You don’t get back in the boat because politicians think we’re all Formula 1 drivers

Dear Lombardians, Piedmontese, Trentino and Umbrians worse for you. You who live in the only regions that do not have access to the sea are screwed. There is no sign in the drafts of the document easing the lock down from May 4 until June 17 that the government announced of the possibility of moving outside one’s region of residence. Some advantage has the Lombardy region, which is rich in lakes where many people keep their boats. These lucky “lumbars” can join their boat to do urgent shipboard work or if they are involved in sports, they can train alone or at most two of them.

Nor do Sardinians and Sicilians go by boat
And friends from the other regions that have access to the sea (e.g., Sardinia and Sicily) which have not yet formalized the possibility of being able to reach your boat to carry out work on board, did you not realize that you are in the same situation as the regions without sea!

Some people circumvent the rules because they are wrong
And we have already had reports of people going out to sea alone (the rule states that one can only train alone or with two people) pretending to be in training for sports activities, i.e., regattas, with old boats that have not sailed for years and years. We are also informed that a gentleman with his wife has set sail on alleged regatta training with a 13-meter Oceanis reaching a port in another region.

Chaos also hurts the economy
In short, as we predicted, chaos reigns in Italy’s boating industry. Just one thing we want to tell you, perhaps our legislators should realize that there are hundreds of thousands who go boating for pleasure. They call them boaters, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. They make a living for tens of thousands of families working in ports, in boat rentals, in maintenance yards. Fifty percent of what they spend then ends up in the revenues of restaurants, bars, stores, museums, and supermarkets.

Boating only as if everyone were Formula 1 champions
Instead, lawmakers listened, for political reasons, to what they were told by representatives of CONI and the sports and soccer federations. But a pleasure boat is not a drift boat, and it cannot be maneuvered alone or by two people, even while pretending to be in sports training. It’s like allowing only those who are racing car drivers to drive on the streets to train for a Formula 1 grand prix!

Go to the ministers’ boat, maybe you will understand
The first thing that Minister Dario Franceschini, who has the delegation for tourism, and Sergio Costa, minister of the environment and land and sea protection, should do is to organize a nice boat outing. Perhaps they would understand what recreational boating is all about and what damage they are doing by only listening to sports federations and not simple common sense. The boat is the safest place for pandemic management. Let us go by boat on the sea. As soon as possible.

The Sailing Newspaper

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