In June 2022, I met a group of rowers from Treviso’s SILE club when I joined the CIVV rally in Padua. Earlier this year, the SILE club contacted me to say they were coming to Oxford for the 2023 rally on 19-22 July. Stefano Melanotte invited me to visit the club during our March training with Settemari.
I would like to report on a stupendous event which has just taken place in Oxford. Thirty-one rowers and four supporters travelled by air to take part in the annual rally of the International Community of Venetian Rowers, or CIVV—this year in England and hosted by City Barge.
A Wednesday morning in July was a pleasant, sunny day to spend at the old swimming pool area beside Longbridges Boathouse, the perfect location to demonstrate and document the rowing technique known as la valesana.
This recent addition to our website is a dedicated page for Safety and Rowing Rules which you can always reference in the ? dropdown list from the main menu.
The sun was shining the temperature was 12° C—perfect for the first row of the year!
In July Henley Royal Regatta was in progress involving about 660 competing crews, many from abroad.
RICHARD NORTON studied physics at Hertford College Oxford. He became a rower and aspired to be in the blue boat to compete against Cambridge.
“What a great idea”, I thought to myself while looking at an old photograph taken in the early 1900’s of a gondola on the river at Stratford-upon-Avon; “…to put a gondola back on the river again!”
ROBERT RIVINGTON was a tall man, and had an equally tall and gracious partner when I first met him in 1995. He became a member in the early years of City Barge, probably because of his Oxford link with Richard Norton. His partner was Rosemary X, who later became a supporter of City Barge. Robert was a fanatic about punting.