Pirelli's New 44 Matches Its Bigger Sibling's Top-End Power

How does the Pirelli 44 compare with the bigger Pirelli 47?

Specified with its triple-outboard option, the Pirelli 44 reaches the same 1,275hp maximum as the 47 despite running 1.25 metres shorter overall, which puts full power within reach of owners whose garage volume cannot take the bigger boat.

Sacs Tecnorib, the Pirelli brand's licensed builder, offers the 44 in three configurations: three Mercury Verado V10 outboards at 425hp each for 1,275hp combined, a twin-V10 version at 850hp, or a twin-V12 version using 600hp units for 1,200hp. The hull is a double-step design from the Mannerfelt Design Team, the naval architecture studio behind winning offshore-racing hulls, and it debuted on the Sacs Tecnorib stand at the Cannes Yachting Festival on 7 September. It is the second model in the Pirelli-branded range since the 47 arrived in 2025, and the fourth Pirelli-badged tender Sacs has launched in as many years counting the smaller X430.

The 47 measures 14.75 metres with a 4.58-metre beam and tops out at the same 1,275hp the 44 now offers as its highest tier, which means the smaller hull is not a detuned version of the bigger one; it is the same top-end power in a footprint that fits more yacht garages. Every Pirelli tender in the range is built with reduced hull height specifically so it clears a garage door, according to the builder's own positioning of the line, and the 44 continues that design brief rather than treating garage fit as an afterthought. For an owner who has already specified a garage sized for a 40-something-foot tender, that makes the 44 the boat that can carry the 47's power without forcing a garage redesign.

Why does a boat carry a tyre company's name and tread pattern?

Pirelli does not build boats; it licenses its name and design language to Sacs Tecnorib, and the 44 continues a partnership that began in 2005 and has since delivered more than 1,000 boats to owners across over 30 nationalities.

The arrangement dates to a 2005 meeting between Tecnorib and Pirelli, and by Pirelli's own account it has since produced more than 1,000 Pirelli-branded boats for owners in Florida, Australia, Italy and across Europe, generating more than EUR 20 million in annual turnover in each of the last two financial years. The companies marked the 20th anniversary in 2025 with an exhibition at Pirelli's own headquarters, Villa Bicocca degli Arcimboldi in Milan, tracing two decades of the collaboration rather than treating it as a one-off badging deal. That history matters to a buyer weighing the 44 against an unbranded maxi-RIB: this is a licensing relationship with two decades of continuity behind it, not a single co-branded model that could disappear at the next model-year refresh.

The branding itself goes beyond a logo on the transom. The tube carries a reproduction of Pirelli's Cinturato Blue Full Wet tread pattern, the wet-weather tyre compound used in Formula 1, repeated again on the seat cushions rather than confined to the hull graphics. The hardtop is integrated into the deckhouse for a single continuous profile, and the boat carries a full-size windscreen with a wiper, a feature more associated with a small cruiser than a RIB this size. Aft, a dinette converts to a berth and the boat carries a separate enclosed bathroom, both features aimed at a full day, not an afternoon, on the water.

What does an owner get for the money, and what is still unknown?

The 44 is specified for a full day aboard rather than a quick tender run between the yacht and the beach club, but Sacs Tecnorib has not disclosed a price, a confirmed top speed for this specific hull, or a delivery timeline for the first buyer.

Beyond the bathroom and convertible berth, the 44 carries sunpads at bow and stern, a shading system rather than a fixed hardtop alone, and the double-step hull that Mannerfelt's studio built its offshore-racing reputation on, which is intended to hold a flatter running attitude at speed than a single-step or flat-bottomed RIB of comparable length. None of that is unusual for a Pirelli-branded boat; the range has always been positioned above a stripped-out chase boat, closer to a compact day cruiser that happens to have inflatable tubes instead of topsides.

What is missing from every report of the launch, including the builder's own material, is a price, an official top speed for the 44 itself, and a stated delivery window. Trade press has noted that comparable Sacs Tecnorib hulls have reached roughly 40 knots, but that figure is drawn from sister models, not a trial of this specific boat, which debuted on a show stand days before this was written. No independent sea trial, owner review or third-party test has been published, which is normal for a boat that is days old rather than a shortcoming specific to Sacs Tecnorib; a buyer serious about the 44 is, for now, buying on the strength of the 47's track record and the builder's twenty-year history rather than on any data specific to this hull.

Where does the Pirelli 44 fit in the wider tender market?

Pirelli-branded boats now span roughly 9 to 18.5 metres, and the 44 fills the gap just under the 47 at a moment when several builders are racing to fill the same yacht-garage-friendly niche.

Sacs Tecnorib's Pirelli range now runs from smaller day boats up to the 47, covering superyacht tenders, chase boats and performance dayboats across roughly 9 to 18.5 metres by outside trade accounts of the lineup. The X430, a smaller Pirelli-badged model that arrived in February 2025, was itself designed with input from a superyacht designer rather than a pure powerboat studio, part of a broader pattern of the range borrowing design language from the yachts it is built to serve rather than from the powerboat-racing world alone. The 44 slots into that ladder as the model just below the 47, rather than as a replacement for it.

The commercial logic for an owner is straightforward: a yacht typically carries a garage sized for one primary tender, and a boat that combines the 47's top-end power with a shorter, garage-friendlier hull lets that single tender do the work that might otherwise need two boats, a fast chase boat and a separate calmer day tender. Whether the 44 actually delivers on that in practice will depend on figures nobody has published yet: its real-world top speed, its price relative to the 47, and how it handles loaded with the bathroom, berth and full complement of guests its brochure describes. Those are the numbers an owner's captain would want before specifying one over the 47 already on the market.