In a Venice boatyard

I was expecting great things of the biggest boatyard on Giudecca, the large island on the

'other' side of the Grand Canal from where most visitors view Venice. But I was disappointed

- it was mostly given over to the sorts of plastic craft that you can see in any marina

anywhere in the world. I was expecting a scruffy yard where scruffy carpenters and grease

monkeys laboured over broken gondolas, worn-out traghettas, vaporettos and speed

boats. But only one gondola was being repaired at the time, although that appeared to be

more abandoned than anything else. It's more likely that they are repaired or maintained in

the small workshops scattered throughout Venice where they're actually built, and I didn't

have the time or the contacts to go seeking them out. But this pleasingly simple

composition caught my eye, the rudder on the back of a small barge-like boat, the like of

which I'd never seen on any of the canals of Venice (or, at least, not in daytime: in the

early hours all sorts of wonderful craft run supplies into the Venetian shops and businesses,

a different world that most visitors don't get to see).

I was expecting great things of the biggest boatyard on Giudecca, the large island on the 'other' side

of the Grand Canal from where most visitors view Venice. But I was disappointed - it was mostly

given over to the sorts of plastic craft that you can see in any marina anywhere in the world. I was

expecting a scruffy yard where scruffy carpenters and grease monkeys laboured over broken

gondolas, worn-out traghettas, vaporettos and speed boats. But only one gondola was being

repaired at the time, although that appeared to be more abandoned than anything else. It's more

likely that they are repaired or maintained in the small workshops scattered throughout Venice where

they're actually built, and I didn't have the time or the contacts to go seeking them out. But this

pleasingly simple composition caught my eye, the rudder on the back of a small barge-like boat, the

like of which I'd never seen on any of the canals of Venice (or, at least, not in daytime: in the early

hours all sorts of wonderful craft run supplies into the Venetian shops and businesses, a different

world that most visitors don't get to see).