Someone could wonder where the name Cantiere Navale Donoratico comes from.
The answer is very simple: the present Residence Hotel comes from the architectural reclamation of a true shipyard established in 1946 by the Count Gaddo della Gherardesca.
But this was not an ordinary shipyard and, if you have patience, you will soon understand why.
Cantiere Navale Donoratico wrote the most important pages in the rowing and sailing history and the boats with the Donoratico trademark became soon famous worldwide for their high technical level. In fact the most prominent shipwrights of the time, using Honduran cedar trunks, built boats characterized by a legendary perfection, which were without rivals in the international competitions from the 50's onwards.
The Armi di Donoratico boats, with their light elegant hulls and the revolutionary “greyhound-like sides” broke all records everywhere and won hands down in all the competitions in the United States, in Australia, in New Zealand and also in the regatta along the river Thames between the Cambridge University and the Oxford University. And in 1968 they won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Mexico City with the “two-with”, guided by an Italian crew.
But there is something else. In 1952 the Cantiere Navale Donoratico designed the first sailing catamaran and this revolutionized the navigation techniques. The Donoratico catamarans won the hearts of all skippers worldwide thanks also to the fame of Ambrogio Fogar with his boat called Spirit of Surprise. These very fast sailing boats established themselves in the most prestigious international regattas and in those years Cantiere Navale Donoratico exported to 56 countries. Following this enormous success Cantiere Navale Donoratico built trimarans and sailing boats for the King of Greece and for Accademia Navale di Livorno and started also the production of revolutionary motor boats.
From the end of the 70's the new plastic and fibreglass hulls established themselves on the market and replaced the wooden hulls. This was a great blow to Cantiere Navale Donoratico, which couldn't recover any longer and after few years it was forced to close down. But the concern did it in its own way with an exceptional flick of the tail. In fact only few people know that the Count Gaddo della Gherardesca tested one of the most advanced materials from a technical point of view: the carbon fibre.
The technical results of the researches were so innovative that the Ferrari racing stable sent to Donoratico its team of engineers to learn how to process the carbon fibre. This intuition was brilliant, but unfortunately it was not enough to balance the economic situation of Canatiere Navale Donoratico.
This was the end of an era and in 1979 Cantiere Navale Donoratico closed down. The company established in Donoratico a first-class entrepreneurial activity and trained also workers with excellent technical competence. But thanks to this experience new shipyards were established, which are still among the most important companies worldwide in the field of design and construction of sailing and rowing boats.
A careful detailed renovation project has turned Cantiere Navale Donoratico into a very new three-star superior tourist facility covering a 25-hectare surface surrounded by standard cluster pines and by a luxuriant vegetation, where a colony of deers has been also introduced. This tourist facility is located in a stretch of coast which can be certainly defined as “unique” because of its position and nature and also for the beach and the sea characterizing this area.
Today the old shipyards have been replaced by very new buildings, including the central one called "La Vela", whose semicircular covering reminds the old typical roof of the then sheds. The tourist facility consists of other 8 buildings with 176 living units, including rooms, flats and suites of different dimensions.
The tourist facility, which was built according to the utmost environment-friendly criteria, is surrounded by sand dunes, standard cluster pines and by the typical Mediterranean vegetation. The large beach is characterized by fine sand and in this stretch of coast the wonderful sea sinks gradually. So this is really an OASIS...
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