Standing up for fun

Kate Farrelly tries her hand at the ancient — and deceptively tricky — art of Venetian rowing.

We are going around in circles. Big ones, yes, but circles all the same. The dead on the nearby isle of San Michele, the cemetery island where many Venetians are buried, are no doubt giggling in their graves. You tourists, they would chortle. You’ve got no chance of mastering the ancient art of Venetian rowing in one afternoon.

Give up, go home! They may well be right. But it doesn’t stop us from having a crack at it. We have watched the gondoliers. We have ridden in their vessels, parting with wads of cash in the process. We have heard sticky tales of those who have tried to master the art of stand-up rowing and been found wanting .Now we want a piece of the action.

A local Venetian rowing instructor, Jane Caporal, surprises us first with her Aussie accent, then with her story about how she came to be here. Originally from Perth, she came to Venice on maternity leave while her husband completed a thesis. Twenty-two years later they are still here and with their two sons, aged 22 and 10, call Venice home.

Realising she couldn’t pursue normal sports in this water-logged city, Caporal decided to tackle stand up rowing, a discipline that, as I will explain, differs from that of operating a gondola. She became the first registered female rowing instructor in Venice and is the only operator teaching tourists how to row. Outside work she has her sights set on becoming a campionessa, which is a champion stand-up rower, enabling her to enter the professional racing circuit.

Caporal has won enough flags to nearly topple the Murano glass vase in which she stores them. Her talent has also earned her and fellow club rowers grudging respect from the gondoliers. "Years ago, when the club rowers took to the canals instead of the lagoon, the gondoliers would shout at us to get out of their way," she says. "The canals were theirs and they had to work. The rowers were told to go out on the lagoon. Now there is a lot more respect, we have a common enemy – fighting the motor traffic." Our lesson begins at the marina in the Sacca della Misericordia, Cannaregio, a ferry-ride north from St Mark’s. We are to learn in Caporal’s rare batela a coa de gambero, a prawn-tailed wooden boat modelled on a now-obsolete style of Venetian cargo boat and built for Caporal by a specialist boat maker in Burano.

Caporal takes us through the basics of stand-up rowing. With two rowers on board, one stands on the stern deck and is responsible for steering, the second stands inside the boat and acts as the engine.

With Caporal steering, I take up the "engine" position while the rest of the family, my husband Phil and two boys aged five and six, relax on the bench seating. The trick is to rest the long oar in the forcola — an oarlock carved from cherry or walnut wood with an open cradle — and use it to guide your stroke through the water. Right foot behind left, I push the oar out from my chest and pull it back in towards my stomach. In this fashion we make our way up a quiet canal towards the lagoon, pulling the oar in when passing other boats.