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Rowing the Vogalonga
The Vogalonga boating event is a fixture in the Venetian calendar, combining pageantry and athletic prowess
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The American University of Rome took part in last year’s Vogalonga. Photo by Terry Kirk. |
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Take one part carnival, one part marathon and the rest Venice and its northern islands and you have the Vogalonga (the Long Row), the most exhilarating combination of sweat, art and madness that Italy has to offer. On 27 May this year almost 5,200 rowers in more than 1,400 boats will complete the 32 km paddle which begins off St Mark’s and goes out to Burano, back through Murano and into Venice by Cannaregio to finish with cheers along the Grand Canal and end at the Salute.
The event began in 1974 when a group of Venetian oarsmen got together to do something about the declining interest and ability in lagoon rowing. Since then the Vogalonga has become a fixture in the Venetian calendar, with men and women of all ages coming together to show off their athletic and sartorial prowess and reclaim the lagoon and the city from the motorboats, at least for a few hours.
The traditionalists row alla veneta, standing up and pushing the blade (rather than sitting down and pulling, which the Venetians call all’inglese). The action is very similar to a gondolier’s and, in fact, the stern rower steers as well as pushing the boat along. Last year there were no gondolas but there was a host of sandoli, the two- or four-person boat originally used by lagoon fishermen. The most impressive and majestic boat by far was the Querini Rowing Club’s disdotona, an 18-oared gondola type with the club’s banner draped over the stern, some experienced Venetians rowing bow and stern and a group of Westminster School boys and masters rowing midship after a few days learning to row Venetian style. All were turned out elegantly in club colours, striped jerseys and bandanas. In 2004 the disdotona was rowed most ceremoniously up the Henley course in England and there was even a demonstration race between two sandoli pairs.
The Vogalonga is anything but competitive, at least in theory. At the beginning, at any rate, there are so many boats that one would need a war galley, complete with iron-tipped ram, to clear a path in order to row at anything like full speed. The narrow sections around the southern tip of Venice produce tailbacks worthy of a bank holiday or an extremely laid-back university bumps race. But there are long moments to relax, get one’s breath back and gawp at some of the more extravagant vessels. The leaders make it in a couple of hours after the cannon at 09.00, but most take rather longer.
Apart from the Venetian-style boats, there are all sorts of canoes, kayaks and dragon boats; the latter are to be avoided as the incessant thump of their drum induces either aggression or catalepsy in the surrounding rowers, but they are spectacular in their colours and decorations with dragon heads and tails spouting from bow and stern. Then there are single kayaks with earnest elderly gentlemen paddling quietly and admiring the view, and Canadian canoes usually with younger crews. Half the rowers are usually foreign – Germans, French, Swiss and Dutch, but also a good number of Hungarian crews, presumably veterans of long rows on the Danube or Lake Balaton.
Last year the American University of Rome entered with a scratch crew of students, faculty and administration – Italian, American, Indian, Spanish and English – in a borrowed broad clinker eight known in Italian (and in theory in English too) as a yole, though few English or American rowers know the word or the boat. But our main linguistic problem concerned the terms on the boat itself; half the crew did not know them in any language, the other half only in Italian or in English. In English the bow person is number one, stroke is eight, while the Italians count in the other direction. Giving orders can be dangerously ambiguous.
The boat was borrowed from the Querini Rowing Club, which meant going from its boathouse on the Fondamenta Nove on the northern edge of Venice to the start at St Mark’s through the Venetian Republic’s navy base, the Arsenale, still an Italian navy base and in theory closed to civilian traffic; but instead of shooting, sinking or boarding the boat, the guard on duty lowered the chain boom to let it through, an even rarer privilege than rowing up the Grand Canal.
Before the start last year a massive cruise liner went past, dwarfing not only the rowing boats but St Mark’s tower too. One of the port’s fireboats gave a display worthy of New York with all its hydrants firing and the gun to start the race. Those that could, raised their blades in the air and gave a shout of “Viva S. Marco” and the flotilla moved off.
Venice seen from any angle is an overdose of beauty; combine that with the proprietorial pride that comes with having conquered a physical space by one’s own exertions and the effect is stunning, aided last year by views of snow-covered Alps to act as a distant frame for the towers and domes of Venice, Murano, Burano and Torcello.
For more information, see www.vogalonga.com
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