My Life in Boats: Bob Loquercio on family cruising and building a custom yacht

The successful auto dealer and owner of Gioia (Italian for joy) tells Kate Lardy about his ever-larger boats and the joy to be found on board.

I have lived on the water my whole life. I grew up on the west side of Chicago, close to the lakefront. My dad’s favourite thing to do was to take his seven-horsepower Sears outboard and drive to the smaller lakes on the Wisconsin border. We’d rent a 3.6-metre rowboat and fish all day. As an adult, every morning I wake up to views of Lake Michigan. I live next to Oak Street Beach, one of the world’s most beautiful beaches.

When I was raising my two daughters (both grown now), I bought a 12.2-metre Sea Ray and kept it a few blocks from our house. I ran that boat myself and taught my daughters how to crew. A couple of years later, I bought a 16.5-metre Sea Ray. 

We took it around the Great Lakes and trucked it to Florida for half the year, which really opened my horizons. I hired my first captain, and we cruised to the Bahamas often from our home in Florida. Around 2005 I bought a 26.5-metre Horizon, which allowed us to make longer trips to the Caribbean. It was a wonderful boat; we enjoyed six years with the same fabulous captain and wife team until my daughters went to college.

I was focused on expanding my car dealership business then and didn’t have time for boating, but it was bittersweet to sell that boat. It’s not always true that the happiest days of a boat owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

About three years ago, I semi-retired and bought a 34-metre Custom Line with my nephews. It was a brand new experience for me to have a three-level boat. With a crew of seven, we explored all over the Bahamas and Caribbean. We became social members at Albany and really enjoyed the lifestyle. After that, we shipped it to the Mediterranean and had a marvellous season. Around that time, I got the itch to build my own boat. 

I began negotiating with Benetti, but at the last minute I went with Gioia, a 43-metre Codecasa which we recently took delivery of. Codecasa is a custom builder, and I think that we got a level of attention that we otherwise wouldn’t have. Building a boat in Italy isn’t easy, but we had a husband-and-wife consulting team on site, Bowline Marine, who made it easier. I’m blessed to have a wife, Veronica, who is a designer with a very discerning eye. She did an amazing job designing the boat.

We missed the summer season last year and that was frustrating, but now we have a wonderful season planned: starting in the South of France, the F1 races in Monaco, two weeks in Corsica, all of July in Italy with the entire family and Spain in September.

I have been very blessed. I was successful early in life and my wife and I have travelled the world twice, first by land and now by sea, and it’s two completely different experiences. From the water, you see things you would otherwise not, whether from a lake boat in Michigan or a yacht in the Mediterranean or Caribbean. 

Circling Corsica is spectacular, Barcelona is amazing… there’s no better party in the world than St Barths on New Year’s Eve. And you won’t find any closer bonding time with your family than being on a boat. I’m so looking forward to many happy years with our Codecasa.

First published in the May 2025 issue of BOAT International US Edition. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.