Setting off from the boatyard with the cemetery island of San Michele in the distance
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Thames Dragons climbing aboard
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The Start - San Marco Campanile
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The Start - Island of san Giorgo
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The Start - Salute
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The Cannon fires a puff of smoke and the Vogalonga begins
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Dragon Boat from Toulouse
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Dragon Boat drummer
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Voga Veneta
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Tradional Venetian rowing - along way to
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Coming round the island of Sant' Erasmo
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On the way to Burano
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Island of Mazzorbo
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Some people will end up very sunburnt
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More sunburn
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Venice's famous Settimari rowing club
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Coming into Murano
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The Vogalonga salute
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Rowrs from Sette in France
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Canal di Cannaregio
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Boats stuck under Ponte Tre Archi
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even the police look happy
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Thanmes Dragons under the Accademia Bridge
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Grand Canal, Ca'Foscari university
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German oompah band
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Peggy Guggenheim museum
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He has rowed a long way!
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The Finish!
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The Finish
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Thames Dragons - exhausted!
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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.