Italiano
It started from the port of Naples as a shipbuilding yard. It started 45 years ago on the conquest of the market for ship repairs. After a long, obstinate and difficult effort, it has managed to conquer the Mediterranean, acquiring a shipyard in Messina and two others in Malta: thus, it has created a real assistence network for shipowners whose vessels cross the seas between Europe and Africa. Palumbo Spa is one of Naples’ excellences, which works hard and constructs the present by looking, every day, to the future, and which has been able to meld its employees into a compact workforce, now numbering some three hundred with more than a thousand in induced activities.[charme-gallery]
The evolution of the Palumbo shipyard, rewarded as enterprice of excellence by the President George Napolitano, happened in naval repairs, a sector where it has a very high standard of competence and experience, but thanks to the determination and intuition its two young leaders, Raffaele and Giuseppe (the latter now managing director), and even before thanks to the dedication, resolve and great capabilities of their father, Antonio, in the last few years, Palumbo Spa has managed, to diversify its activity within the core business, with the object of its know-how, ships, as a fixed reference point. In the shortest of times it has established itself, in half the world, in the construction of mega-yachts. Those of extra luxury. Those which only magnates can allow themselves. Ships of various tens of metres costing millions of Euro. Embarcations which few shipyards in the world are able to build with precision, reliability, taste and style.[charme-gallery]
In June 2011, Palumbo started work on “Prima”, its first super-yacht of the Columbus Yacht brand, built entirely in the Naples shipyard, a port which had never previously given birth to such a large and luxurious vessel. A Russian magnate bought it and has turned it into his precious, personal floating villa. A 54 metre vessel which, most appreciated by Juan Carlos Rey of Spain and Prince Albert of Monaco at the Boat show in Monaco, soon entered into the aristocracy of the international marine, even meriting a special mention, in 2012, at the World Superyacht Awards, the Oscars of the sector, and it gains the Rina’s Green Star Plus . From that moment, thanks to the incredible quality of its product, Palumbo immediately recieved other orders. Now under construction are the 40-metre Columbus Sport Hybrid, with a hybrid engine (consigned before the end of 2013) and a 55-metre and a 65-metre yacht, both of the Columbus Classic collection. All three are gigantic super luxury villas of the sea, personalised for the tastes of sheiks, industrialists, oilmen, heads of state and financial magnates. It is useless to try find out their names or some other curiosity: client privacy is an impregnable dogma.[charme-gallery]
At Palumbo, in the offices at Calata Marinella in the port of Naples, they continue to think on a large scale. In fact, a project for what shall be the flagship of the Columbus line is almost ready: a true palace 100 metres in length which shall ride the waves at a cruising speed of 20 knots. And that’s not all: recently, Palumbo has opened another line of business: fast crew vessels, that is, fast ships of 30 to 60 metres which transport crews, especially to and from offshore oil platforms. So, despite the economic crisis and the natural human envy that success provokes, development hasn’t come to a halt at Palumbo.
Palumbo spa
T: +39 081 200 227
www.columbusyachts.it
E: columbus.yacht@palumbo.it
