Today I got a short phone call with the message “A tree has fallen over your kayaks, and some are broken. You’d better come over here”.
Last year we had a tornado hit our base on the Certosa island, destroying a handful of boats and causing a good deal of economic loss, and we really didn’t need more of that.
I headed to the Certosa island, and found the above scene. A huge tree, standing some 10-12m behind the racks, had broken at a height of 5-6m, falling directly over our kayak racks.
It was immediately clear that some kayaks were destroyed, but it took a while so clear up the mess of broken off branches and cutting up the main parts of the trunk, without having the rest come down over us.
We’ve been lucky this time.
Two plastic boats are broken, one definitely beyond repair and the other probably too. There were, luckily, two boats we use little, both boats I bought back when I started Venice Kayak in 2008.
Four fibre boats are damaged, all of which can be repaired. One, a CS Canoe Greenland 550, will need to go back to CS Canoe to be fixed, and the other three have superficial damages to the gelcoat from impacts with minor branches of the falling tree.
All of the boats we use the most are in working order, and we won’t have to cancel any tours because of this.
And it was supposed to be my day off.
