LETTERA DEL PRESIDENTE

Dear Members, Friends, and Associates of ASDEC,

It is with deep enthusiasm that I wish to share with you the outcomes of the General Assembly held last April 23rd, a moment that marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter for our Association.

ASDEC is growing and renewing itself, welcoming a team of 14 members that combines the experience of the re-elected board members — Malcovati, Biondi, Zanoletti, Villa, Mazzoni, Pozzo, Bernocchi, Soldati, Stoppani, and Vassena — with the energy of the newly elected: Ansaldi, Pasta, Riva, and Vecchio. To all of them goes the credit for contributing both their expertise and their heart.

To guide this evolution, the Board has defined the leadership roles:

Marco Biondi – President and Treasurer,

Alberto Villa – Vice President

Marco Bernocchi – Vice President

Alessandro Mazzoni – Secretary General

Operational coordination will be entrusted to the Executive Committee, composed of Biondi, Villa, Mazzoni, Pozzo, and Zanoletti, while it is a privilege to bestow upon Fabio Malcovati, guardian of our precious historical memory, the title of Honorary President.

With great pleasure, we welcome and thank the new members of ASDEC: Paolo Aicardi, Antonio Ansaldi, Luca Cazzaniga, Piero Gibbellini, Annita Lurani, Costantino Nitti, Guido Pasta, Duilio Reina, Gabriele Renner, Daniele Riva, Massimo Vecchio, and Edoardo Veggetti.

A special thought goes to Alessandra Morandini, who concludes her long and valuable collaboration. To her goes the sincere gratitude of the entire Board and all the Members for the 28 years of dedication and passion that have helped make ASDEC the splendid reality it is today.

Our goal for the future is clear: to honor this legacy by continuing to enhance the beauty and culture of vintage yachting, with the spirit of sharing that has always defined us.

I wished to wait before addressing you with the traditional “inaugural President’s” letter. In fact, I felt the need to let certain reflections settle within me—reflections that I have been developing since the beginning of this mandate, guided by a core principle: ASDEC has existed for nearly fifty years and has indelibly shaped the history of yachting. For this reason, our first and essential duty is the deep study and understanding of our own history, continuing along the path forged by our past Presidents, GianAlberto Zanoletti and Fabio Malcovati, and by all those who, animo et corpore (in soul and body), have contributed to the growth and reputation of our Association.

And it is precisely on the concept of authority and prestige that I wish to focus. I firmly believe that belonging to ASDEC means cultivating study with passion and establishing cultural points of reference, but always, and above all, with innate grace.

The projects awaiting us are numerous and complex; to achieve them, we will need the choral support of all our members, friends, and, first and foremost, the members of the Board of Directors. We chose to expand the number of board members precisely out of a

desire for broader sharing: we want to gather every stimulus, motivation, and suggestion so that ASDEC may safeguard and perpetuate its historical authority.

If I were to trace a programmatic line, a fil rouge for our future, I would like our Association to continue to distinguish itself through knowledge, gentle elegance, independence, and a profound nobility of soul, while turning our gaze with particular attention toward social responsibility. This is, after all, the true animus passed down to us by our founding members.

In this regard, memory brings me back to a famous article in Yacht Digest from December 1996, significantly titled “Yacht Digest must be changed.” It was a moment of great intellectual ferment, which began precisely with a deep analysis of the magazine’s name.

On one hand, there was “Yachting,” a word that in the collective imagination risked being reduced to a synonym for opulence, or mere elite pleasure boating, but which in its purest sense represents the culture of seafaring—the perfect synthesis of human ingenuity, the art of navigation, and respect for the elements. On the other hand, there was the concept of “Digest” – a term borrowed from the Latin digesta (the orderly and wise collection of texts, the reasoned synthesis of knowledge) – which indicated the desire to compendiarise and collect the very best of this world to offer it to readers.

However, there was a feeling that this pairing had become too restrictive. To clear the field of misconceptions and embrace an even higher vision, it was then proposed to change the magazine’s name to Tradizione del Mare (“Tradition of the Sea”). The goal was to evolve the “collection of yachting” into something deeper: replacing a technical, and potentially elitist, term with a universal concept capable of putting history, memory, culture, and the very soul of boats back at the center. We know how publishing history took its course, but that debate retains its relevance completely untouched: this is exactly ASDEC’s task. We do not celebrate the object as an end in itself; rather, we gather and pass down history through boats. In a word: we create culture.

GianAlberto Zanoletti loved to repeat: “Let us save boats; and if this effort were to concern even a single boat for the sake of a single person, it will have been worth it.” Today, I feel the need to extend and adapt this principle into a new civic mission: let us save the younger generations. Too many young people, penalized by an at times modest educational offering and immersed in a complex social reality devoid of reference points, are losing their identity and a healthy sense of culture.

If today we ask a young person whether they know the Baglietto shipyard, or a specific sailing class, if they can distinguish an inboard from an outboard motor, or even if they know who Christopher Columbus is, we can imagine the answers. But we must not give up, because, united, we can do it!

Today, reflecting on the destiny of ASDEC and connecting back to that idea of an orderly and cultured synthesis inherent in the term “Digest,” my mind races to an extraordinary cultural movement born in England at the end of the 19th century as a noble reaction to difficult times—not unlike those we are living through, amidst wars and the loss of roots. I am referring to the Arts and Crafts movement led by William Morris. It was a cultured and powerful response to the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution, whose purpose was to bring beauty back into daily life, elevating craftsmanship against standardization and mechanical mass production.

The principles of that movement are, upon closer inspection, the very same that animate the spirit of our Association:

• The re-evaluation of manual labor, aimed at restoring to the craftsman complete control over their work, from conception to creation, elevating the trade to the dignity of “art.”

• The rejection of mass production, viewed as the root cause of the loss of quality and the progressive homogenization of creative identity.

• Inspiration from nature and the rediscovery of the ethical and aesthetic models of the ancient guilds, where mastery was a value passed down with pride.

• The unity of the arts, understood as overcoming the distinction between “major arts” and “applied arts” (such as cabinetmaking and restoration), in the belief that every artifact must combine beauty and functionality.

• The authenticity of materials, meaning the structural honesty of the object, which must make the nature of the material used and the crafting technique employed self-evident.

And as a testament to how alive and ready to re-emerge this sensitivity is, I wish to share a profoundly positive note with you. Yesterday, I was at the Ernesto Riva Shipyard in the company of an American pianist of Korean origin, who bears a beautiful Italian name, Isabella. She is a woman who lives for pure passions and wished to approach the world of classic boats. I watched her as she drew near the hulls: she touched the wood, caressed it, and experienced it intimately with the typical sensitivity of someone who breathes music. At one point, observing some new boats built according to classic standards, she pointed out to us, with extraordinary sharpness, the harmony with which certain tones of the upholstery dialogued and paired with the nuances and the soul of the surrounding wood.

This seemingly small detail deeply surprised us and demonstrated to us, in a tangible way, that beauty and harmony speak a universal language. Without a doubt, we can—indeed, we must—do much more for our future generations, offering them the tools to nurture those sensibilities that modern society unfortunately oppresses.

In this scenario, ASDEC has a moral duty to instruct and educate, also and above all through our daily agere (actions/conduct), which must stand as an example of distinction and rectitude.

I prefer to pause here, ad maiora, without drawing up a sterile list of ongoing projects or future initiatives. Self-celebration does not foster an authentic path of growth, nor does it reflect the values that distinguish us. We are, moreover, well aware of the areas in which we need to improve, in the conviction that continuous evolution represents the foundation of any successful project.

Ultimately, I am convinced it is infinitely more fruitful to share this ideal vision with you and to gather your opinions. ASDEC holds profound meaning only if it recognizes itself as a united corpus, a large and cohesive group ready to share, with the same enthusiasm, the very same ideals.

With deep affection,

Milan, May 28, 2026

Marco Biondi