The club was founded in 1948 by
Mario Caviglione with a group of other water polo enthusiasts. After several years in the amateur leagues, in 1975 the club reached
Serie B (back then the second tier of Italian championship) and achieved the promotion in Serie A six years later, in the 1981 season. The first game of Savona in the Top division was a 12−9 home victory against 1980 champions
Canottieri Napoli, on 27 February 1982. At the time, the club used to play its home games in the near
Albissola Marina and at the
Genoa's
Crocera swimming pool. The city of Savona built an Olympic-sized pool in 1985, the
Piscina Olimpica Comunale, renamed
Piscina Carlo Zanelli in 2010 in honour of the recently deceased former mayor of the town. The pool has been the home field of the club ever since, except for a 5 years of absence from 2006 to 2010 due to restructuring works. During the break, the team used to play at the
Piscina di Luceto in
Albisola Superiore. RN Savona emerged as a top team in the early 1990s. The first trophy of the
Ligurian team's history is the 1989−90
Coppa Italia; in the following season, after two second places reached in 1983 and 1990, the club won its first
Italian Championship and a second consecutive domestic Cup. Savona won its second Italian title in 1992 and the third in the 2004−05 season; since then the club managed to reach two back-to-back second places in 2009−10 and 2010−11 seasons, losing on both occasions the play-offs final to
Pro Recco; the third Coppa Italia dates back to the 1992−93 season. The club made its international debut in the 1983
LEN Cup Winners' Cup. In 2012 the team, defeating in the final game
Spain's
CN Sabadell, won the first edition of the newly renamed
LEN Euro Cup, a competition that the club already won twice in 2005 and 2011 when it was still called
LEN Trophy; on all three occasions Savona earned the right to contest the
LEN Super Cup, but never managed to achieve the trophy, being defeated twice by
Italy's fellow sides
CN Posillipo and
Pro Recco and once by
Serbia's
VK Partizan. The best performance in the
major European cup came in the 1991–92 season, when Savona reached the Final but lost to
Croatia's
Jadran Split. ==Honours==