A Riva is a diva. And a diva has to be immaculate. The same applies to the boats from Sarnico on Lake Iseo, which are often found in the garages of large yachts. And to ensure that it stayed that way back then and would always remain that way, Carlo Riva set up a workshop for repairs and maintenance work next to the legendary shipyard in 1956, the Revisione Assistenza Motoscafi or simply RAM for short.
Every year, around 15 Riva owners entrust their wooden runabouts, whose production was discontinued in 1996, to the meticulous care that only RAM can offer. Thanks to the strong Italian family tradition, RAM is still owned by the Riva dynasty; today, RAM is managed by Carlo Riva's nephew Anselmo Vigani. He passes on the expertise accumulated over decades of experience to the employees, who work with all the techniques and processes that Carlo Riva developed when the classics of today delighted their owners brand new.
The RAM concept was revolutionary in the predominantly manual boatbuilding industry of the 1950s. The shipyard founder wanted to offer owners and dealers concentrated expertise in repair and maintenance - down to the last detail. The workshop also served as a training centre so that all official Riva dealers and mechanics worldwide had the same knowledge and could install original parts correctly.
A revolutionary concept
After more than 50 successful years, the parent company is now reliably continuing the work of the master craftsman. It renovated the premises a few years ago and transformed the several thousand square metres of space into the Riva salon of today. An appointment with the boss precedes diagnosis and treatment. The patient is then entrusted to the technical manager Luigi Paltenghi, better known as "Gigi", for a thorough examination. The spectrum of treatment then ranges from a simple seasonal touch-up to extremely complex open surgery. The most common defects are caused by age-related wear and tear, such as damage to the keel or paintwork damaged by salt and sun.
Paltenghi proposes interventions of varying depths to the customer. The owner, however, decides. A battered Super Ariston with a stained surface may only come here for basic technical work because, for once, cosmetics are not so important to the owner. Another owner has an Aquarama Special from the last series of 1996 completely renovated because its paintwork, fittings, upholstery and mechanisms no longer look as immaculate as they did on the first day.
Large-scale treatments traditionally take place in winter. Careful scheduling is therefore essential in order to finalise cases by the end of spring. Keeping to tight schedules is crucial. RAM still follows Carlo Riva's ideas from the fifties. Each boat is given its own file at intake, with model name, hull number and a comprehensive list of all the work to be carried out on it. This personal file follows the boat to each work station, accompanied by as many boxes as necessary to hold the dismantled parts, which are always kept close to the patient and labelled with the boat's reference number.
