ISA Yachts

From the Rodriguez Group to Palumbo Superyachts

ISA Yachts was founded in 2001 in Ancona, on Italy's Adriatic coast, launched by the Rodriguez group with a focus on custom and semi-custom motor yachts built in steel and aluminium. The Palumbo Group, an Italian shipbuilding and ship-repair group with a long history in commercial and naval vessels, acquired ISA in 2016 and folded it into Palumbo Superyachts, the group's dedicated yacht-building division alongside sister brands Columbus Yachts, Mondomarine and Extra Yachts.

That parentage gives ISA access to a production facility spanning more than 53,000 square metres in Ancona, shared infrastructure that supports both new construction and refit work across steel and aluminium hulls of a wide size range. It is a different model from the family-owned single-yard builders elsewhere in this directory - ISA's technical strength comes from being one brand inside a larger industrial shipbuilding group, rather than a standalone atelier.

Model Families: Sportivo, Gran Turismo, Classic and Timeless

ISA's current range runs across several distinct model families rather than one continuous line. Sportivo and Gran Turismo cover sportier, faster profiles at various sizes, including the Super Sportivo 100 GTO at the smaller end of the range. The Gran Turismo family now extends to the new 67 metre flagship, Sea Raider X, the largest yacht the yard has built. Separately, ISA has developed the Timeless line, a semi-custom platform spanning 42 to 82 metres unveiled in collaboration with designer Luca Dini, and the Unica line in steel, aimed at owners who want a faster route to a full-custom-feeling yacht than a ground-up bespoke commission.

This spread of families - full custom, semi-custom and faster production-adjacent models - reflects a yard trying to compete across most of the large-yacht market rather than specialising narrowly, which is also the more common strategy among the larger Italian groups than among the smaller, single-focus custom yards.