Azimut is an Italian yacht-manufacturing company based in Avigliana

Avigliana

Avigliana is a town and comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, with c. 11,000 inhabitants, located about 25 km west of Turin. Avigliana lies in the Susa valley, on the highway going from Turin to Frejus ....

, in the province of Turin

Province of Turin

The Province of Turin is a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Turin.It has an area of 6,830 km², and a total population of 2,277,686 . There are 315 comuni in the province – the most of any province in Italy...

. It was established in 1969 by Paolo Vitelli

Paolo Vitelli

Paolo Vitelli is an Italian entrepreneur, the owner of the motor yacht makers Azimut-Benetti. Up to September 2007, the company built yachts worth a total 800 million euros....

.

The company started with sailing boat chartering, later developing into a large luxury yacht building industry. The first major work started with a contract at the ship-yard of Amerglass, a modern Dutch shipyard producing boats in fibreglass. The business developed quickly, adding the distribution of sailing boats, motorcruisers and finally motoryachts from different makers: British Powles, Westerly, and others.

The company currently owns Benetti

Benetti

Benetti is an Italian shipbuilding and Boat building company based in Viareggio, Livorno and Fano, owned by Azimut.Benetti designs and constructs motoryachts, and is one of the leading builders of custom superyachts, having won the Showboats International magazine "shipyard number 1" award six...

, another luxury ship building company.

Yacht range

The company has a range of yachts between 39 feet and 116 feet. Their largest,the Azimut 116, can accommodate 12 people in 6 cabins.

Ship building

The headquarters site houses is a 100,000 square meter facility of offices and the factory, which can build 300 boats (of up to 68 feet (20.7 m) LOA) per year. Larger yachts are ordered from other, larger ship-yards in the world.