Laws, regulations, protocols, controversy, bureaucracy, speculation. Overwhelmed by the chatter, by the proposed indiscretions that I do not understand, in view of the June 3 “free everyone,” I said to myself: reset, reboot your mental computer. Clean up your brain’s hard drive.
And lo and behold, like Chance the Gardener from the 1979 cult film Beyond the Garden, where an illiterate gardener becomes an adviser to the president of the United States, my head was opened.
WE WANT TO GO BY BOAT
Call me a jerk, but if we simply equate the small world of boats and the sea with the world of cars, mobility and second homes then there is no need to look for the solution to the one problem “we want to go boating!”, it solves itself.
DRIVE THE BOAT LIKE A CAR
What is a boat from the point of view of mobility if not equated with a car. Instead of moving along roads it moves out to sea. Perfect, I challenge anyone to dispute that “sea and lake roads” are definitely not safer according to anti-coronavirus protocols than land roads. Also, are there any rules for driving and moving by car? Well, let’s use those for boat driving as well.
BOATING LIKE A SECOND HOME
Second concept. What is the boat but a small or large house on the sea? So let’s use the rules established for second homes for boat stays as well.
And if we talk about ports, if we equate it to a small country, that’s it. It will have to submit to the general rules governing life according to Covid 19.
CRUISING BY BOAT, INCLUDING CHARTER
What if I want to go on vacation by boat? What is different about a boat vacation compared to a hotel/home/agri-tourism vacation? Nothing, it is just even safer from a health-risk perspective than a traditional lodging facility. What if I wish to rent a boat, in Italy or abroad? Choose the means of transportation (car/plane/train/ship) and board. Rest assured that rental companies will apply all the anti-county procedures in place, if not more.
THERE IS NO SOLUTION HERE
Last case, you are positive for coronavirus. Stay home and hope you are asymptomatic. But that is a whole other story.
UNFORTUNATELY, BOATING IS NOT A PRIORITY
NB This reflection came about after participating in an interesting and useful virtual meeting with technical representatives of Confindustria Nautica, who explained to us the enormous difficulties in making rulers and legislators understand what the problems of the boating world are. Highlighting, for intellectual honesty, that Boating is not the number one priority for the nation’s recovery today. They try their best, but they run up against laws, regulations, protocols, controversy, bureaucracy, speculation. And so, as in the game of Monopoly, they fall into the “back to the start” box and start from scratch.
Luca Oriani
