Today, the forcola has become regarded as an art form, but to rowers its beauty lies in its spectacular functionality. Throughout the centuries, as the forcolas became more refined and complex, they never were formally designed, but instead were modified by endless experimentation by the makers themselves. In the beginning, the primordial forcolas were typically hacked from planks left over from the boat itself, often made of oak or elm the spot where the oar rests-the curved opening (the morso, or “bite”) used to be crudely shaped and relatively large. No wonder Venetians treat their boats as if they were almost alive. And there’s a name for every section of the forcola, each corresponding to a different part of the human body: elbow, nose (both upper and lower), bite, leg, head, and heart. Every type of Venetian-style boat, and each position on the boat, requires a differently shaped forcola. But this method of rowing, created centuries ago for navigating Venice’s lagoon, remains the least fatiguing to a person who, until the arrival of motorboats in the early 1960s, could easily have had to row for hours.Īs for facing forward, all Venetian rowers (not just gondoliers) have always needed to see where they were going-in the lagoon, to avoid sandbanks in the city, to avoid walls, boats, and other obstacles in Venice’s maze-like network of narrow canals. To anyone accustomed to more typical rowboats-in which the rower sits facing the stern, pulling backward on a pair of oars-the Venetian arrangement will look odd, and perhaps seem inefficient. How can a single oar give orders to a 36-foot boat that weighs 350 kilos (772 pounds) and why does the gondola obey? The answer is the forcola (FOUR-koh-la), the gondola’s oarlock, which is characterized by a unique, serpentine shape and is made of nothing more than wood.Įach rowing position on each type of Venetian boat requires its own particular forcola, a device that was developed over centuries to be the most efficient for a rower who is always standing up and facing forward.
If hit by something hard, one gondolier says, it breaks like crystal. Others include pear, cherry, and olive, which is often chosen for its gorgeous, dark veins but is brittle.
Walnut is the traditional wood for a forcola. Only in Venice do you find boats rowed with a “forcola,” the elegantly curvaceous oarlock pictured here.
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