Sunday, April 11, 2010

William

We spend a lot of time and attention here on one type of boat: the gondola. After all, it is the "Gondola Blog", and the boat is worthy of the attention she receives. I realize this may come as a surprise to some of you, but there are other types of boats in Venice.
Some are more "showy" than others. There are passenger vessels, cargo vessels, and work boats of many types. Today we're taking a look at a topo.

Our friend William Rich Had one such boat while he was living in Venice. He sent me a few pictures, taken on his adventures aboard the topo.

William tells me that "this topo was built around 1900 in the Giudecca Canottiere. Previous owner was a Giudecca fisherman that used it for.. fishing! and sold it to a buddy of mine years back. It has all the original oars and forcole from the former owner, I actually completely redid and repaired one of the oars with my buddy Paolo Brandolisio".

The photo above was taken in Venice.
Following are two more shots from somewhere in the Venetian Lagoon.

Every work boat needs a dog! Here's William's dog "Titi" supervising things from the bowdeck.

And while William rows from a precarious position, his wife Elsa reclines while enjoying the views of the lagoon.

4 comments:

emilia said...

There is also "sandolo". Look at this post by my friend Fausto about the boat named sandolo:

http://alloggibarbaria.blogspot.com/2008/12/sandolo.html

and look at that sandolo da barcariol in Rio del Santissimo :)

http://alloggibarbaria.blogspot.com/2010/04/rio-del-santissimo.html

staff said...

BTW those dogs are called "can da burcio" and are used to bark to everybody around the boat.
Nereo

Tamás said...

Year 1900 is mentioned in the text. Is that a typo? I mean a big oak tall ship could last centuries, although it is said there is little original material left in Nelson's Victory.

I can't imagine a regularly used small plank boat still floating after a century, unless every single part of it has been replaced several times?

staff said...

Yes, it's a typo. Nereo