Italian yacht builders enter patrol craft market

摘要

Italy has been a major builder and operator of patrol boats with considerable investment in new craft to meet the challenge of immigrant, drug and cigarette smuggling operations, writes Dag Pike. With its long coastline and closeness to Eastern Europe and Africa, Italy provides a logical target for these various smuggling operations and this has resulted in a considerable expansion in the patrol boat fleets operating around the coasts. This demand for patrol boats has led to recent announcements by two builders that they will be entering the patrol boat market. Both of these builders currently operate only in the leisure market and both see the move into patrol boat building as a way to counter any possible downturn in the leisure market by building for this new sector. In both cases the same hulls that are used for the leisure market will form the initial basis for patrol boat construction.