FB Design

Fabio Buzzi (28 January 1943 – 17 September 2019) was an Italian motorboat builder and racer.

Biography

Fabio Buzzi was born in Lecco in 1943, from a family tied for centuries to the art of building and design.

His powerboat racing career started in 1960.
He graduated in mechanical engineering in 1971 from the Polytechnic University of Turin where he took a degree in mechanical engineering with a thesis on a self-constructed vehicle.

He built his first race boat in 1974, a three-point hydroplane called "Mostro" (Monster), the first boat ever built in Kevlar 49. He set a world speed record (176.676 km/h) with this boat in the class S4 in 1978.

On 17 September 2019, Buzzi, Luca Nicolini and Eric Hoorn were killed when their boat crashed against the San Nicoletto dam in Venice. Buzzi and his crew were attempting to establish a new Montecarlo to Venice record.

FB Design

In 1971 Buzzi founded FB Design, to build leisure, military and racing boats.

On board La Gran Argentina, a Fabio Buzzi-designed FB 55, Argentinian pilot Daniel Scioli was a three-time winner of the World Superboat USA Championship and captured 4 European titles. The boat's hull was modified in 2000 into a long-distance record setter. Scioli went on to set the Miami-Nassau-Miami record with an average speed of 100 mph.

Initially the company focus was on race boats. When offshore power boat racing declined in the late 1990s, the company used its experience in high speed boat manufacturing to build military and fast patrol boats.

Death

Fabio Buzzi, Luca Nicolini and Eric Hoorn were killed on September 17, 2019, while racing a powerboat in Italy. This occurred when Buzzi's hit an artificial reef near the finish line just after setting the record for traveling from Monte Carlo to Venice.

Giampaolo Montavoci, the president of the Italian Offshore and Endurance Committee, confirmed the death of Buzzi and the two fatalities of his two assistants to the BBC. "The boat took off and flew 30 meters (almost 100 feet) through the air, landing on its stern on the other side of the causeway, where the victims died on impact," an official at Venice's port authority said, according to the Times of London. Buzzi, 76, a ten-time powerboat champion, apparently misjudged how much space he had available for his boat to enter the lagoon, and instead hit barriers installed to prevent flooding in Venice, a crash not uncommon in the crowded waters there, where many visiting cruise ships, motorboats and yachts may not be aware of the presence of the safety barriers under water.

Pilot career

;1960:
:First race (Pavia-Venice)

;1963:
:First time Italian Champion (C.U. class)

;1979:
:Speed World Record for diesel engines (191 Km/h)

;1984:
:Offshore 3/6 lt class - UIM World Champion
:Round Britain Race winner

;1988:
:Offshore class 1 - UIM World Champion
:Offshore class 1 - APBA World Champion

;1992:
:Speed World Record for diesel engines (252 Km/h)

;1994:
:Superboat - APBA World Champion
:Cannonball Race (Miami-New York No-Stop) winner

;1995:
:Superboat - APBA World Champion
:A class - APBA World Champion
:Superboat - APBA American Champion

;1996:
:Superboat - APBA World Champion
:B class - APBA World Champion

;1997:
:A class - APBA World Champion

;1999:
:Miami-Nassau-Miami Speed Record (87 kn average)

;2001:
:Round Italy - Venice to Montecarlo at 20 Knots
:Montecarlo to London at 33 Knots
:Round Britain at 45 knots

;2002:
:Winner of the Pavia-Venice Race at average speed of 182 km/h.

;2004:
:Winner of the Pavia-Venice Race at an average speed of 197 km/h.
:Venice to Montecarlo record at an average speed of 46.9 knots (87 km/h).

;2008:
:Cowes-Torquay-Cowes of 182 miles in 2h 18' 5' at an average speed of 91 mph.

;2010:
:heat 1 "Cowes 100" of the UIM Marathon World Cup races.
:heat 2 "Cowes-Torquay- Cowes" of the UIM Marathon World Cup races.

;2012:
:New York-Bermuda Speed Record (684 nm run in 17h 06' at an average speed of 40 knots.)

;2016:
:Montecarlo-Venice Speed record at the average speed in 22h 5' 43" at an average speed of 51.64 knots

;2018:
:Diesel Powerboat World Speed record of 277.5km/h on Lake Como

;2019:
:Montecarlo-Venice Speed record at the average speed in 18h 33' 30" at an average speed of 61.48 knots

Winning and trophies as boat designer

*52 World Offshore Championships;
*22 European Offshore Championships;
*27 Italian Offshore Championships;
*40 World Speed Records;
*7 The Harmsworth Trophy (1989 - 1993–1994–1995 - 2003 - 2004 - 2010);

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buzzi, Fabio
1943 births
2019 deaths
Italian motorboat racers
Polytechnic University of Turin alumni
Motorboat racers who died while racing