2012. Liguria on its knees after the storm

Welcome to the special section “BAM 35 Years.” We are presenting “cult” articles from the Motor Boats archive, starting in 1990. A journey through time among stories unobtainable today, even in the great sea of the internet! A dive into the world of epic moments in motor boating. We begin with one of the stories we were most passionate about.

2012. Damn river. Abandoned and on our knees

From Motor Boats 2012, no.1, February, pp. 50-55.

Magra estuary, three months after Storm in Liguria. Those who lost their boats, those who found them half-destroyed or in the hands of looters, those who saw their boating business go up in smoke. Amidst the indifference of institutions.

On the one hand there is the flood, the kind not seen in Liguria for years, which destroyed homes, killed people and forever changed the hydrogeological structure of the territory. On the other are the people and businesses, which more than three months after the tragedy in La Spezia, Liguria, have fallen into great media oblivion. It is not only about the “living” damage, but about a land on its knees, whose economy, if action is not taken soon, will remain irreparably compromised. The territory around the bed and mouth of the Magra in Liguria has always lived off nautical tourism: aid from the state is slow to arrive, some have lost their boats, some have seen them returned half-destroyed, and some have had to fight with the jackals of the sea to get them back. The hopes harbored by Liguria marinas and shipyards to resume regular operations, then, are slim to none. Rossella Campice is the owner of the Marina 77 shipyard, in Ameglia (Sp), Liguria, the only one in the area that did not suffer boat losses due to the flooding of the Magra: “Thanks to my husband’s experience,” she says, “I was able to get back to work. who devised an innovative system of anchoring boats that cost years of investment in time and money. Thanks to special handcrafted iron trestles connected to the boats by approved straps and additional ropes linked together, we have created a kind of cage that welds the hulls together. The boats rise and fall depending on the flood of the river, but they all stay in place.” .

A virtuous solution that has borne no fruit, quite the contrary: “We now face one flood a year. Boaters do their math and take their boats out of the Magra, it’s too risky. And do you know what the institutions do? Nothing. Months have passed now, and the Colombiera bridge, an important link between Liguria and Tuscany, pulled down by the fury of the Magra, still has not been restored. Drainage channels and securing the banks are pure utopia. We are being killed. We feel frustrated and abandoned by everything and everyone. At least they would decide to dredge the riverbed-I have boats stuck in the dock because there is 30 centimeters of bottom at the mouth.”

Scarlett is echoed by Enrico Bertorello, owner of Marina 3B, in Sarzana, Sp: “Institutions have not lifted a finger. Region, Province, Basin Authority. Nothing. The bottom of the river, because of the flood, has risen one meter. By the next flood, we will all be finished.” . Then the account of what happened between October 25 and 26: “At Marina 3B, the river rose almost six meters. My office, which is on the highest floor of the facility, was flooded by 2 meters of water. In my dock, sailors promptly intervened, loosening moorings and rescuing boats; on the outer docks I lost three boats.” In addition to the damage, there was the mockery: “The facility was declared uninhabitable for 12 days: in the meantime, services and debris camps had been organized. When we were finally able to reopen, the camps had been closed: we had to pay for the debris removal ourselves.” Next to the Marina, the campground, a typical pair at the mouth of the Magra River. At Bertorello at that juncture it was much worse: “I registered 100 cancellations, compared to the 320 places occupied. A disaster.” The river is scary, people are moving elsewhere, and it takes little to turn into a depressed area an area that finds 70 percent of its total revenue in nautical tourism. A snake eating its own tail: insurance companies have begun to stop covering flood damage in their policies, and getting a loan from banks to get going again is increasingly difficult. Those who have had their boats washed away by the river, on the other hand, face additional problems. Omar Pagliarini, of Pagliarini International Boats, had a Pursuit Offshore 305 aground at Porto Carolina in Lerici, Sp: “We lost the boat during the flood. Since the overflows now occur year after year, I can now say that I have some experience: if hulls pass the Colombiera bridge unscathed, they make it to sea without suffering too much damage. This was what had happened to the used Pursuit 305 that my company had put up for sale. In the two days following the flood, we went out to sea in search of the missing boats. We recovered all of them except the Pursuit, which we found capsized and would return for the next day. I marked the spot on the Gps knowing that in the night the boat would move a few hundred meters at most. The next morning the boat was nowhere to be found. It must have sunk, I thought, although it seemed strange because Pursuits have a reputation for being unsinkable. A week later a colleague of mine went to Sestri Levante to retrieve one of his boats and phoned me advising me that my Pursuit was moored in the harbor, all in good condition. In Sestri, I contacted the mechanic who was responsible for regenerating the boat’s engines by tracing the name of the person who recovered it. I called this person, thanking him for the recovery and offering to cover all expenses related to the recovery and restoration of the boat. When we met, the man came out and said that, under the law of the sea, he wanted 30 percent of the boat’s value. On my website the Pursuit was for sale for 140,000 euros, so he was demanding 40,000 on the nail.” An episode of looting, like so many seen in the days following the flood.

The Region of Liguria was supposed to prepare an anti-shark decree, in which it would be possible to waive the law of the sea by virtue of the state of natural disaster, but the promises fell on deaf ears. “I obviously alerted my lawyer,” Pagliarini continued, “but the gentleman, from a legal point of view, is unassailable, because he followed the correct procedural process, regularly reporting to the Coast Guard the rescue of the boat. We will be able to bargain on the price because at the time of recovery its value was certainly less than 140,000 euros, but I will have to pay.”

Paolo Corradini lost his boat, Mima, a Windy 26, 7-foot-7 Norwegian pilot boat: “When the river overflowed Mima was moored at the Old Fiumaretta Sailing Company in the Ripa Verde dock. A pontoon from a nearby shipyard collapsed, damaging boats and pontoons. Of my boat I never heard from it again. I tried to ask for partial reimbursement of damages from the Region and the Ameglia Town Council, but they did not even deign to respond. I also think that some responsibility lies with the owners of the dock, because if they had warned me of the weather conditions in time (Corradini is from Reggio Emilia) I would have made arrangements to run the boat aground. And to think and even refused to reimburse me for at least part of the berth rent!” Severe immediate damage was also done to related companies: “As Piuma Motori Marini we service about 60 boats,” explains Giuliano Piuma, head of the Sarzana-based company. Or rather, we used to provide. During the flood among my clients, all of whom were moored on the Magra, there were numerous boat losses: this translates into an immediate loss of clientele. Even those who can afford the luxury of buying a boat back are unlikely to rent a berth on the Magra.” .

by Eugenio Ruocco

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