CMC Marine

What CMC Marine Actually Makes, and Who Founded It

Cappiello had spent years developing electric stabiliser technology before starting the company, and the bet was narrow and specific: replace the hydraulic pump, oil lines and valve block that every fin stabiliser had used until then with a brushless electric motor driving the fin shaft directly. CMC's headquarters sit in Milan, at Via Tolentino 2, with its original production plant in Cascina, a few kilometres from Pisa. A second production facility opened in Salerno, in southern Italy, in December 2023, occupying 10,000 square metres across three industrial sheds and bringing composite and GRP fin production in house for the first time. That plant was the centrepiece of a EUR 10 million, three-year growth plan CMC announced at METSTRADE in November 2023, alongside new international offices in Poole, in the UK, opened in July 2023, and an established office in Fort Lauderdale covering the US and, per the company, the Asian market.

The core product is still Stabilis Electra, but the range around it has grown steadily. Dualis is CMC's electric thruster line, using counter-rotating propellers; Directa, launched as what CMC calls the world's first fully electric steering system for superyachts, replaces hydraulic rudder rams from 22 to 80 metres; Argo is an integrated ride control system that CMC says can coordinate up to eight stabiliser, trim and rudder surfaces at once to manage roll, pitch and yaw together rather than as separate systems; and the Intruder is a compact electric trim tab aimed at hulls that need pitch control without a full stabiliser retrofit. All of it runs through DIA-LOG, later rebranded DALI, CMC's own touchscreen control and remote-diagnostic software, and in 2025 the company added an Energy Recovery System that it describes as inspired by Formula 1 kinetic energy recovery, aimed at cutting the stabilisers' own power draw.

How Does an Electric Fin Actually Differ From a Hydraulic One?

CMC's own technical sheets set out two families sized by fin area and motor power rather than by a simple length chart. The HS, or High Speed, series runs from the HS40 (5 kW, a 0.8 square metre fin, for planing and semi-displacement yachts of roughly 20 to 25 metres) up to the HS160 (15 kW, a 3 to 3.5 square metre fin, for yachts over 50 metres). The LR, or Long Range, series is built for slower displacement hulls, from the LR70 (7 kW, 30 to 38 metres) up to the LR250 (30 kW, fins of 6.5 to 7 square metres) for the largest yachts CMC serves. Every model uses a duplex stainless steel shaft, sealed brushless motor and electromagnetic brake, and CMC states the whole assembly needs only periodic bearing checks rather than the oil changes, filter swaps and seal replacements a hydraulic pack requires.

Captains who have run both systems describe a real, specific difference rather than a marketing one. Captain Brett, master of a Benetti 140-foot motor yacht, told CMC that the electric system performed as well as the hydraulic stabilisers he had run before, was quieter, and let him operate the boat at anchor on a single generator where the previous hydraulic installation had needed two running in parallel. Captain Russell Short, quoted in CMC's own materials, said maintenance had been very easy compared with other systems he had used. Independent of any CMC marketing, an owner on the boating community Trawler Forum, discussing stabiliser options for a Grand Banks 46, wrote favourably about the CMC Stab 20 fitted to a similar boat, citing its small footprint, instant-on response and simple upkeep as the reasons he was considering it over a gyro. CMC's own bench test data, published in its brochures, claims peak roll reduction of 81 to 90 percent underway and 81 to 84 percent at anchor across 23, 30 and 50 metre test yachts, figures that are the company's own and were not independently audited for this page.

CMC Marine's own literature has claimed 34 percent of the sub-35 metre market for 2015 to 2018, 90 percent of yachts built in Italy as of 2024, and more than half the fleet over 20 metres as of 2025. These are three different metrics from three different years, not one number restated, and none of them has been audited by anybody but CMC.

How Big Is CMC Marine, and Which of Its Own Numbers Agree With Each Other?

CMC's own 2020-era printed brochure states a 34 percent global market share for 2015 to 2018, specifically for yachts up to 35 metres LOA. Boat International's 2024 feature on the company instead cites a 90 percent share of yachts built in Italy, with no length limit given. CMC's own 20th anniversary release, covered by Yachting Pleasure in 2025, gives a third figure again, more than 50 percent market share in the superyacht segment over 20 metres. None of these numbers describes the same population of boats in the same period, so none can be checked against another, and this page found no trade body, class society or independent market researcher that has measured any of them. SuperyachtNews has separately reported that CMC supplies 13 of the world's top 20 superyacht builders, a figure that also traces to CMC's own account of its client list rather than to an independent count.

Installation and headcount numbers follow the same pattern of dated, single-sourced claims that happen to trend upward together rather than one confirmed figure. An older CMC brochure, undated but referencing pre-2020 products, states more than 1,000 systems installed and around 40 staff, described as mostly engineers. Boat International's 2024 piece puts installations at over 2,500 and describes turnover as having doubled in the preceding three years. Yachting Pleasure's 2025 anniversary coverage raises installations again to over 3,000, and a separate company description found in 2026 puts staff at over 70. Read together the trend is plausibly real, a company that has grown for two decades, but every individual number in it is CMC's own, undated in some cases, and not one of them has independent confirmation behind it.

Which Yachts and Captains Actually Run CMC Marine Equipment

CMC's client list, published on its own site, runs to more than two dozen yards, and specific named vessels back it up: an Overmarine Mangusta Oceano 42 and a Mangusta GranSport 54, both shown underway in CMC's own case-study photography; a Sunseeker 90 Ocean; a Rossinavi build named Param Jamuna; a Cantiere delle Marche Nauta Air 108 named Laluna; and a Tansu build shown at anchor in CMC's own case studies. Conrad Shipyard has fitted CMC systems across at least four hulls, Viatoris, ACE, Extra Time and Moonlight, and the yard's project manager, Pawel Polak, told Boat International that CMC's technical assistance at every stage of a build, and the equipment's performance, were consistently strong. These are the yards' and CMC's own named case studies rather than independent brokerage or delivery records, so a buyer comparing a specific model should still confirm the stabiliser fit against that builder's own current specification sheet rather than assume every hull in a range carries the same equipment.

Beyond the marketing case studies, the strongest independent-feeling account is Captain Brett's, on the Benetti 140-footer already described above: a working comparison, made by someone with no reason to favour CMC, between the electric system and the hydraulic one it replaced. The Trawler Forum thread on stabiliser options for a Grand Banks 46 sits in the same category, an owner weighing a CMC Stab 20 against a gyro with no CMC involvement in the conversation at all. Both point the same way, toward genuine satisfaction with noise, power draw and simplicity, but they are two accounts, not a fleet survey, and this research found no independent trade publication that has run a multi-owner reliability survey of CMC equipment the way, for instance, Trawler Forum members have informally done for some hydraulic and gyro competitors.

What Does It Actually Cost to Fit CMC Marine Stabilisers?

Every technical document and press release checked for this page treats CMC pricing as a direct-quote-only conversation, the same position Naiad Dynamics takes on its own stabilisers. What CMC does publish is operational rather than financial: its refit literature states Stabilis Electra needs no hydraulic power pack, no plumbing, no pipe fittings and no oil flushing, so a retrofit typically avoids increasing a yacht's generator capacity, and the company cites an average installation time of about two weeks for a refit project, against the multi-week yard period a hydraulic retrofit's plumbing and tankage work usually needs. None of that is a price, and no CMC distributor contacted or reviewed for this page would give one without a specific vessel's particulars.

For scale only, and explicitly not as a CMC figure, independent industry pricing for comparable electric fin retrofits on other brands runs from roughly USD 30,000 to 40,000 in equipment alone for a smaller boat up to USD 65,000 to 130,000 for vessels in the 55 to 130 foot range, with total installed cost, including yard labour, wiring and any structural work, commonly landing between USD 50,000 and 90,000 depending on hull access and whether existing bulkheads or stringers must be modified. CMC's own claimed advantage, that its electric system needs no new hydraulic room and no larger generator, would in principle put a Stabilis Electra retrofit toward the lower end of that kind of range, but this page found no published invoice, dealer quote or owner-reported total specific to a CMC installation to confirm it.

Для кого: A buyer, refit yard or captain specifying fin stabilisation on a 12 to 50 metre motor yacht who wants a system with a genuine technical first behind it and a real, checkable list of yards using it, and who accepts that price, market share and roll-reduction numbers all come from CMC Marine itself unless a third party is asked to confirm them directly.