Setting off from the boatyard with the cemetery island of San Michele in the distance
Thames Dragons climbing aboard
The Start - San Marco Campanile
The Start - Island of san Giorgo
The Start - Salute
The Cannon fires a puff of smoke and the Vogalonga begins
Dragon Boat from Toulouse
Dragon Boat drummer
Voga Veneta
Tradional Venetian rowing - along way to
Coming round the island of Sant' Erasmo
On the way to Burano
Island of Mazzorbo
Some people will end up very sunburnt
More sunburn
Venice's famous Settimari rowing club
Coming into Murano
The Vogalonga salute
Rowrs from Sette in France
Canal di Cannaregio
Boats stuck under Ponte Tre Archi
even the police look happy
Thanmes Dragons under the Accademia Bridge
Grand Canal, Ca'Foscari university
German oompah band
Peggy Guggenheim museum
He has rowed a long way!
The Finish!
The Finish
Thames Dragons - exhausted!
One day of the year, motorised boats are banned in Venice and the clock is turned back to when everyone in the city rowed their own boats. This is the day of the Vogalonga, a unique marathon row of 30 kilometres, beginning in St Mark’s Basin , around the lagoon and its islands and back along the Grand Canal. Over 3000 boats participate in this non-competitive course – there is no winner, race times are not announced – from traditional Venetian boats where just one person rows ‘alla Veneta’, standing up like a gondolier, to canoes and kayaks, rowing and dragon boats.
I participated in this year’s 40th edition – photographing more than paddling with the Thames Dragons, and this portfolio lets you follow the Vogalonga from start to finish.
