VeniceLife6: Sailing (speeding, rowing…) on by

The odd speed boat blaring unacceptably loud music isn’t around at 7am; the water ambulances heading to the nearby hospital don’t use their sirens. No sign of the water taxis doing a slow sight-seeing cruise, and we rarely get gondolas up our way. But as for the rest – who knows what you’re going to see?

Is it the barge loaded up with crates of soft drinks and bottled water, delivery for all the restaurants nearby? Is it one of the anonymous working vehicles, with the ubiquitous three men in dark zipped jackets? Come 8 o’clock, it’s just as likely to be one of the umpteen small, noisy, private craft – a young man bound of heaven-knows-what-errand, a young woman, plus dog, taking a child to school.

All right, some of the bigger vessels have a distinct sound.* I was drawn outside by a huge green monster, laden with metal crates … and at one end, a large teddy bear, face down, in a posture of despair. It was only on its return journey I recognised the spazzatura, the rubbish disposal, boat. Guess that accounts for poor teddy.

About that ‘at one end’ thing …Yes, I know boats have technically a prow and a stern. But do the Venetians? At the risk of seeming to criticise a race of proud seamen, the bigger boats here seem to use them interchangeably; going one way along the canal blunt end first, then coming back the other way round. Easier than trying to turn in the narrow water space, presumably. And looking online, I see the prow (or bow) is designed to slice through waves, of which on the canals there really aren’t any. Which makes life easier, presumably.

I always wondered whether, in Venice, you just hopped on a boat and drove. Whether you needed a license – whether ‘boating under the influence’ is a criminal thing? I still don’t know the answer to the second, but the first depends on your boat size, apparently. Less than 25 horsepower (‘horsepower’? here??) I’m told you’re good to go. Guess you can’t do that much damage to anybody else, while the local lack of interest in health and safety puts damage to yourself square on your own head …. It’s like the bridge at the end of our fondamenta; still without a parapet or a railing to be seen. You’re dumb enough to fall over the side and drown? Feel free..

The level of regulation goes up with the power of the horses, and whether you’re planning just to potter on the canals, or go out into the lagoon or on the sea. All very practical, really. Watch the working boats, you realise there is great skill needed to negotiate through a watery traffic jam – but the real talent is getting a mooring, apparently. Same, only more so, as getting parking in any other city.

Every five or six years (according to Eugenio, my new local authority) the city raises a haughty eyebrow and scans a long list of humble supplicants. Anything that moves by non-mechanical power gets priority. It’s like the old principle of ‘sail before steam’.

(Though writing that takes me back years, to the time I was a passenger on the QE2, coming into Boston harbour. Yes, Boston - the ship had set out across the Atlantic on 8 September 2021, and no commercial vessels were being allowed into New York., where the docks had more vital business. It was a sunny weekend morning, and half Boston had turned out, on the shore and on the sea, to catch sight of the famous ship. Tiny sailboats were dashing right across her prow, trusting to the old sail/steam law. I was terrified for them. Yes, fine, the theory is great. But you can’t slow the QE2 that rapidly.)

Talking of big boats, I’ll never forget, almost as many years ago, having a Bellini on the terrace of the Gritti Palace. Suddenly, at the next table, an elderly woman leapt to her feet, pointing and crying out (yes, truly) ‘Mamma mia!’.

What she’d seen, coming up the broad water passage between Giudecca and the Dorsoduro, was a cruise ship – a behemoth of a cruise ship, many stories high, that made the QE2 look like a bathtub toy.

Trouble was, it also made all the glorious buildings of Venice look tiny: the great dome of the Salute like an ornament on a wedding cake: the Dorsoduro and Giudecca like Campanile like a child’s toy. That is wrong – an obscenity. The giant cruise ships, I’m happy to say, are banned from actually passing through Venice, today.

But I confess I still like to see the ferries setting off down the Croatian coast: a reminder of Venice’s history. And every year at Biennale time, going to see the exhibitions in the Arsenale, I remember the story of the visiting French king Henri III, brought there for a dinner in the sixteenth century. Outside the banqueting hall at the start of the feast was, effectively, a pile of beams. At the end, in a staggering display of Venetian sea-power, there was a finished galley. It would have been a long dinner, admittedly …

We walked along the fondamenta to dinner the other day, as an all-women team of rowers in training passed by. But this hip, students-with-money area, the weekend crowd was all about the motor boats; and beside me Paul was giving each the eagle eye.

‘That one is cool’ – eying a smallish number, with striped seats and something retro about its lines – ‘and that one [long raking sides, large motor] is sexy.’ I suspect he’s already imaging his own boat in Venice. But hey, it’s the city of fantasy.

As for me, I’ll stick to my balcony. I wonder when I’ll stop being this thrilled and startled – stop thinking ‘It’s a boat, outside my window!’? When I’ll get blase?

I’m kind of hoping, never, actually.

*Boats and dogs both …Rex is the size of a small pony, but, whatever the theory, his bark can be heard across three counties.