I always say:
"Gondola operations in the US are the best-kept secrets in our cities, because we operate silent black boats after dark".
Someone in Dallas asked if there were really gondola rides in Irving, Texas?
Brendan Meyer of Dallas News decided to investigate.
Here's the report:
Are there really gondola rides in Irving?
Curious Texas takes a cruise
Here are three of the remi that have recently emerged from the Gondola Adventures workshop (also known as my messy garage).
The two in the back are what we call "color on clear" remi.
The oar is varnished, then masked off for striping.
The one in front was so beat up, with discolored bare wood,
that we sanded it down to bare wood and added a dark, rich chocolate stain, and then sealed that in with varnish before applying the unusual silver chevron striping.
All three remi are Saverio Pastor creations.
After the painted stripes have cured and stabilized,
everything will be sealed in with a few more coats of varnish.
Sometimes the difference is in the details.
Special thanks to Evan Kliewer for doing so much diligent work to make these remi look so good.
Yesterday, after a long battle with illness, my friend Jim Mahoney left us.
Five years ago his doctor gave him two years to live.
He grew up on the waters of Long Island Sound in Connecticut, got his first boat when he was only ten, and stepped on board a Gondola Romance boat in Newport in 1990.
For the past 25 years I've had the honor of sharing the water with him.
Our encounters were always fun, often boisterously greeting each other from one gondola to another, and I never saw him in a negative mood.
He loved the water, and the feeling must have been mutual, because his times on the boats were like nutrition for his soul (something I think a lot of gondoliers can identify with).
His presence will be sorely missed, but never forgotten.
He was a true fixture in the American gondola world.
Arrivederci Jim!
Thanks for all of your boisterous greetings.
James Mahoney
1942 - 2018
A snap from tonight in the canals of Newport.
Gondoliers Michael Angelo Ruffino and Kyle Wolting
just off the bow of my gondola.
Somewhere behind me,
Eddie was probably planning on passing all three of us.
Traffic on the road is miserable.
But traffic on the water is actually fun when you're in gondolas.
