change brought about the rebirth of the yard's fame and fortune all over the world.

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