Grandissimo

Frisson is the scientific term for a psychophysiological response to an aesthetic stimulus, otherwise known as “chills”. For some, it happens when listening to Andrea Bocelli leave a part of his soul in a verse of Con Te Partiró. For designer Alberto Mancini, that frisson came unexpectedly, as it does, while he sat in the beach club of the Azimut Grande Trideck in Monaco harbour.

“I was invited on board by one of the owners,” the Italian yacht designer says, “and I was looking around at other similar-sized yachts and they were 20 or 30 years behind the Azimut with their design. Honestly, it gave me chills.”

The latest boat to derive from the builder’s constant innovation is the 38-metre flagship of Azimut’s Grande line, and the brand’s first tri-deck yacht. It’s a superyacht, yes, but still a fast boat as Azimuts are meant to be. Naval architect Pierluigi Ausonio designed the yacht’s D2P (displacement-to-planing) hull. The bottom has three major features that make it special: a double chine that increases stability at slow speeds and reduces drag at higher ones;