Filippi Boats (Cantiere Navale Filippi Lido S.R.L.) is an International manufacturer of rowing racing shells, based in Italy. The company was founded in 1980 by Lido Filippi.
Today, the running of the boatyard is undertaken by Lido Filippi’s son David; the yard employs 60 technicians and produces just over 1100 boats each year, which supply Federations worldwide.
In the previous 20 years, crews in Filippi boats have achieved over 400 medals in World Rowing Championships and at the Olympic Games.
History
The history of Cantiere Filippi dates back to 1980 when Lido Filippi opened his own boat-building business producing wooden rowing boats in a small shed with five other shipwrights. The boatyard's location is unique, as it stands in Donoratico on the Tyrrhenian Sea, which looks out onto the Tuscany archipelago, home to Elba, the "buen retiro" of Napoleon Bonaparte.
By the mid- to late 1980s, Cantiere Filippi was already enjoying its first international success winning gold medals at the 1986 World Rowing Championships in Nottingham, England and in 1987 World Rowing Championships in Copenhagen. It went on to scale even greater heights by winning gold in the coxless quadruple sculls at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
In 1997 Cantiere Filippi was awarded the first ISO quality certification. This was a decisive step as it enabled Cantiere Filippi to guarantee both its international clientele and its 22 exclusive resellers on all five continents consistently high quality according to a clearly defined process. Each boat that leaves Donoratico complies fully with all the points of a technical card that is signed by each one of the craftsmen who worked on it.
Today
Nowadays, traditional wooden boats have been replaced by carbon fibre and honeycomb sandwich constructions made with vacuum bag technology and polymerisation in high-temperature ovens. Today, Cantiere Filippi employs 60 craftsmen and those old boats have been replaced by its familiar blue and white ones, which are built in the 2500 square metre boatyard of Filippi Lido Srl, just outside the town of Donoratico in the province of Livorno.
Filippi Boats Srl manufacture a wide variety of moulds of shell, suitable for athletes of a wide variety of weight and height. Boats can also vary in the rigging set up with the latest and most advanced being the Carbon Aliante set up, which is seen on the vast majority of Filippi boats at world level competitions. Each year Filippi endeavor to bring out at least one new mould of boat to cater for an even greater expanse of rowers.
Boats along with accessories are distributed through the network of worldwide Filippi boats dealers.
Developments in boat-building techniques, proverbial attention to detail and an excellent price-quality ratio have made Filippi a worldwide name. The hallmark of Cantiere Filippi, however, is that it invests much of its resources into research and employs the latest techniques, such as carbon riggers in both traditional and wing form. It also used to assess the seaworthiness of its boats with hydrodynamic tests at its ship tank in Insean, but today these have been replaced by sophisticated Computer Fluid Dynamics software. In addition to its research, Cantiere Filippi has also invested in workplace safety systems and its production processes are conducted in full respect of the environment.
Today, Lido Filippi works alongside his son David and employs more than sixty technicians who help to produce about 700 boats per year for federations across the world. Much is owed to the directors, trainers and athletes of these federations for the noticeable increase in the technical level of these boats. Their preparation, passion and ambition blend effortlessly with the way the boatyard views the future of rowing. High praise must also go to the International Rowing Federation (FISA) which in 1996 officially invited the company to attend the Olympic Games, recognizing the excellent quality of boatyard's work in the service of rowing, one of the Olympics' longest-standing sports.
