ISA's Amarcord 86 Bets a Second Design on an Unsold Platform

What is ISA's Large Yacht Collection, and why does it matter to a buyer?

It is a new design platform from Palumbo Superyachts, ISA's parent, aimed at superyachts between 80 and 90 metres: a pre-engineered technical base that a client can dress in a fully custom exterior and interior, intended to shave years off the timeline of a from-scratch large build.

Palumbo Superyachts announced the ISA Large Yacht Collection on 30 July 2026, describing it as the natural next step after three large ISA yachts already under construction - ISA Custom 80, ISA Gran Turismo 80 and ISA Gran Turismo 100 - and the experience gained building the Columbus Classic 80-metre Dragon. Giuseppe Palumbo, Sole Director of Palumbo Superyachts, framed the pitch around his clients rather than the hardware: every owner envisions a yacht differently, he said, and the new platform exists to turn that vision into reality without compromise, by pairing full customisation with the strength of a technical base the yard has already engineered once.

What the platform actually sells is a division of labour. The naval architecture, structural engineering and major systems are solved once and reused, while the designer of record - so far Nuvolari Lenard on both projects - is free to change the hull's character, the deck arrangement and the interior brief from client to client. That is the standard logic of a semi-custom platform at smaller sizes, applied for the first time by ISA at 80 metres and up, where a fully bespoke yard typically needs several years just to finish naval architecture and class approval before steel is cut.

What is Amarcord 86, and how does it differ from the first Amarcord 82?

Amarcord 86 is the platform's second interpretation - 86 metres long with a 13.6-metre beam, built around the idea that each deck carries its own mood through the day - where the debut Amarcord 82 was built around one continuous, open connection to the sea.

Amarcord 86 has a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, accommodation for 12 guests across six en-suite cabins plus a separate staff cabin, and a crew of 20. ISA gives her a top speed of 17 knots and a range of 6,200 nautical miles; no cruising speed at that range has been published. Nuvolari Lenard's brief, per the yard, was to give each deck its own identity rather than a single unifying theme, moving the owner and guests from a direct connection with the sea on one level, to privacy on another, to conviviality and wellbeing on a third.

That is a deliberate contrast with Amarcord 82, the first Large Yacht Collection project revealed a month earlier. The 82-metre yacht is built around a single idea instead: a stern platform that opens onto the sea, connected to the beach club by two fold-down balconies, and a glass-bottomed pool on the main deck that lets light fall straight through into the beach club below. She sleeps 12 guests too, but in five VIP cabins plus a dedicated owner's suite of more than 100 square metres. Two hulls, one design office, one technical platform, two different answers to what an 80-metre-plus owner wants from the same square footage - which is the point of the exercise, not a coincidence.

Who designed Amarcord 86, and what does that name carry?

Nuvolari Lenard, the Italian design house behind both Amarcord projects, is a long-established name in large-yacht styling, and putting it on both hulls in one month is ISA's way of lending an established design signature to a shipyard still building its own reputation at this size.

ISA's own description leans hard on the studio's standing, calling Nuvolari Lenard one of the most respected names in international yacht design and an emblem of Made-in-Italy elegance. For a platform whose central promise is unfamiliar - a proven technical base at a size where ISA has no completed delivery yet - attaching a recognised design signature to both the first and second projects is a way of buying credibility before the credibility can be built by results.

It also lets ISA show range quickly. Two distinct 80-plus-metre briefs from the same office, produced roughly a month apart, is meant to demonstrate that the platform is genuinely reusable rather than a one-off dressed up as a system - the claim the whole collection depends on. Whether a third design, from a different studio, follows is not yet public; so far the range is a Nuvolari Lenard duology.

Does ISA have the delivery record to back the platform's speed claim?

Not yet at this size: Palumbo Superyachts has never delivered an ISA yacht at 80 metres or above, so the platform's proven-technical-base pitch rests on three large yachts still under construction rather than on a finished handover.

The three projects ISA cites as the platform's foundation - ISA Custom 80, ISA Gran Turismo 80 and ISA Gran Turismo 100 - are all still building, and the fourth reference point, the Columbus Classic 80-metre Dragon, was built under ISA's sister brand rather than the ISA name itself. That is a reasonable foundation for engineering knowledge, but it is not the same as a finished 80-metre-plus ISA yacht at sea, which is the evidence a cautious buyer would actually want before betting on a compressed delivery timeline.

The nearest hard evidence of throughput sits well below this size. On 25 August 2026, ISA's Ancona yard launched Fast Naan, the first hull of its 38.8-metre Viper 130 line, lifting her from shed to water at the same Palumbo Superyachts facility that will build the Large Yacht Collection. It is real, recent proof that the yard can move a hull from construction to launch on schedule - just not yet at anywhere near 80 metres, which is the size class the new platform is actually being sold on.

What is not yet public about Amarcord 82 and 86, and what should a buyer ask?

No price, no delivery slot and no signed client have been disclosed for either Amarcord project as of this writing, which means a serious buyer's first questions should be about contractual delivery dates and how much of the platform is genuinely pre-engineered rather than still on paper.

Both Amarcord 82 and Amarcord 86 are, as of late August 2026, design studies rather than sold yachts: available reporting on the launch of the collection and on Amarcord 86 names no owner, no asking price and no build slot for either project. That is normal for a platform one month into its public life, but it also means the headline claim - full customisation on a proven base, delivered faster than a bespoke build - has not yet been tested against a real contract, a real delivery date, or a real owner's punch list.

For an owner actually weighing this against a fully bespoke commission at a Dutch or German yard, the platform pitch only pays off if the shared engineering genuinely removes years from the schedule rather than merely removing them from the marketing copy. The honest way to test that before signing is to ask ISA for a contractual delivery date tied to a specific hull number, and to ask what percentage of the naval architecture and major systems on offer are actually complete today versus still to be engineered once a client is attached - the gap between those two answers is the platform's real track record, not its press release.