Nicolò Giraldi: the “cry” of a boat.

Protagonist: Nicholas Giraldi
Author:

"San Bortolo was in the countryside but my grandfather had important duties in the salt mines, and so he took us to work with him. I started going to school in Sicciole when I was six, then I continued in the fifth grade and the introductory course in Pirano. But, at home, I had a task: I helped in the countryside to harvest and sow. Around the age of seven, since I was proving to be independent, I was given the task of bringing lunch to my grandfather in the salt mines. Forty-five minutes of walking, playing and dreaming. I was very close to my grandfather, because he was the most present male figure in the house. In fact, my father sailed on small boats and cruise ships, and once even on a yacht of a Spanish minister until 1937, then the civil war broke out in Spain and then the Second World War and everything was turned upside down". How do you remember the days in the Saline? “It was nice because we didn’t just go to work but also to fish: some cuttlefish, some “guatto” or even some grey mullets. It was also fun to help grandpa get the right amount of water from the sea and the main canal (which we called the river) into the cavedini, passing through the moat, the morari, the corboli, the tank with the wind machine, then into the live, then to the servidori, and finally to the cavedini where the salt was formed. When rain was forecast, the mother water was conveyed into the ditches from which it was then recovered (gottata) with the bottazzo, to continue to crystallize the salt the next day”. For you guys, was it a sacrifice or a fun thing? “Both because the desire to play clashed with the duty to work. We were small, we walked barefoot all day and in the Saline everything was hot, especially when it was time to collect the salt. The temperature of the mud, even when dry, exceeded fifty degrees so we had to dip our feet in the water every now and then”. In what year did you start working at the Piran shipyard? “The year was 1948/49. It had recently changed its name, the shipyard was no longer private, it was called Cantieri Piranesi and had become the property of the Yugoslavian government or the municipality, I don't know exactly, I worked there until the end of 1950 when I decided to leave for Argentina to work in their shipyards”. Why this choice? “My father was on a factory ship and decided to stop in Argentina. At the time I was a minor and I followed the family. And then I wanted to learn the trade well and there I could continue in the shipyards. In the meantime, I had done my matriculation, for a question of tradition, because I am from Piranese and the life of the Piranese, you know, is the sea. But in those years Italy was not yet organized, after the war it was difficult to embark if you waited for the general shift. They called me in 1962 but I had been abroad for more than a decade, just to understand how it worked back then”. Who were the first masters at the Piran shipyard? “The boss was a Roman gentleman, Tamaro, then there was Antonio Trani who was a good master carpenter and Gino Desina who was of Friulian origin who had moved to Piran many years ago, then Cassetti, d'Alessio and many others”. What did they teach you? “We worked during the day and in the evening we went to school to learn the theory too. They didn’t waste too many words. I remember that the general chief, Mr. Apollonio, when I was seventeen and a half, called me: “come here picio”, he said to me in dialect, and he presented me with a 22-meter tree trunk, beautiful, long, fairly straight, and he added, “now I’ll teach you how to saw it and then you’ll make it square and then when it’s square, a bit with the axe and a bit with the cleaver, you’ll make it round”. He showed me, he taught me to divide it into eighths and sixteenths until I got the rounded shape. That was my first tree, for a ship being repaired”. How long did he stay in Argentina? “Thirteen years. And there I made my first glued mast. I worked for someone who was passionate about regattas, he already had a dragon plus one under construction for which I made my first glued mast in Argentina. Then we made another boat for a Norwegian adapted to the Rio de la Plata. We moved and I had to adapt to working in a carpentry shop specializing in doors, windows and furniture. In Piran I had left my girlfriend and after five years she joined me in Argentina and so we got married. But the situation was getting worse and in 1963 I decided to return home, in the meantime a son had been born and so, in October 1963, I was back in Trieste”. What brought her back to Trieste? “A little nostalgia and a little the climate that my wife couldn’t stand. I went to work at Craglietto where I found the master from when I started, Mr. Trani and Sergio Crisma from Portorose, a few years older than me, who had left Piran in exile. At a certain point, with Crisma, we decided to set up our own business and we started by building a small five-meter boat similar to the Lussignana passera. The second order was for a fishing boat, then they asked us to build a small ten-meter cutter and by word of mouth we found ourselves building one boat after another, for a good twenty-six years”. Who made the drawings? “Preferably Carlo Sciarelli, but many times they were supplied directly by the client. Some of our boats won the first editions of the Barcolana”. Is there a boat that has given you particular satisfaction? “Its name is Lauriga, it was proposed to us by three partners. Lisa was also very beautiful, designed by Vismara in 1988. Then Valentina, a champion, for a gentleman from Milan, a fourteen-meter designed by Sciarelli, then Zeliga of fifteen meters for a gentleman from Turin”. What makes a boat beautiful? “The love that goes into building it and then it depends on who orders it, if the client is nice the boat turns out well, if instead he is capricious, alas… The relationship between client and builder is decisive, like when you create a jewel. Sciarelli often repeats that the boat is born in nine months, like a child. Not always though, because we spent two years finishing the 18-meter one”. The most exciting moment? “The day before the launch, the excitement is sky-high: for the transport, for the impact with the water, because there will be a crane to keep it suspended. When it finally floats and everything is fine, only joy remains”. The launch today is a celebration, was it the same in Piran? “In Piran, in those years when I had the opportunity to work at the squero, there was no possibility of having big parties; the people of Piran, when they launched a new boat, the week after the launch went to Strugnano to have it blessed. Craglietto also had a priest friend, and he said that the boat had to be blessed before putting it into the water”. And of course we had to toast? “Always toast, but not in the Greek style. Their tradition is to slaughter a lamb on the bow so that the blood runs down onto the deck, then it is thrown to the ground and roasted on a spit to delight all those who worked there. We, who are basically fishermen, have a big feast of fish on the occasion of the launch. When the boat touches the water, for me it is time to transform myself into an occasional chef and I bring to the table the best fish in the world: cod, cuttlefish made by weight, I cannot”. And what recipe would that be? “It’s a philosophy more than a recipe: at ten in the morning they bring me a bucket of cuttlefish and tell me to prepare them for lunch, so I find myself with 25-30 cuttlefish to clean and cook in two hours, so I clean them by weight, I can’t… but everyone says they’ve never eaten anything so good, and so I enjoy making them”. And some Piran recipes? “Well, cod is already a Piran recipe, then there’s polenta with radicchio and fried fish, which are also dishes of our seafood cuisine.” What makes a good shipwright? “As with all professions, once again, willpower and passion.” Is it a job that young people like? “This is a crucial issue. Let's say that, in the last thirty years, there has been no attempt to revalue small-scale craftsmanship, nor has there been any sensitivity towards niche trades. In the upper Adriatic, there are only two or three young people who do this work, which is too few for the needs of the area. With the other partner, Pitacco, also a true Istrian, we have 107 years of work between us that we can pass on to two young people who we could train to grow trees”. Mr. Giraldi, given the life you have led in the shipyards in these years, would you still advise young people to follow your path, has it been a happy life together with your boats? "For me, yes, even if I say it without hesitation to the kids who will have to eat a lot of dust, even though masks are being used today; then there's the smell of paint, you have to clean the environment, always look around to understand what needs to be done. The pay, the weekend, must be earned, even with some sacrifice". What made this job “easy” for you? “Love. When I was a boy I had two friends with whom I shared my passion for cooking, we wanted to be chefs: one, then became Kennedy's chef and the other opened a restaurant in New York. I left Argentina before completing the fifteen years of work necessary to be recognized the right to a pension and so I had to work until I was 65 years old to deserve my retirement. Well, in fact, willpower and passion advised me not to give up. One can retire only when there is nothing left to do. Of course I no longer work ten hours a day, I come to the shipyard when there is need, because, fundamentally, I like this job. In fact, my regret is that I am no longer old enough to throw myself into the magnificent works that the evolution of construction in the last twenty years allows us to do today”. What has changed? “Glues, for example, which once did not exist. With the invention of glue and marine plywood it was possible to lighten the type of construction, instead of working with a single block the planking is made in five layers which has a resistance five times higher”. One last thing, can we say his class? “1932”. Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin