Laura Shaughnessy is the former managing editor at Dockwalk.
On July 1, PSY Refit Marseille renewed their 21-year state concession in order to approve significant investments to face any new challenges — all while ensuring maximum professionalism and quality of service. Despite COVID, they’ve been able to stay on schedule with this transition.
“The GPMM (Grand Port Maritime of Marseille) and the port authority have made a great job preparing all the necessary documents well in advance and have made all the administrative works in time and in good order,” says Giulio Maresca, general manager for Palumbo Superyachts Refit Marseille. “From another point of view, the ‘transition’ has been quite simple because we were already managing the site before.”
As part of this new commitment, a new 48- by 18-meter floating dry dock that’s capable of lifting boats up to 500 tons was assigned to the shipyard, which greatly enhances its facilities. “There is a huge amount of investments [that] will be made in the coming years,” says Maresca. “Most of them will be on the equipment and infrastructure. The first major investment, among other things already made, was the purchase of a floating dock placed inside a watershed (a shed on the water) allowing to increase the reception capacity of the yard.”
Another expected short-term investment is the acquisition of tower cranes to increase their reactivity and give an immediate response to their customers’ needs. “Other investments planned — and partially already carried out — are on infrastructure” Maresca says (e.g. renovating the office block, a gym, renovating entertainment space for the crews called Black Box, and the renovation of the Yacht Chandler).
Marseille is part of Palumbo Superyachts division formed by five shipyards (Ancona, Malta, Marseille, Naples and Savona).
This column is taken from the December 2020 issue of Dockwalk.