LA GIOCONDA answers a specific brief: an Italian planing yacht that moves fast, sits close to the coast and still carries the polish of a full charter yacht across her five cabins. Built by Maiora in 2009 and given a complete restyling in 2021, she pairs the sport lines that made the yard name with interiors that now read light, current and calm. She is a yacht for guests who want the Mediterranean at pace, not at anchor for a week in a single bay.
Speed is the headline. Her planing hull lifts her toward a top end near 46 knots, which changes what a charter week looks like. Sardinia to Corsica becomes an afternoon rather than an overnight passage, and a lunch anchorage two headlands away is never out of reach. A draft of just 1.4 metres opens the shallow bays that deeper yachts have to admire from the channel, so the itinerary bends toward the water rather than the marina. Days can be planned loosely, because getting from one to the next costs so little time.
Life on board is organised around the outside. The sun deck runs a line of loungers in the open air and carries a full size barbecue, set up for long lunches and slow evenings under the Riviera light. One deck down, the aft deck frames a shaded dining table that seats the full guest complement, with a lounge that flows straight off the main saloon through full height glass. A broad swim platform at the transom puts the sea within a step, the natural gathering point for a day spent between deck and water. The result is a yacht you live across, from foredeck to transom, rather than one room at a time.
Inside, the 2021 restyling shows its hand. The main saloon runs bright and uncluttered, pale sofas and warm wood balanced against wide windows that keep the sea in view from every seat. Forward, a formal dining area works in marble and mirror for the evenings that call for it. A separate sitting room offers a quieter corner for coffee, a book or a film, glassed so the anchorage stays part of the room. Nothing is heavy or dated, the mark of a considered refit rather than a patch.
Accommodation sleeps up to eleven guests across five cabins. The master takes the prime position with generous natural light and a calm palette of oak and soft blue, and is joined by double and twin cabins finished in the same composed style. A bunk arrangement makes her genuinely workable for families, adding a berth for a younger guest without borrowing from the adult cabins. A crew of six runs the yacht quietly, with service pitched to feel present when wanted and unseen when not.
She cruises the western Mediterranean through the season, at home between the South of France, the Italian coast, Corsica and Sardinia in summer and staying in the same warm waters through the shoulder months. For a group that wants pace, coastal access and an Italian sense of style without the scale of a larger displacement yacht, LA GIOCONDA is a precise, well judged choice.
