RIVA I was the first hull of Benetti’s Classic 120, the series that went on to run to twenty yachts, and being first shows in the best way: she was drawn without the compromises that creep in when a platform gets optimised. Delivered in 2006 at 36.6 metres and refitted in 2023, she carries six cabins where most of her size carry four or five, and takes twelve guests without anyone sleeping in a compromise.
Her interior is the strongest argument for chartering a yacht of this generation. Deep cherry joinery runs everywhere, hand-laid and mirror-finished, with coffered deckheads, fluted columns and inlaid panelling that a modern build simply would not cost out. Against it, the furniture is deliberately pale: cream bouclé sofas, sculptural white armchairs, oatmeal carpet. The contrast keeps the wood from closing the rooms in, and the effect is warm rather than heavy.
The main salon runs almost the full beam with seating groups at both ends and windows down both sides. Forward, the formal dining room seats eight around a pale oak pedestal table, with colourful framed prints on the bulkhead and glazing to the side decks. A deck up, the upper salon is the room that sells her: cream sofas facing each other across a low table, bookcases built into the forward bulkhead, curtained glass doors opening aft to a shaded deck. It converts, which is how the six-cabin arrangement flexes to twelve.
The master sits on the main deck with a king berth against a padded leather headboard, a seating area to one side, and a bathroom in cream marble with a whirlpool tub, a separate shower and twin basins. Below, doubles and a twin share the same cherry panelling and the same standard of finish, each with its own marble ensuite.
Outside she is set up for a Greek summer. The sundeck carries a jacuzzi in a raised teak surround with a curved settee wrapped around it and loungers running aft. The upper deck aft is the social floor: a dining table with directors chairs, sunpads in petrol blue, potted olive trees and a bar. Below that, the main aft deck opens off the salon under a moulded overhang with a second dining table.
Her toy inventory has been rebuilt recently and is genuinely deep. A Highfield Patrol 660 tender, a Seadoo RXT-X 300 and a Spark Trixx, four Seabob F9s on 2026 batteries, a Waydoo efoil with two sets of wings, a Flitescooter, two paddleboards, water skis and wakeboards for adults and children, towables, an inflatable swim platform and a water slide off the side deck. A second efoil, an electric surfboard, diving scooters and junior kneeboards come on request.
Eight crew look after twelve guests. Zero-speed stabilisers hold her steady at anchor as well as underway, and her fuel burn is modest for the volume. She works the eastern Mediterranean and the Adriatic across both seasons, which means Greece, Montenegro and the Croatian islands without a repositioning leg in the middle of a charter.
At 299 gross tonnes she carries more usable volume than her length suggests, and the six-cabin layout is the practical expression of it. For two families travelling together, or a group that would rather not draw lots for the good cabin, she solves a problem most 36-metre yachts leave unsolved.
