Benetti called the Motopanfilo a revival, and on Dawo you can see exactly what was being revived. The proportions are those of a 1960s Italian motor yacht — low, long, unhurried, with a wraparound windscreen and a superstructure that steps back rather than piles up. What sits underneath is entirely current. She was delivered in January 2025 and this is her first charter season, which means the finishes are new, the systems are under warranty, and nothing on board has been asked to do a hundred weeks yet.
The design decision that matters most is at the bow. On most 37-metre yachts the whirlpool goes on the sundeck, where it is furthest from the water and closest to the mast. Dawo puts hers flush into the foredeck, in a teak surround, with a broad sunpad set behind it and shade sails on slim black poles overhead. The jets run. It is the most private space on the yacht — forward of the wheelhouse, out of sight of the aft deck and the tender — and it changes how the day is spent, because the bow stops being somewhere you walk past.
The sundeck is given over to something else again: a compact open-air gym station stands rigged beside a single sun lounger, out in the open with the rail and the sea immediately behind it. It is a small thing that says something about how the yacht is meant to be used. Nobody built a windowless gym below deck. They put the weights where the view is.
Inside, Lazzarini Pickering worked in pale oak, cream and a narrow palette of blues, with slatted timber running as a motif from the headboard walls to the saloon joinery. The main deck reads as one continuous space but is handled as three: a saloon aft with a deep sectional under a curved, lit ceiling frame; a dining table forward, set for eight in white lacquer against the window line; and a wheelhouse beyond. Light comes in from both sides at seated height, which is the difference between a yacht interior and a room with a view.
Above, the upper saloon is the quieter room — two facing sofas, a television, a guitar left against the wall, and glass on both sides. It is the space guests drift to after lunch, and its position means the aft deck below can be laid for dinner without anyone being moved on.
Accommodation runs to five cabins for eleven. The master sits forward on the main deck, full-beam, with the window band at bed height, an armchair and low table to one side and a dressing run opposite. The four below are finished to the same standard rather than a lesser one: pale oak, slatted panels, a window in each. Seven crew serve them.
Dawo cruises at twelve knots with 3,800 nautical miles of range and holds 297 gross tonnes on 36.9 metres, which is generous for the length and shows in the deck spaces rather than the corridors. The shade sails on the foredeck and the aft awnings strike down flat for a passage, so the profile that makes her look like a 1960s Riva tender at anchor is the same one she runs with. She charters the Croatian islands and the eastern Adriatic.
