This Italian Is Seeking a Cup : Lorenzo Bortolotti Is Best-Known Sailor From Genoa in Last 500 Years

Five hundred years ago, an Italian sailor from Genoa, long on ambition but short of cash, had to hustle the crowned heads of Europe for ships to embark on a great adventure.

Now another mariner from Genoa is out to make history by winning the America’s Cup--for Italians, an accomplishment that would be a bigger deal than discovering the New World.

But Lorenzo Bortolotti did not have to go to Spain to see Queen Isabella about money for three leaky tubs. He has better backers: Gucci, Aermacchi, Industrie Buitoni Perugina, Montedison and others.

How many 12-meters did you say you needed? No problem. Columbus should have been in his shoes.

“It’s very important in Italy,” Bortolotti said. “With the television, the newspapers, the media is involved in sailing as it never was before.”

Computers and corporate sponsorship are very much a part of the serious sailing game these days, and the Italians are playing it as well as anyone. Bortolotti is the skipper for the Yacht Club Italiano syndicate from Genoa, which last October won the world 12-meter championship at Sardinia, sailing the Victory ’83 boat used in England’s last cup campaign.

For the last two months, Victory ’83 has been racing and practicing off Long Beach against Magic, the test boat of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club’s Eagle syndicate, skippered by Rod Davis. Both expect to have their new campaign boats, Italia and Eagle, by fall when the serious syndicates will continue preparations toward the challenge in ’87.

Magic and Victory ’83 will climax their friendly rivalry with match races Saturday and Sunday off Newport Beach. They split an earlier set a month ago, although the Italians won on overall time after Magic’s winged keel hooked the committee boat’s anchor line at the start of the second race.

“We’ll have to remember that when we get our new boat with the winged keel,” Bortolotti said.

Italiano is one of two Italian groups still intending to challenge Australia for the cup. The other is Yacht Club de Costa Smeralda, which also tried at Newport, R.I., with Azzurra in ’83.

The Azzurra outfit is backed by the Aga Khan, and Bortolotti, 32, credits them with reviving sailing fever in Italy. For seafaring tradition, they have to go back to the early explorers.

“We can’t count on very great sailors in Italy, so we have to build it up with the best people we have,” Bortolotti said. “We try to make this a professional effort both with the crew on the boat and the people ashore.”

The syndicate is going first class. It has a tender that is the envy of its rivals--a large, hard-hulled inflatable vessel with twin diesel engines. It cost $50,000.

This is Bortolotti’s first America’s Cup campaign, so what he has accomplished is remarkable. His crew beat Azzurra, 4-1, in the final match-racing round of the 12-meter world competition and has held its own against the modified Magic, which seems to be the faster boat.

The Italians’ crew work has made up the difference. It’s a full-time job for them. The Eagle crew won’t be fully involved until late this year.

Bill Crispin, project manager for Eagle, said: “I’ve enjoyed watching them work on the race course. Their work is a little ahead of ours at this point.

“I don’t think they’ll win (the cup). I’d hate to say that to Lorenzo, but we feel Rod is the better team leader, and they’d probably say that, too. But they’ll eliminate some competition for us.”

Bortolotti agreed.

“We are trying to do our best to be the challenging syndicate,” he said. “It’s not easy to beat people like Rod and (tactician) Doug Rastello. I think they have to work more on the crew. But I believe Rod will be the best American skipper.”

The Italians were a hit at a reception at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club a few weeks ago. Arriving late from a day’s sailing, Bortolotti held up a drawing of his crew roasting an Eagle.

“Most of all, we are working toward the next challenge as our goal,” he said. “Everything we can gain this time is important, but it’s very difficult in one single campaign to get to the top of a sport.”

Davis and Bortolotti both work for North Sails. Davis sailed aboard Victory ’83 as tactician in the world competition, and the two syndicates arranged to practice together this spring, since Azzurra had sailed with America II from the New York Yacht Club earlier in Australia. It was easier, Bortolotti said, than the two Italian syndicates cooperating.

“The two groups have different political problems between sponsors,” he said. “Also, in the America’s Cup there is a clear sense of being competitors among yacht clubs and not countries. If Azzurra wins, it’s better than a foreign country but, from the point of competition, everybody is the same.

“This is a very intelligent way to go. I think Dennis Conner lost the Cup the last time because he couldn’t understand they were in a situation to not have a very good boat. If they had a chance to try with Azzurra or against Victory they would have realized that Liberty was not a very fast boat.”

Bortolotti isn’t the first to criticize Conner for failing to test with other syndicates, but he agreed that Conner sailed well against Australia II under the circumstances.

“Dennis did a very good job. I thought, potentially, the Australians would win four to zero very easily, because the boat was so much faster.”

In a departure from the norm, Bortolotti is designated as the skipper of his boat, but Flavio Scala is the helmsman. On most racing boats, they are one and the same.

“I will probably steer the new boat but we specialize in the work, so I will be in charge of the running of the boat,” Bortolotti said. “Maybe I will steer in the final act, but I really prefer to take care of the overall situation. The helmsman must concentrate on his own job and not be too much worrying about the technical side of things. There are too many things to take care of.”

Bortolotti’s father wanted him to be a doctor, like himself.

“He tried to get me involved in medicine, but at a certain point I stopped studying,” Bortolotti said.

Bortolotti won many Italian championships, then competed in the Admiral’s Cup, Southern Ocean Racing Conference and other major big-boat series.

He may be the best Italian sailor since you know who. Five hundred years from now they may make a TV mini-series about him.

Bortolotti smiled and said: “It’s probably more important to the people in America.”

Easy for an Italian to say. He’d never been discovered before.