Endeavour's mystery buyer revealed

by Karen Freifeld and Jim Silver on 29 Dec 2006 When L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive officer of Tyco International Ltd., sold his yacht, the Endeavour, to pay restitution for looting the company, the new owner was somewhat of a mystery.

The historic boat, a 1934 America's Cup entry, was purchased Sept. 28 for $13.1 million by Diversicolor Ltd., a Cayman Islands corporation, according to papers filed in New York state Supreme Court. The sales contract also named Sempervirens Ltd., another company with a Cayman address.

The real owner is a man named Cassio Antunes, a resident of Hawaii, who has big plans for the boat, according to a statement released by his Miami lawyer and people working on the boat in Newport, Rhode Island.

Antunes, 44, has admired the yacht since he was a young boy and plans a significant refit of the sloop as well as a change in its home port to George Town, Cayman Islands, from Newport. He wants to race it again.

`This sailing vessel had captured the new owner's attention more than 30 years ago,' Antunes said in a statement, `when Mr. Antunes, then a young boy, used to go to Italy and visit his grandfather's large yachting library.'

Kozlowski's conviction provided ``a unique opportunity' to buy the Endeavour, the statement said. ``Mr. Antunes and his family feel very fortunate that after thirty years of admiring this yacht, the opportunity arose to actually acquire' it.

Neither Antunes' attorneys at Moore & Co. in Miami, nor people at the Newport shipyard would say what Antunes does for a living. In his statement, Antunes said the boat was sold to ``the Antunes family from Lisbon, Portugal.'

Antunes is the son of Maria Bonomi, 71, a well-known Brazilian artist, according to her adviser, Alexandre Martins, who answered her phone in Sao Paulo. Bonomi, who emigrated from Italy in 1945, is known for engravings and public art.

She also has worked with and married Antunes Filho, a famous Brazilian director, according to the Itau Cultural Encyclopedia. In a 2000 interview with Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, the director said his parents were poor immigrants from Portugal.

The 130-foot Endeavour, built for British aviation pioneer and yachtsman Thomas Sopwith, underwent repairs and maintenance in Newport before setting sail for Antigua for the winter. It will be in the Caribbean by Christmas, Busher said.

John Koon, a boat surveyor from Hawaii overseeing the work at the shipyard, said he got a call in August from Antunes asking him to go to New England and take Endeavour on a 10-day sea trial in September before its purchase. Hired as the owner's representative, he said he helped inspect the boat as well.

``This was a team of five experts for five days examining every square inch, every bit of the hull from the top of the mast to the bottom of the keel,' Koon said.

The family wants to race the sloop again against the two other J-class vessels built in the 1930s, the Shamrock V and Velsheda, according to the surveyor.

``He's got the passion for it, which is a pretty rare quality,' Koon said of the new owner.

It will be available for charter while in Antigua, Koon said.

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