The gozzo derby: Sorrentine or Ligurian? Here’s how to tell them apart

The gozzo is perhaps the most common type of boat throughout Italy. One encounters every size, material, age, cost and type. Yes, because all goiters are the same…but some are more equal than others, to quote Orwell. To understand the differences, we need to go back to the origins, when the gozzo was a small fishing and working boat, wooden, rowing or sail-rigged. Over the decades, if not centuries, it has evolved according to the needs of different areas of use. Out of all of them, there are two variants that have had the most following: the Ligurian and the Sorrentine.

The gozzo derby: sorrentino VS Ligurian

Therefore, to date, what are the characteristics that identify one school over another? Let’s say right away that the differences are mostly seen on the smaller models, with designs born further back in time and therefore more faithful to their respective traditions. Boats over 10 meters, increasingly popular due to market needs, have gone on to explore new solutions, both aesthetic and structural, revisiting classic lines and creating a mixture of styles that is difficult to categorize. On watercraft, on the other hand, it is still possible to recognize the stylistic features that, until a few years ago, immediately made it possible to classify a gozzo as a Sorrentino or a Ligurian. In particular, the latter has always remained more closely related to the original philosophy. The bow is pointed and the foredeck still evolves into the pernaccia, an element more decorative in its simplicity, almost as if a humble boat were not worthy of a figurehead. The stern retains a good coefficient of finesse, like a second bow, allowing enviable steering even with a stern sea. Or at least as long as the hulls remained displacement. Today, the market demands fast hulls, and the dead works typical of the gozzo are being “grafted” onto planing hulls. And this is another difference: the Sorrento lines lent themselves better to early semi-planing evolutions. Specifically, the stern of Sorrentine gozzo boats, while technically remaining round, is squarer, curving at the yard and coming practically flat on the starboard side of the stern. This, in addition to increasing deck space, gave more surface area on which to apply flaps for hydrodynamic sustenance. At the bow, which is much rounder than its Ligurian counterpart, the bulwarks open horizontally to give the greater deck area, and the bowsprit disappears. At least, these are the characteristics of how we know them today, mostly thanks to the yards that have created true icons. For Sorrentine goiters, one cannot help but think of the Aprea family, but there are literally dozens of shipyards that have followed this style. Smaller numbers perhaps for Ligurian shipyards, but equally representative names: Patrone, Sciallino, Ruocco, Calcagno.