Squero Padovano

In Venice squero is the boatyard for the building, maintenance and shelter for traditional boats such as the sandolo, mascareta, puparin, and, of course, the most popular gondola. Even in Padua, city of waters, as in Venice, there were once squeri overlooking the waterways.
Within the walls of the ancient city, in a hidden place to rediscover, we have improvised our squero. Here we're trying to share a story that has been lost over fifty years ago.

CAORLINA

The caorlina was acquired by Amissi Piovego in 2009.
It's a boat with symmetrical, rounded bow and stern, rowed up to six oarsmen. Originally, this kind of boat was built for fishing and especially for transporting fresh fruit and vegetables from the islands to the city market of Venice. Today is one of the most famous boats in races on the short path to the Historical Regatta of Venice.
Our caorlina is 9.22 m long and 1.56 m wide.




Maurizio Destro is better known as "Maurizio il pescatore" (= the fisherman). In fact, he's the last professional river's fisherman in the province of Padua. He lives almost on a small boat on the Bacchiglione river where throws his fishing nets.


In the summer 2010 Maurizio asked me to help him in the restoration of the boat that showed extensive damage due to the wear of time. So in mid-July we began I began my first boat restoration which lasted until the end of September.


Most of the frames were rotten mainly to the end of the piane as well as at the bottom of the sanconi:




The reinforcement of the sokets for the forcole (nogari) had been performed with blocks of soft wood that had already worn and corroded, so we replaced it with new hardwood olive:




Reinforcement of the frames with redossi:




Restoration of the foredeck and afterdeck:












The boat is painted in white and navy blue outside, light blue inside:



















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