It is nine in the morning on the Zattere and Marco Larboard is already arguing with a half-hull model. Elena Vianello watches with the patience of someone who has won this argument before. “He loses to the model every time,” she says. “Then he fixes the drawing, and the model loses. That is the whole studio, really.”
On Venice
“Venice teaches proportion because it punishes mistakes publicly,” Marco says. “A wrong window on the Grand Canal is wrong for five hundred years. When you grow up with that, a wrong sheer line on a yacht feels physically painful.” The studio has never considered leaving. Clients fly in; the tide comes to the door.
On saying no
Asked what they refuse, Elena doesn't hesitate: “Fashion. A yacht takes four years to build and forty to age. If a detail will embarrass us in a decade, it doesn't go on the boat — however much this year's magazines love it.” Marco nods: “Our oldest yachts still look new. That is not an accident; it is a policy.”
On the best compliment
“An owner who sells everything except our yacht,” they answer in unison, then laugh. “It has happened four times. Owners trade up, trade sideways — and keep the Larboard. When that happens we know the boat became theirs, not ours. That is the job.”