Croatian Group Determined to Sail

When Croatia announced its independence from Yugoslavia in late June, many questions surrounded its attempt to enter its first America’s Cup competition.

Six months later, the answers are few, but one thing is clear: Croatia intends to be on the starting line come the trials.

According to Italian ship builder Marco Cantoni, Croatia will have a boat in San Diego by Jan. 15, 10 days before the challenger trials start in San Diego Bay.

“For sure, the boat will be there and will be sailing in the America’s Cup,” Cantoni said from Milan, Italy, where he recently returned after a two-day trip to Croatia. “The boat will be finished, it has to be finished. It will be transported by plane or by boat.”

Cantoni described the boat, awaiting completion at a Venice boatyard, as “one of the best looking boats with the best Italian graphic design on the side of the boat,” he said. It is the only wooden--but legal--International America’s Cup Class yacht that will race against its carbon fiber counterparts.

Cantoni promises delivery of the boat, but the Challenger of Record Committee wonders how it will meet specific regulations. Ernie Taylor, the CORC’s executive director, said the hull was finished, but it had no sails, rigging or hardware when it was measured six months ago.

“They have to have all those things built in their own country, by nationalists,” Taylor said. “That’s what this whole (America’s Cup) is about, one country against another.”

How then did Cantoni, a Paris resident who owns a boatyard in Italy, align himself with the Croatian group? Alexandra Venezia, a Los Angeles-based writer who covers cultural events for Panorama, an Italian publication, described Cantoni as a jet-setter with contacts.

“Marco, he knows everyone in the world,” she said.

Yet Cantoni is relatively new to the sailing world. Stefano Roberti, a spokesman for Italy’s Il Moro di Venezia syndicate, said Cantoni’s original interest in the America’s Cup was to rent his own sophisticated power boats as spectator boats for Italian sponsors.

“We weren’t interested because we have only one sponsor and we didn’t need his service,” Roberti said. “. . . He probably has some interest in being part of the (America’s Cup) game.”

Taylor and Roberti described Cantoni’s place in the America’s Cup game primarily as promoter and financier, but Cantoni identified his role as much more.

“I am very involved,” he said, but refused to elaborate. “I am very good friends with the Croatians. But don’t ask of me any more questions right now.”

Cantoni promised to answer everyone’s questions--including the CORC’s--when he arrives in San Diego sometime next week. But Taylor said Cantoni has been San Diego-bound for some time.

“We’ve heard that before,” Taylor said. “He’s been saying (he’s coming) for weeks.”

Among the CORC’s concerns is how seriously this group is taking the America’s Cup challenge, considering it is planning such a late arrival into San Diego.

“We start Jan. 25,” Taylor said. “They’re not even going to have time to find their way around the bay.”

And with the withdrawal of Galeb Yacht Club, Croatia is without a sponsor, although the CORC and America’s Cup Organizing Committee has extended Croatia’s deadline to find one.