Specialists
Sailing is fortunate to have so many really smart and interesting people working away to pull off little bits of technical magic that, often unnoticed, play a disproportionate part in the success of the best programmes…
Nearly all of us have spent time playing with rigging to find optimal solutions for our boat, whether it’s a dinghy, a keelboat, offshore racer or even a cruiser. Ambitious performance sailors hate inefficiency, friction and failure, while we love clever, elegant solutions that make us believe we are getting every possible bit of power to make us go fast and safe through the water. Located at the heart of the
precision engineering hub of central Italy UBI Maior Italia share this passion – they have the tools, the skills and, most importantly, the creativity and inspiration to try new solutions to the age-old fight against inefficiency in marine hardware. And being a relatively small operation makes them ideally suited to custom and semi-custom design and fabrication, where standard products may not be quite good enough to achieve the desired elegance in design and function. The process starts in the first
meeting with the customer, whether it’s a naval architect, designer, boatbuilder, sailmaker, rigger or project manager, by defining the
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problem that needs solving. In these first discussions sketches are made and parameters are defined, and usually standard products are first considered for their suitability. For UBI Maior these represent proven designs that have met the needs for numerous other customers and fit within production quality and cost criteria. However, if a standard part does
not meet needs then further discussion identifies whether an existing standard product can be modified or an entirely new part will be needed. Options are discussed for the part’s design, material choices, timelines and the estimated costs. Sailing experience among the technical staff helps advise the clients on the right choices among these options. Once the part has been built and
installed UBI stay with the project through sea trials and even beyond to ensure additional modifications are not needed. And even though custom parts do not carry warranties, as standard parts do, this is an automatic value-added policy at UBI Maior to ensure the customer is completely satisfied –
Above: big bits for (very) big toys. A beautifully executed combination of line deflectors, sheaves and track that between them manage the jib sheet system of up/down and in/out adjustment on the latest Wallycento Tango, designed by Mark Mills with Pininfarina styling. Keeping the decks of these large yachts this clean while providing efficient rig control requires art and science
setting the firm apart in their field. ‘I always say that we are not just
suppliers of deck equipment, but a partner in the project,’ says sales manager Fabio De Simoni. ‘During the first commercial approach of certain projects I never try to sell blocks, but to offer our workshop as a partner. Like other guys employed in the company, I sail a lot on different types of boats and I speak and listen to all the professionals around me – sailors, builders, riggers and sailmakers – to accumulate experience so that I may have a first answer to every problem our customers explain to us. ‘Our biggest advantage is that
the operating chain for us is very short and the information between the salesmen, technical office and production team circulates very rapidly in every phase. We do not follow a linear flow pattern that goes in one direction. Every “actor” in the process may continue to participate, using feedback from the others to avoid getting to the assembly phase with an error. ‘Every customer, large or small,
receives helpful explanations and information. We always try to be
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