With the celebration of the 90th birthday of the “Pioneer of the Boating Industry”, Mr Carlo Riva, starts a year featuring a long period of important events for Riva, a brand of the Ferretti Group. The celebrations will culminate with the 50th anniversary of the Aquarama yacht tender and the 170th anniversary of the brand.

Aquarama yacht tender by Riva

Everything was ready in Sarnico to celebrate Carlo Riva, the globally renowned and esteemed entrepreneur whose unique ingenuity has left an indelible mark in the history of pleasure boating and who, over the years, was capable of turning the Riva brand and the Sarnico boatyard (which have been part of the Ferretti Group since the year 2000) into a reference for the entire Italian and global boating sector.

“I have always cruised towards Riva as one would cruise towards a longed-for horizon, and I have always considered Carlo Riva as a master I owe a lot to, from both a professional and a personal standpoint. This is why I am delighted to be able to give him my best wishes for this extraordinary moment in his outstanding life,” says Ferretti Group’s Chairman Norberto Ferretti.

Carlo Riva was born in 1922, he is an engineer and was appointed “Pionere della Nautica” by UCINA (the Italian Marine Industry Association) in 1988 and “Personnalité de la Mer” by Albert II of Monaco in 2005; on 24th February, he blew out 90 candles.

Born into a family of yacht builders, he had an immense passion for boats and boat building since his early years and was then the Master who, in the 1950s, turned this brand into a synonym of style, status and perfection, also thanks to models like Ariston and Tritone, Sebino and Florida, all the way to the Aquarama yacht, which was launched in 1962. All crafts which have made Riva a symbol of Made in Italy creations all over the world and were the object of desire for noble people, actors, sports champions, businessmen and celebrities. Among them, it is enought to mention Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot and Liz Taylor, Sean Connery and Jean Paul Belmondo, Richard Burton and Jackie Stewart. But there were also royalties, princes and sheikhs from all over the world.

The Aquarama yacht tender, whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated this year, embodied the triumph of Carlo Riva’s production philosophy, becoming the symbol of the shipyard and of the Riva brand everywhere in the world.