Giovanni Caputo

"To rig" a boat, that is to say to provide her with sails and rigs, is a difficult and delicate task. Small variations, insignificant to an uninitiated's eyes, can set great differences in terms of performances, reliability or safety. The position of the mast, length and angle of attach of the "standing rigging", holding the mast steady, and of the "running rigging", maneuvering the sails, are the product of centuries old, mostly empiric experiences, that once were passed from father to son, and now are kept by the "rigger", the man who "tunes up" the boat. The English word is the most used nowadays, because the job of "attrezzatore", though very much sought-after in the sailing world, has almost disappeared in Italy.
But Giovanni Caputo, a man who made a job of his passion, and an art of his job, is one of the very last classic boats "attrezzatori", specialised in lateen rigs. One day he came to visit the Cafiero's boatyard, to meet for the first time the gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro", bringing in a pocket a surprise gift to Mast'Antonio, Michele and the boat: one of his blocks in wood and copper, custom made according to the size and shape required by every rigging need. And during an extraordinary encounter of surviving skills and experiences, a cooperation is born between the carpenters and the rigger, who will donate to the lateen sailed gozzo "Santa Maria del Lauro" all the blocks she will need to be rigged with a lateen sail.