The Serenella Motorboat Yard builds and restores wooden motorboats in Murano, on the Sacca Serenella, just a few minutes’ boat ride from the centre of Venice. Its name is linked to the Venetian water taxi, the working boat that carries passengers between the city, the islands and the mainland. It is also linked to the leisure versions of the same hull: lagoon limousines, convertibles and yacht tenders.
The hulls are hand-built. The main timber used is African mahogany, which is left to season for around two years outdoors, with the planks spaced apart to allow air to circulate. Only those planks that remain crack-free throughout the process are accepted at the shipyard. A portion of each plank is set aside, so that any future repairs will match the grain. The cabins combine teak, mahogany and burl, beneath several layers of varnish that allow the wood’s grain to show through. A standard taxi can take up to three thousand hours of work, from design to delivery. A tender for a large yacht takes even longer.
Alongside new builds, the shipyard carries out maintenance and restoration work on boats already in the water. Among those that have passed through its yard is the Serenella Express, a runabout that competed in the Venice–Monte Carlo offshore race in 1992.
Many Serenella boats sail far from the lagoon. In the 1960s, a Californian lawyer had one shipped to Newport Beach, and since then orders have been coming in from many countries. Hulls from the shipyard can now be found in Switzerland, the United States and on board large yachts as tenders. The builder, Elio Salvagno, has made a name for himself with these handcrafted wooden ‘limousines’.
Today, the shipyard is a small company based at 9 Sacca Serenella, in Venice. It builds new boats and maintains older ones in the water.
