Wally

The marque that rewrote the rules

Wally began in Monaco in 1994, when Luca Bassani decided that owning a maxi sailing yacht should not require a professional crew of twenty. His answer was a series of carbon sloops with hydraulic sail handling, clean flush decks and a level of automation the sailing world had never seen. A maxi you could sail with a handful of people, push-button loads, no clutter. The boats looked like nothing else on the water, and thirty years later they still set the visual grammar for modern performance yachts.

The company motto, twenty years ahead, was earned early. Wally pioneered large-format carbon construction in cruising yachts, popularised the vertical bow and the teak flush deck, and introduced the fold-down bulwark terrace that the whole industry later adopted. Form follows function is the stated philosophy, and it reads in every hull. Nothing decorative, everything load-bearing, and a silhouette you can identify from a mile off. Few builders own an aesthetic this completely.

Icons on both sides of the divide

The back catalogue explains the mystique. Sailing icons such as Tiketitan, Esense and the 50 metre Better Place made Wally the default choice for owners who wanted grand prix performance with genuine cruising comfort. The wallycento class put the brand at the front of the Mediterranean maxi circuit, where Wallys still race each other in a dedicated class at the great regattas. Owning one buys entry into that world, a fleet that gathers at Porto Cervo and Saint-Tropez every season.

Then there is the 118 wallypower, the 2003 gas-turbine flagship that could run at 60 knots and ended up in museum collections and on film. It proved the design language worked under power, and it seeded everything the brand builds today with an engine. Very few yards have produced a genuine icon. Wally has produced several, under sail and under power, and the residual strength of the name reflects that.

The Ferretti Group era

In 2019 Wally became part of Ferretti Group, which gave the brand what it had always lacked, industrial depth. Composite production now runs through the group facilities in Forli and the superyacht yard in Ancona, with the historic Monaco office still in place and Bassani still involved in design. The result is a rare combination, radical design signed off by a founder, engineered and delivered by one of the largest yacht groups in the world.

The partnership shows in the output. Since the acquisition Wally has launched the wallytender and wallypower day boats, the wallywhy volume cruisers developed with Laurent Giles naval architecture and Vallicelli interiors, the wallywind bluewater sloops drawn with judel/vrolijk, and the wallyrocket racers engineered with Botin Partners. Every project pairs a first-rank external specialist with group engineering, which is exactly how a low-volume avant-garde brand stays reliable.

What the range means for an owner

Today the fleet splits into four clear families. The wallytender and wallypower lines are fast, deep-V day boats and chase boats, most now offered with outboard X versions. The wallywhy motor yachts trade on gross tonnage, delivering the volume of much larger yachts inside compact, glazed hulls. The wallywind sloops are carbon bluewater cruisers with real regatta pace, and the wallyrocket line is pure racing. At the entry point sits the wallynano37, a licensed modern-classic daysailer. One design language covers all of it.

That coherence is the asset. A Wally signals the same taste whether it is a 13 metre tender behind a mothership or a 45 metre sloop crossing an ocean, and the brand's discipline protects value, because the boats do not date. For an owner, the practical promise is simple. Radical looks backed by group-scale engineering, a strong charter and resale following, and a racing scene that turns ownership into a sport if you want it to be one.