Saturday, July 30, 2011

SUP Invasion of Venezia

Some of you may have already seen this - following the link from John Synco's comment.
It's a little less off-topic than my "River Surfing in Germany" post, simply because it takes place in Venice, and there are gondolas (even though they are in the background most of the time.
I fully support the SUP craze, but all-the-same, I cannot emphasize enough the fact that this is not rowing, and far from voga-alla-veneta.
Alora, take a look at "Surfin' Venice 2011".

3 comments:

Tamás said...

> I cannot emphasize enough the fact that this is not rowing, and far from voga-alla-veneta.

I don't know. Where is the boundary between very large surfboards and very small gondolas? Maybe the tech used to build surfboards could be the basis to make ultra-light, less than half-sized gondolas affordably, purely for fun or recreational use?

Of course, that would be one big heresy, but I think it's fundamentally different from building "plastic" gondolas for revenue use, in lieu of wooden boats.

Maybe SUP for Venice are like moto-scooters for Rome?

Gondola Sean said...

Tamas - good point. I think the line is very thin. Still, this is not rowing. It is paddling. Propelling a gondolino in this manner would still be paddling. BTW, as mentioned earlier, not surfing either.

Tamás said...

> Still, this is not rowing. It is paddling.

Interestingly, not all languages differentiate among rowing, sculling, paddling.

For example, in hungarian, even though we have plenty of rivers and lakes, there is only "eveze's" for any activity involving hands and arms to propel a boat with large spoon(s).

If there is a need to note the presence or absence of a fork(ola) or gunwale recess, that's expressed verbosely.

(Although it must be said our sport is mostly about kayak and canoe and "voga inglesa" is very tertiary in Hungary.)

BTW, the whole discussion let me find out something amazing. Maybe a great thing will come out of it.