In my last post on the Vogalonga (though I suppose it would be more accurate to say that this is my last) I acknowledged the lack of any photographic evidence of our excellent — and rapid — circuit of the northern lagoon.
As I had hoped, a kind soul did in fact take some pictures of us, and that kind soul knew some friends of ours, who sent them along. Perhaps there are more such souls out there, but I don’t know them or their friends. So here’s a big shout-out to the club Voga Fortuna Berlin, and Sandra, who chose to work the camera rather than the oar.
Here we are returning to the club to get our numbered bib. If you ask where are all the hordes of rowers waiting for the starting cannon to fire, I can tell you they're behind us. Where most of them stayed all morning. The crew this year was a sort of mixed fishfry. (L to r): Sandro Graffi, his 12-year-old son Davide, 14-year-old Filippo Novello, Antonio Borgo, me, and Mike O'Toole, a/k/a/ "Otolini," master and commander of Gondola Getaway in Long Beach, California. Lino is sitting on his starboard side, as navigator and co-pilot, though he rarely intervened.And our return, down the incredibly spacious Cannaregio Canal. Somewhere around Murano we reshuffled the squad: Antonio is now in the bow and Sandro is at #4. Lino has moved from the stern to sit in the bow, which was undoubtedly more comfortable but which reversed his view of the proceedings. What you can't hear, unfortunately, is all of us saying some variation on "Holy Sacrament, I can't believe how few people are here. I'm never going back to the old way."
Considering how well my personal Vogalonga went this year (along with my six boatmates), it’s taken me this much time to find anything to say about it other than that.
Also, I have no photographs whatsoever of us, for one reason which explains both these little paragraphs. We didn’t start in the Bacino of San Marco.
A glimpse of the Bacino of San Marco on or about the start this year, which we didn't see. This image is even more beautiful for that very reason. (Thanks to the unnamed photographer who took this picture, which I found on the web.)
The tradition in any boat I’ve been in that includes Lino (all but one — the first year — of the 16 editions I’ve joined) is that we start in the Bacino of San Marco when the cannon fires and all the bells ring. It’s thrilling and I love this moment, which is all too brief because we then commence rowing, along with a mass of boats surrounding us like migrating krill.
This means that while we have the chance to savor the richness of the moment — boats, cannon, bells — the krill create many well-known problems along the way. Such as at what I think of as the “death corner,” the first turn at the point of Sant’ Elena, where any number of non-Venetian rowers suddenly discover some problem which they hadn’t planned on facing — such as a tricky current, or some boats around them also having problems, or, I don’t know, existential lack of nerve, like cragfast climbers. You can expect to see at least one capsized vessel here, and a batch of confusion from the mass of boats trying to avoid it.
Then there are the snaky curves along the flank of Sant’ Erasmo, also excellent territory for making miscalculations of available space, relative speeds, and wind direction and force.
Then, of course, there is the every-year-more-difficult (I meant to say “ghastly” but changed my mind) passage into and through the Cannaregio Canal, where inexperience, fatigue, and lack of common sense create packs of boats like Arctic ice.
This year we didn’t have any of that — I mean, ANY of that — for one surprising reason. We forgot our boat’s number, without which the boat can’t be checked at various points along the way and hence acknowledged as officially doing the course.
So when the cannon/bells/confusion began at 9:00 AM, we were back at the boat club behind Sant’ Elena digging the numbered bib out of Lino’s locker.
Which meant that we joined the scrum after the “death corner,” and — this was unexpected — in some way near the head of the herd. Please note that this does not mean we started early, as some unsporting people tend to do. We slipped into the traffic stream at 9:10, roughly the same time it would have been for us at that point even if we’d started in the usual place.
The result of all this being that not only did we cover the entire course in record time without even breaking a sweat (three hours — unheard of), we were able to do it in unearthly tranquillity. Yes, there were other boats, but noticeably fewer at that stage. We slithered along Sant’ Erasmo as if there wasn’t anybody else around, and we entered the Cannaregio Canal (over which I always see an invisible sign saying “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”) as if it were a normal day, only better: The reasonable number of boats ahead of us were proceeding in a reasonable way at a reasonable speed and behaving, well, reasonably. I had never imagined I could see such a thing.
The only flaw in the ointment, as a friend of mine used to say, was that we were also ahead of the photographers. We missed the departure, which is always good for spectacular pictures, and we missed the mass return, ditto.
So unless some unknown photographer makes him- or herself known, I’m just going to have to keep my memories dusted and polished, because there isn’t anything else I have to show for this event.
It was so wonderful that I’m already trying to think of ways to convince the crew to leave before 9:00 next year. If all goes well, I’ll be able soon to report that we finished the course before the others had even started it.
Crazy? Unsporting? Simply wrong? Yes indeed. But now the rot has set in.
I recently promised, somewhat insincerely, to report on how the race of the Four Ancient Maritime Republics came out last Sunday. Insincere, because even though I have seen it here and, via television, elsewhere, I’ve always had the impression that it was a race that interested only the people taking part. I certainly wasn’t picking up any tremors of curiosity from that part of me that wonders about everything.
The Italian naval jack (flown at the bow of all Italian military vessels) shows the symbols of the four ancient maritime republics. (Clockwise from top left) Venice, Genova, Pisa, Amalfi.And the galleons, arranged here in corresponding order.
But we did watch most of it, standing on a mid-course bridge, and about one minute into the 8-minute, 2000-meter contest we had the winner all picked out (the team from Pisa, which has won the last two races, though Amalfi was rowing as if each man had a dagger clenched in his jaws). Although rowing backwards has little appeal for me personally, I had to admire the teams, composed in large part of Italian champions loaded with national, European, and even World titles. For them, this wasn’t some picturesque little jaunt, it was a real race.
Since we were too far away to see the finish, and we were staring straight into the late-afternoon sun, we went home.
Guess what? Those last five minutes have now made history. Not only did Amalfi launch a dazzling sprint that carried them across the finish line 3/100ths of a second faster than Pisa, an hour later the judges decided that three of the four competitors had to be disqualified for technical errors.
This made Venice, the obvious loser trailing for the entire race, the only possible winner.
So the judges and mayors of the four contending cities had a big meeting, while outside some of the fans were so near to starting a small riot that the police and the Carabinieri had to be called in to settle things down. Meanwhile the live-TV commentators trolled the exhausted, baffled and emotional racers for remarks. Everybody was waiting.
The verdict: The race was annulled. For the first time in the 56 years of this competition, there was no winner. It never happened. We were never there. You were just imagining it.
“Venice can’t win this way,” said mayor Giorgio Orsoni in the best sporting tradition, even though it’s a bitter bite, as they say here, when the home team loses, especially when the home team has won more of these races (30) than its three competitors put together.
So what went wrong? I will resist giving you all the details but simply say that Pisa and Amalfi, battling it out in the lead, were guilty of wandering off the legal playing field, while Genova skipped a buoy it was supposed to pass in a certain way. Naturally there were reasons for these infractions which the teams struggled to justify, to no avail. Many people, even ashore, complained about the negative effect the fireboat’s wake was undoubtedly having on the two nearest boats.
So no medals, no glory, nothing but boatloads of grief for everybody, especially Amalfi, which was deservedly proud of its spectacular last-minute push to victory. Or so it thought.
Here is the race, as seen live on national television. I don’t think it’s necessary to know Italian to understand what’s going on. You merely need to have a working knowledge of brilliance, struggle, and crushing disappointment.
And that aroma you may have noticed? It’s the fragrance of revenge wafting from Amalfi, which is the host city for next year’s race.
Trivia: The race was proposed in 1949 by the president of the Tourism organization of Pisa. The fact that it wasn’t invented by an athletic group for its competitive value, but as a neat reason to dress up a shorebound contingent of costumed extras, seems a little odd. But tourists like costumes, and the sporting people can just ignore them.
The four boats were designed by the late, legendary Giovanni Giuponi (in Venice), and built by a Venetian shipyard, originally in wood, later in fiberglass.
The bow of each boat carries a stylized figurehead representing each city’s totem animal (as I think of them): The winged lion of San Marco for Venice, a dragon for Genova, an eagle for Pisa, and a winged horse for Amalfi.
The boat/team colors are: Green for Venice, white for Genova, red for Pisa, blue for Amalfi.
The boats cannot weigh less than 760 kilos (1,675.5 pounds).
The first race was held on July 1,1956, in Pisa. Logical, seeing as it was their idea.
The positions at the starting line are drawn by lot, which is the only fair way to deal with the factor of tide, current, or any other acqueous factor which would clearly help some boats while hindering others. Every city’s stretch of water for this race presents particular little problems which the coaches and coxes make every effort to recognize. As it happens, Pisa, which had the lead for almost the whole race, was rowing in the worst position. Hats off, oars up, wave your flag or handkerchief, because they deserve it.
If the teams have been here for a week, studying the course, you might well wonder how the coxes of three boats could have made the mistakes they did. Lino’s explanation: They were of course looking for the best little thread of extra current to help them, and didn’t pay attention. Or thought nobody would notice, which is my theory.
That sound you may have thought was silence from out here was actually the sound of me putting my shoulder to the titanic wheel, so to speak, of the registration work for the annual event known as the Vogalonga, or “long row.”
This year it will be held on this coming Sunday, June 12. It has never been held this late in the year (May has been its preferred month), and I’ll explain the reason for this in a moment.
Just like people, each of these oar-driven marathons for the past 36 years is different, yet each one is the same. Thousands of rowers in all sorts of boats proceeding around a 30-km (18-mile) course betwixt the islands of the northern lagoon.
Every year there are more of them rowing in single kayaks, and far too many of them get in the way and do things that do not demonstrate a profound experience either of boats and a tidal lagoon, by which I mean they don’t seem to realize there is a tide working harder than even they are — against them, with them, or a blend of both. Their not taking the tide into account conduces to many little surprises for them. Any nearby Venetians, knowing this, have already come up with Plan B to avoid getting involved in their assorted miscalculations.
The start is always impressive, though this image doesn't give anything near the sense of mass migration you feel at the waterline.
Back to the registration work: It goes on for two weeks, and today and tomorrow, being the last days (and being the weekend) will be spectacularly chaotic at the office, as thousands of just-arrived, already-happy-and-excited rowers appear to claim their pectoral with the registration number, and the T-shirts allotted to them. There is often much debate among them about what size Ingrid or Francois is going to need, while masses of waiting rowers pile up behind them.
In the early days — last week — I’d take a Medium (or whatever) out of its plastic bag to demonstrate what it looked like (leading to more debate…..). But those days are gone. If somebody asks me now for two Large, I just give them to him/her. If they want to exchange them they have to go to the back of the line and wait their turn. It’s either me doing that, or fifty impatient rowers deciding to take matters into their own hands.
Briefly, the reason why we will be rowing for hours in mid-June (which translates as “probably scorchingly hot”) is because this year it’s Venice’s turn to host an annual event which rotates among the four participating cities of Venice, Pisa, Florence, and Genoa.
It’s called the Palio of the Four Ancient Maritime Republics, and it’s rowed on eight-oar boats, something like life-saving boats, called “galleons.” In case you’re wondering what Pisa is doing in the lineup, Pisa was an important port city before the harbor silted up and they built that tower and batches of city on top of it. They’ve been digging up sunken Roman ships in town for years now.
Fine, I hear you say, but how does this concern the Vogalonga? Because the organizing committee of the Palio thought it would be cool to hold their race on the afternoon of the Vogalonga, seeing as there would already be so many boats in the water (us). The rowers could just stay in the water and watch the race and provide a lot of nautical garnish to the spectacle.
I will have to let you know how that fantasy works out, because from my own experience, I can say that the last thing anybody feels like doing at the end of possibly five hours in a boat is to stay in the boat, even to watch the World Cup. Your primary thoughts at the end are for food, shade, a shower, and a chaise longue, if not a bed in a room with the blinds pulled down.
You have no secondary thoughts. If you did, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be to stay in or near the water and watch a race that starts at 6:00 PM.
But what, as I often ask myself, do I know? I’ll let you know how it all turns out.
Back to the registration work. There are two questions many people can’t resist asking when they sign up. One is “How many boats are there?” I don’t know and I don’t really try to know. I’m just slinging T-shirts. And besides, does it matter? Have they organized an office pool on who bets closest to the correct number? They’re here, so whether there are 2,893 or 5,001 boats can’t make any real difference. Perhaps I’m wrong.
Second baffling question: “What’s the weather going to be?” If any forecast, even for six hours from now, turned out to be correct, it would be amazing. Instead of replying, “You believe forecasts?” I have always tended to say, “All I can tell you is that whatever the weather is for you, it’s going to be the same for everybody else.”
This year I’m trying something different. When they ask me, I just say “Beautiful. It’s going to be beautiful.” I’ll either be right or wrong, just like any other forecaster.
I experienced an amusing variation this year: I brought the Vogalonga cell phone home last night and left it on while I recharged it. Two calls came in at 11:40 PM. I was sound asleep.
I didn’t even answer them, I just turned the phone off and tried to get back to reclaim that dream they so rudely interrupted.
Checking the numbers this morning, I see that one call was from an area near Rome, the other from Munich. When I got up at 5:00, I was extremely tempted to call them back. But the satisfaction would only have been momentary, so I let it go.
I may not be helpfully demonstrating T-shirt sizes anymore, but at least I haven’t descended to the level of vendetta.
The start may have been impressive, but it's the return that really gets you. Too many boats in the Cannaregio Canal, most of whom want to get ahead of you in very little space. There is usually a certain amount of shouting at this point.
