Riva's 96' Argo Super Wins Best Layout, Built Around a Moved Day Head

What award did the Riva 96' Argo Super win?

She took Best Layout in the 80-98ft (24-30m) class at the World Yachts Trophies 2026, the prize run by SG Publications that closes the Cannes Yachting Festival each year, awarded on 12 September alongside four other Ferretti Group models.

The World Yachts Trophies ceremony ran on the Croisette on 12 September 2026, three days into the Cannes Yachting Festival, and Ferretti Group left with five awards: the Riva 56' Rivale Super, the Riva 96' Argo Super, the Riva 54 Metri, the Ferretti Yachts 720 and the Custom Line Navetta 35 all took a class win. The Argo Super's award was specifically for layout, a category the trophies judge separately from performance or design overall, and it covers boats between 24 and 30 metres, a bracket with genuine competition from Sunseeker, Princess and Azimut in the same size range. Riva confirmed the model's own launch on 20 July 2026 at the yard's La Spezia facility, where Ferretti Group builds every model between 70 and 130 feet, with Ferretti Group Chief Executive Officer Stassi Anastassov and the Officina Italiana Design team attending in person.

The 96' Argo Super is a direct evolution of the Riva 90' Argo, one of the yard's best-selling flybridge models, rather than a new platform, and the award result is specifically for what changed between the two rather than for the 90's existing reputation. Anastassov framed the model at launch as continuity rather than reinvention: "History does not make a brand iconic. The courage to reinvent it, generation after generation, does," he said, tying a 96-foot flybridge boat to a brand whose written history runs past 180 years. For a buyer already familiar with the 90' Argo, the award is the first independent signal that the changes Riva made for the 96 were real improvements rather than a routine size increase.

What did Riva change in the Argo Super's layout to win the award?

Riva moved the day head from the lower deck to the main deck, and the space that freed up below became a full-beam VIP cabin aft comparable in size to a second master suite, the specific change Riva's own release credits for the new three-cabin standard layout.

On the 90' Argo the day head sat on the lower deck alongside the guest cabins; on the 96' Argo Super it moves to the main deck, and Riva's own account of the change is explicit that this single move is what let the lower deck absorb a bigger cabin rather than an equal split of the same footprint. The standard configuration now runs three guest cabins including that full-beam VIP aft, with an optional layout that swaps it for three VIP cabins plus a twin, giving a buyer an actual choice between one very large second cabin or more total berths. The main deck itself gained the same benefit at the other end: the full-beam master suite keeps expansive glazing and furniture arranged to keep sightlines to the water even from the bed, a detail Riva calls out directly in its own release rather than leaving to a photograph.

The aft and beach areas were redesigned in the same pass: a sunpad with a handrail and cup holders is now built into the garage door itself, which opens onto a Williams 435 tender and a jet ski, and the swim platform beside it now lifts mechanically rather than staying fixed, a genuine usability change rather than a styling one. The cockpit picked up more storage, a built-in refrigerator and adjustable backrests on both dining sofas, and the flybridge gained a bar unit and mahogany-topped tables. None of these are the kind of change a spec sheet captures well, which is part of why an independent layout award, rather than Riva's own description, is the more useful signal to a buyer trying to judge whether the 96 is worth the step up from the 90.

What engines does the Riva 96' Argo Super have, and what has Riva not confirmed?

She runs twin MTU 12V 2000 M96X diesels at 2,000 hp each with Seakeeper stabilisation, but Riva has not published a top speed, cruising speed or gross tonnage figure, and the numbers circulating in secondary reporting disagree with each other.

The first hull runs a pair of MTU 12V 2000 M96X engines rated at 2,000 hp each, backed by Seakeeper NG18 and NG10 gyroscopic stabilisers, the Watchit collision-prevention system, Xenta's X-AID manoeuvring and virtual-anchor system, and a stern thruster. Riva's own release states the engines and the stabilisation package in full but does not publish a top speed, cruising speed or gross tonnage figure for the model, an omission worth noting given how specific the release is about everything else on board. Secondary reporting on the 96' Argo Super has filled that gap inconsistently: figures circulating for gross tonnage split between roughly 114 GT and 140 GT depending on the source, and quoted top speeds range from the mid-20s to 30 knots, none of it traceable to an independent sea trial or to Riva directly.

That gap matters more here than on a yacht being sold purely on speed, because the award Riva just won is for layout, not performance, and a buyer comparing the 96 against a Sunseeker or Princess in the same bracket needs the tonnage and speed figures to make that comparison at all. Until Riva or an independent trial publishes one consistent set of numbers, the safest position for a serious buyer is to request written figures directly from the yard rather than rely on any single secondary source, since none of the numbers in circulation agree closely enough to average.

What does the Riva 96' Argo Super's Best Layout award actually mean for a buyer?

It is independent confirmation that Riva's specific design changes over the 90' Argo worked, judged against real size-class rivals, but it says nothing about performance, running costs or long-term ownership, none of which exist yet for a hull launched two months ago.

A class award from a juried trade competition is a genuinely different kind of evidence than a yard's own press release, because it comes from people who compared the 96' Argo Super against its actual size-class rivals rather than judging it in isolation, and it arrived within days of her first public showing rather than after a season of owner feedback. That is real, and it is also limited: Best Layout in the 80-98ft class says nothing about how the boat performs, what she costs to run, or how she compares against a flybridge yacht a class above or below her own bracket, and no independent owner has had her long enough to report anything at all.

For a buyer, the practical read is that the award validates the specific design decisions Riva made over the 90' Argo - the moved day head, the full-beam VIP option, the lifting swim platform - more credibly than Riva's own marketing could on its own, while leaving performance and running-cost questions exactly where they were before the ceremony. Anyone weighing the 96 against the 90 she replaces, or against a same-class rival, should treat the layout win as settled and the numbers gap as the open item still worth a call to the yard.