Baia Yachts for Sale

Baia began in 1961 as Mericraft, a Naples workshop making small wooden day cruisers, and moved in 1968 to the town of Baia on the gulf, a Roman naval base in its first life. The Capasso family arrived as customers in 1971 and ended up owning the yard after a strike the following year, renaming it Cantieri di Baia. What the yard became known for was speed: it was an early adopter of composite construction, it built in carbon and Kevlar when few production yards did, and it drew its hulls around Arneson surface drives. Don Aronow shaped the B50 hull in 1983 and one of them won Venice to Monte Carlo in 1990. The Aqua, Panther, Azzurra, Atlantica, Italia and One Hundred are the names you meet on the brokerage market.

The company failed. The Naples court declared it bankrupt after a December 2015 ruling, and the brand now trades as Cantieri di Baia Srl out of Pisa, with work reported at Pisa and Viareggio. Treat that as two different companies when you are buying: no warranty from the original yard survives, and the current holder of the name is not obliged to stand behind a boat built in Naples fifteen years ago, though it is the obvious first call for the molds and the drawings. Everything else about a used Baia comes down to the propulsion. Surface drives are fast and efficient and want a yard that understands them, so before you commit, find out who in South Florida will service the drives and the trim system on the specific boat. Expect European specification throughout, 230 or 400 volt at 50 hertz, a CE plate, MAN or MTU engines that Florida yards do handle well, and confirm that United States duty was paid on import. These are exciting boats bought for how they go, and they cost what fast boats cost to keep.