The Association includes today over eighty boat owners, all lovers of the wild, mostly unexplored Venice lagoon and of its sailing traditions, which go back in time more than a thousand years.

In the course of the centuries and under the pressure of everyday usage, the shapes of lagoon hulls and sails underwent constant improvements. The most famous example of the results thus achieved is the gondola, perhaps the most efficient boat to be manoeuvered by one man with just one oar. It was demonstrated that the energy expenditure of a gondolier pushing his boat with six passengers corresponds to that of a person walking at leisure on a plane surface.

During the last five decades the shapes of lagoon boats moved quickly away from the tradition, because of the availability of motors, which called for different hulls, and because of the discovery of new materials, less expensive than wood and easier to handle and maintain.

But in the 1950s there still existed on the lagoon a small number of boat owners who were so attached to the old ways as to resist the overwhelming trend for modernity. They passed their extremely rich, hard won competence to a few friends, who in 1988 got together to create the Lug Sail Association, whose purpose it is to keep the ancient tradition alive.

The survival of ancient techniques was favoured in Venice by the peculiar nature of its environment. The Venice lagoon is a large body of water (about two hundred square miles), friendly and well protected while exposed to gentle thermic breezes. Because of large shallow areas, it is best best navigated with flat bottom boats with no keel - this is why our ancestors developped movable rudders and a whole set of astonishing devices. Lug sail boats still are the best way to explore the lagoon's thirty-four islands, most of which are abandoned, its bird sanctuaries and the countless areas where silence and wildlife remain untouched.

The Association's members own their own boats, which range from the noble topo (a fully decked fishing boat) to the pleasance topo, to the sampierota (so called from the name of San Piero in Volta, the lagoon village where it was fitst produced), to the topetta, to the light sandolo , to the very mible mascareta.

sail

The sails are all strictly al terzo (literally: at one third), according to the tradition which became dominant in the lagoon from the Eighteenth century on.
They take their name from the fact that the top yard supporting the sail (pico) hangs from the mast at about one third (terzo) of its length (starting from the front). During the centuries there was much discussion (and there still is) about the ideal shape of a lug sail of this kind. Among the many variables are the peak angle (and all other angles), the flatness versus fulness, the best position for the dynamic center, the best length for the front side, and so on. The standard version was somehow codified at the end of the nineteenth century by a Mr.Naccari from Chioggia (a fishing village on the lagoon) and has the shape shown in the figure.

Notice that the two front angles are supposed to be 125 degrees (upper angle) and 108 degrees (lower angle). The top angle (angolo di penna) should be around 50 degrees.

A wealth of detailed, useful information about our lug sails and about the Venice lagoon can be found in the splendid volume: Vela al Terzo a Venezia, edited by Vittorio Resto, and winner of a national award as the best sport-related book of the year (published by Il Cardo, Venice in 1993). The book is out of print at the present time. We will announce its reprint as soon as it takes place.

Under its charter the Association develops the following activities:

  • Every year it organizes nine regattas for boats rigged with lug sails. The total number of participants is now close to one hundred. For residents and tourists it is a real spectacle to watch, as dozens of colored sails fight for the first places at the departure line!
  • It organizes social, non-competitive outings.
  • It collects and maintains file cards relative to all the traditional boats still sailing on the lagoon. The first result of this work has been a large and handsome poster, where we have reproduced seventy-four of our boats in full detail, with sails and rudders. Contact us if you want to have one!
  • It organizes, or takes part in the organization of, shows and meetings on themes related to traditonal sailing boats.
  • It offers a steady reference point for all those persons who, having seen our sails on the lagoon and having felt the difference, intend to approach the world of lug sailing.
  • It takes part in the teaching of lug sail initiation courses, which are becoming frequent on the lagoon.
  • Twice a year it publishes Andar al Terzo, a small magazine which is quickly becoming a meeting point for lovers of traditional sailing in small crafts.