Photo by Carlo Borlenghi
Feature: Yachting Italian Style
January 1, 2004
It’s a little after one in the afternoon, and Tina Ayate stretches languidly on
the aft deck of her Riva 72 Splendida. She presses the button that rotates the
circular lounge to give her guests a view of her villa’s gardens, which cascade
lusciously down to the edge of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Then she revolves the lounge
back around to assure the optimal angle to the sun for even tanning. The
Splendida may be Riva’s latest model, but it evokes Art Deco glamour with its
trademark vanilla-colored hull and arched curves accented with chrome strips.
“My husband loves Rivas so much he buys the latest model every year,” Tina Ayate
says pleasantly. “They are his toys.”
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Ciao, bella! Nothing says Yachting Italian Style better than the
Pucci-print spinnaker on the fast-cruising sloop Wally60 Wallyño, which was the
first yacht in her size range to cross the finish line at the offshore Giraglia
Rolex Cup race last June. (Click image to enlarge) The Ayates are among the business magnates and fashion czars who make Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda their summer retreat, and for whom owning the most stylish boat is the ultimate fun fashion accessory. On this idyllic afternoon, we make good use of the rotating lounge as we check out the world’s most gorgeous boats throwing up wakes alongside ours. By Costa Smeralda standards, the 72-foot Splendida is considered a boat for day cruising only. When we set out to explore the Maddalena and Caprera Islands, we chartered an Azimut 55, a very fast and comfortable day cruiser, from SNO Yachts.
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A Wally sloop sails “nel blu dipinto di blu.” (Click image to enlarge) I have been around boats all my life, spending childhood summers on my family’s Chris-Crafts on the East Coast and later cruising to Cannes, St.-Tropez, Monte Carlo, Porto Ercole, Portofino, Capri and the Greek Islands with friends. But I must admit that I find the Costa Smeralda the most perfect yachting scene of all. I am here during the last week of July and the first couple of weeks in August. It is the first time I’ve been back since the early ’70s when Karim, the Aga Khan, began this development on an arid, rocky, windswept island—a dream that was considered madness at the time. One of his Harvard classmates, who acquired a villa here, invited me to visit and help create some buzz about this new summertime enclave.
Costa Smeralda today has a relaxed, elegant simplicity. The Hotel Cala di Volpe was created by architect Jacques Couëlle as the Aga Khan’s vision of a simple fishing village crafted by native artisans. It retains that rustic charm, albeit punctuated with deluxe grace notes typified by Chopard’s Happy Beach watch, with free-floating fish encrusted with precious gems, which is showcased in a lobby vitrine. A souvenir, Costa Smeralda style.
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The Aga Khan developed Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda in the early 1970s
around the Hotel Cala di Volpe. The hotel, now part of the Starwood Luxury
Collection, is the social center for yacht owners and their guests. (Click image to enlage) We drop anchor in a rocky cove in the Maddalena archipelago and don snorkels and masks for a swim while the crew prepares lunch. Floating on the surface of the sea is like flying in a Chagall blue sky. Back on board the teak swim deck, we spritz the salt off with a high-pressure shower and stretch out to dry off before we are served a simple Sardinian lunch—melon wrapped in prosciutto, spaghetti bottarga, artisanal salami, fresh fruit—all set out on starched white linen.
After lunch we join the armada of tenders invading the Hotel Cala di Volpe’s private beach from the flotilla of yachts moored offshore. The beach at Cala in July is where the world’s best “floats” are on parade. On any sunny Sardinian day you might see My Song, the high-performance Maxi owned by cashmere king PierLuigi Loro Piana; Gucci’s gorgeous three-masted 196-foot Criolla; publishing magnate Carlo Perrone’s 66-foot Maxi racer Virtuelle (with interiors by Philippe Starck); Leonardo Ferragamo’s elegant 118-foot Swan; Franciacorta vintner Vittorio Moretti’s Viriella; Luca Bassani’s Tiketitan Wally racer; or the newly restored 408-foot classic Savarona that was built for Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and is now used for charter. Whether as new as racing sailor Wallyno or vintage as sailing ship Shenandoah, they all are best of class.
The American fleet consists mostly of tech titans with their high-tech toys—Larry Ellison’s Sayonara and Paul Allen’s 301-foot Tatoosh. Meduse, the smallest of Allen’s three yachts at 198 feet 10 inches, is outfitted with a recording studio designed by Peter Gabriel, a summer regular; U2 has done sessions in it. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tom Perkins’ Marietta is another regular, sans novelist Danielle Steel, to whom Perkins was briefly married. Apparently Steel disliked yachting, and Marietta was Perkins’ great love.
Naturally, this is a beach where a tender can be a $450,000 45-foot WallyTender, fitted with its own stereo system. It’s an occasion for “umbrella hopping,” one of the few places where everyone gets to meet and greet their floating neighbors. Yes, that was Mariah Carey sunbathing on the 209-foot Lady Marina. I run into an Iranian banker based in Switzerland, whom I met in Aspen. That’s how it is here.
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