About Riva shipyard
Riva is a legendary Italian shipyard, one of the oldest in the world, was founded in 1842 on Lake d’Iseo, where they started with building and repairing river boats. The shipyard, which has been run by generations of the same Riva family, has tried different niches and kept expanding all the time. By the end of 19th century, they built commercial and passenger vessel and yachts, and in the first half of 20th century there appeared performance boats for motorboat racing, which won a lot of awards. After World War II the founder’s great-grandson, Carlo Riva, decided to manufacture ‘gentlemen’s boats’ similar to Chris-Craft boats that were popular in America at the time. Thus, in the 1950s Riva brand got its world fame. Elegant boats of shining mahogany became an indispensable attribute of aristocrats, millionaires and film stars’ ‘dolce vita’. At the end of 1960s Carlo Riva sold the company to Americans, and after a number of resales Riva yachts switched to GRP, grew in size and didn’t resemble ‘gentlemen’s boats’ any more. However, in late 1990s Italian Ferretti Group bought the brand. Together with their new designer Mauro Micheli, they restored the brand’s former glory.
Highlights
Today Riva shipyard in La Spezia with its Superyachts Division is capable of building large superyachts. There is also serial production of midsize flybridge and sportsbridge models. As a tribute to Riva’s historical heritage the shipyard goes on building small open yachts and cruisers – no longer of wood, but of fiberglass, and in the same ‘gentleman’s boat’ style. Almost all of them get the status of ‘cult boats’ immediately.
Achievements
Riva is considered to be the inventor of a sportsbridge: a small sporty flybridge, which was first seen on their 56 Sportriva model. Starting from 1950s and up to present Riva models have been the unrivalled example of design and a collectible. All in all, Riva yachts feature in about forty movies, including «Some Like It Hot», «Nikita» and «Men in Black».
