What are the aims of ASDEC?

Interview with the Milanese Alberto Villa, Director of ASDEC (Association of Classic and Vintage Boats) and Vice-President of the Fondazione Museo della Barca Lariana (Lake Como International Museum of Vintage Boats Foundation) in Pianello Lario, on Lake Como. He recently bought UFO, a 1980 Riva Caribe 42 motoryacht, completely restored by Nautica Casarola on Lake Gara. The results can serve as a yardstick for many boatowners who are planning to restore fibreglass boats of this kind. And will boats built from this material ever become “vintage”? He is a very traditional boat lover. But there came a day when you succumbed to the allure of fibreglass… Indeed I did. UFO was my fourth fibreglass boat. It is a 1980 Riva Caribe 42 motoryacht, 12 metres long, bought in Olbia through a classified ad. You could call it a sport cruiser with a flybridge, an open motor yacht without partitions in the cockpit and an open-space below deck. It is a boat that can guarantee you safe cruising in the open sea and it has got a performance which is still excellent even by today’s standards, reaching a cruising speed of between 18 and 26 knots and easily topping 30 knots maximum speed. A total of 24Riva Caribe motoryachts were built, and UFO is number one. Almost all of them are based in the Mediterranean. But it is still not a “Vintage Boat” … No, it’s a Classic Boat. In ASDEC there has been much discussion on this topic over the past two years. We came to the realisation that outside the world of the Vintage Boats, boats in traditional materials (wood, steel, aluminium) that are over twenty-five years old, there is “another world”, that of boats made of synthetic materials, which, just as old, can also be certified based largely on the same criteria (maintenance, originality, restoration, seaworthiness, surface patina, historic importance), but with the classification of Classic Boat and a special Bronze Plaque. So we can state that today we wanted to give due credit to those boats made of synthetic materials which because of their particular interest (lines, designer, boatyard) can be defined as historic and therefore certified as classics and enrolled in ASDEC’s Register of Historic Boats. To that end the Committee Members of ASDEC have begun the task of seeking out and selecting boatyards and models which may fall into the category of Classic Boats in accordance with the criteria laid down by ASDEC. Read the article on: https://www.barchedepocaeclassiche.it/barche-d-epoca-e-classiche/barche-classiche-a-motore/724-alberto-villa-io-e-ufo,-il-mio-riva-caribe,-un-grande-classico-in-vetroresina.html