Tankoa launched 72-metre Solo (S701) Thursday morning from its floating dock on a sweltering day in Genoa with temperatures topping 35°C. The yacht will remain at the shipyard to complete her fitting out in time for her official presentation at the Monaco Yacht Show in September. Final delivery is expected in mid-November.
Photo: Tankoa YachtDesigned inside and out by Francesco Paszkowski, Solo began life almost ten years ago as a sister ship to 69-metre Suerte. The building of both projects began shortly after the shipyard was founded by an experienced group of former Baglietto executives. 
Photo: Tankoa YachtSadly, the projects foundered with the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, but as an independently financed company, Tankoa could afford to bide its time. The management approached yachting consultant Michel Karsenti, now sales director for the shipyard, who recommended that Paszkowski revisit the exterior styling and interior layouts to bring the projects up to date. The strategy worked and the two yachts were sold, S701 in 2016.
Photo: Tankoa YachtAlthough the two yachts bear obvious stylistic similarities, Solo is three metres longer than Suerte and has a larger volume at 1,600-plus gross tons. Designed with charter in mind, her general arrangement was also modified by adding a bigger beach club and winter garden, glass cutouts in the bulwarks, a fully private owner’s deck, a helipad on the foredeck, a 6-metre transverse swimming pool on the main deck aft and an oversized panoramic salon the upper deck.
Photo: Tankoa Yacht“As our largest build and third launch after Suerte and 50-metre Vertige, Solo represents a significant milestone for the shipyard and its future,” says Michel Karsenti. “We see ourselves as an alternative between the typical Italian superyacht brands and northern European shipyards building to very high-quality specifications. We are above the average price of our Italian competitors, but you also have to consider that Solo’s technical specifications include a paperless integrated bridge, underwater exhaust and soot burners, catalytic converters for the main engines, and four zero-speed stabiliser fins with two independent hydraulic groups for redundancy. These were not special requests, but our standard specs. It can take years to get a client to commit, but it only takes one failure or wrong move to lose that client forever.”
Photo: Tankoa YachtIn the case of Solo, the client is the same owner of Suerte, and according to Karsenti it is likely that his latest acquisition is only a stepping stone to building a larger project with Tankoa, possibly the 80-metre ‘Silver Wings’ project by Francesco Paszkowski. 
Photo: Tankoa Yacht“The owner is very successful entrepreneur and workaholic in his early 50s who loves to bring new ideas to projects, but has very little time to use his yachts,” says Karsenti. “He really enjoys the connection with the designers, engineers and naval architects during the design and construction process. Once the boat is in the water he may spend a couple of weeks on board, but then he wants to market it, sell it and build bigger. That’s what excites him.”