Venice – ‘La Vogalonga’ (part I)

So what is la Vogalonga? Wikipedia does not do the event justice, and just tells us that it’s a 30 km race “along the various Venetian canals and historical buildings”. The official website does a bit better, but hopefully I’ve tried to add a little extra…

We all know the famous gondola, but the story of la Vogalonga is said to have only started on Saint Martin’s day (11 November) in 1974. It was a regatta between friends on a different type of lagoon boat called a mascareta.

This post (part I) will look at the preparation for la Vogalonga of 1984, and see what it has become today.

Part II looks at the history and role of different boats found in Venice, including the gondola.

The vogalonga, an old Venetian rowing technique

The ‘voga alla veneta‘ rowing style is used to drive the iconic gondola, along with every other version of keel-less, rudder-less, flat-bottomed Venetian boats. It is the rowing technique in which rowers are standing up, facing forward and resting the oar in a special oarlock called ‘fórcola‘.

It is a pleasant rowing style not only because it allows you to see where you are going, but because it’s extremely efficient. A recent study confirmed that to transport three people plus the weight of the boat (half a ton), a gondolier consumes the same amount of energy as he does walking.

Another advantage of this style is the extreme manoeuvrability, where the gondolier is able to carry out every manoeuvre without changing his position.

You can find boats with a single rower using a single oar (the oar also acting as rudder), a la valesana with a single rower using two crossed oars, and boats with two or more rowers.

The classical technique is the single rower using a single oar, simply because it saves space in the narrow Venetian canals.

The stroke itself is divided into two phases, firstly the ‘push’ during which the oarsman immerses the blade vertically and pushes on the shaft of the oar, and the ‘return’ in which the oar is moved back to its starting point. It’s after the ‘push’ stroke, the gondolier prepares to straighten the boat with the return stroke. The ‘return’ is a complex movement in which the oar is kept underwater and is brought to its starting point keeping the forward edge of the blade inclined downwards. This ‘rudder effect’ is used to correct the direction of the boat. The technique must also reduce the ‘braking’ effect of the return-stroke so as to gain the maximum forward motion.

La Vogalonga, the idea of a race

It is said that the idea for la Vogalonga actually came from a young Venetian architect Paolo Rosa Salva, who had asked himself how to mend the broken relationship between the Venetians and the lagoon, and who initially was inspired by the Marcialonga.

Fortunately he decided to aim for something more modest, the San Martino regatta, later renamed ‘ecological regatta’ by the Il Gazzettino. Organised on 10 November 1974, a call went out to everyone who was passionate about rowing and the lagoon environment.

It was during the post-regatta dinner among the participants that the idea of a rowing marathon was relaunched. Despite the fact that rowing enthusiasts were few and far between, the idea was for a non-competitive rowing event as a form of protest against the deterioration of the city and the adverse effects of wave motion caused by motor traffic in the lagoon. Those in favour of reinstating Venetian (boating) traditions were invited to join the cause.

The first Vogalonga took place on May 8, 1975, and it was only when 2,000 rowers on 545 boats took part, that everyone understood that the bet had been won.

In 2002, 1,300 boats with 4,675 rowers took part, and in 2019 there were 2,000 boats with 7,527 rowers (of which more than 5,000 came from abroad).

The route around the lagoons and canals of Venice

The route taken is more or less the same each year, except the return passage though the city to Piazza San Marco can change from year to year.

So the start is always in the Canale della Giudecca, and the target is the turn at the Canale di Mazzorbo, one of the islands in the northern part of the Lagoon of Venice.

The Isola di Mazzorbo (above) is lightly populated, and is now famous for its brightly painted houses. More famous is the Isola di Burano (below), also known for its brightly coloured homes.

They first leave Piazza San Marco and row past the Danieli and the Giardini della Biennale, before taking a sharp left into the Canale delle Navi-Sant’Elena. They then bear to the right to row past Isola delle Vignole along the Canale della Bissa. They are aiming to turn in to Canale Passaora-Sant’Erasmo, and row along the northern side of the island. On their left is the Palude di Santa Giacomo, a vast area that can best be described as marshland, and gets its name from San Giacomo in Paludo (which is a small almost abandoned island). From there they bear left to find Canale Crevan-Burano, which is a canal that divides the Palude di Santa Caterina (on the left) and Palude di Burano. This canal will take them around the back of Mazzorbo, where they then turn left and row along the canal that runs though the middle of the main island.

The route back to Piazza San Marco taken them across the lagoon towards Murano (famous for its glass), and again they pass the north side of the Palude di Santa Giacomo. Here the rowers have to turn a short right into Canale di Murano (next to the Faro di Murano). As far as I can see the Canale di Murano is really composed of an entry Canale San Giovani, with a left turn into Canale Ponte Lungo, before leaving the island through Canale degli Angeli-Tessera (i.e. Canale degli Angeli that exits into Canale di Tessera). The reality is that there are at least 14 different named canals just in and around the main island of Murano.

From there I’ve seen that routes change from year to year, but they all bring the rowers back through the canals to Canal Grande and the arrival at Punto della Dogana.

La Vogalonga 1984

We are going to turn the clock back to 1984, and totally by chance we saw some of the participants training on the canals of Venice, the day before la Vogalonga of 20 May, 1984. Here are our old photographs from 1984.