Will the pier at Villa Geno be able to accommodate hundreds of tourists, so exposed to the waves? This is the question that dozens of operators engaged in offering boat tours and motorboat rentals are currently discussing.
In fact, the municipal council, after several unsuccessful attempts to better regulate the only landing place in Sant’Agostino, decided to hand over the pier to the Guardia di Finanza for eight years. By moving all the taxi boats and unloaded cargo near Villa Geno, on a walkway currently under concession to the Sunlake company. This company must return the berth by July, but CSU, which will manage the landing on behalf of the Municipality, could try to speed up the deadline.
The right countermeasures
«If rightly the problem of Sant’Agostino is safety – he comments Alberto Luisettifor Lake Como boat tour – I wonder if the Villa Geno pier, as it is, will be able to guarantee the same safety to hundreds of tourists every day.”
Some rental companies and tour operators with videos and photographs underline in particular how the Villa Geno pier is more exposed to the waves than the port of Sant’Agostino, so much so that it makes boarding tourists more complicated. The Well Como Lake agency is also of this opinion. On the other hand, however, a good number of boatmen defend the decision to move the landing place. «Inside the port area we should first of all go slowly, but no one respects the limits – he says Fabio Crivelli for Como lake boat charter – and then there is the Navigazione which with its boats needs to respect the routes. The growing influx of taxi boats has created an objective situation of danger. If Villa Geno lacks space, we will line up. But it makes sense to me to try to better regulate the only real docking. As for the waves throughout the lake, the landing places are exposed, we will have to take the right countermeasures.”
The police, CSU and Navigazione have repeatedly forwarded reports to the Municipality regarding possible dangers at the Sant’Agostino pier. The jungle of boats has also created episodes of tension between the various operators.
«The pier of Sant’Agostino was the right location for tourism ten years ago – comments Giorgio Porta, who has been involved in the Aeroclub for more than thirty years – but today nautical traffic in the city and on the lake has taken on very different proportions. There are too many rental companies and demand from visitors has exploded. Safety issues are well known, as are tensions between taxi boats. So I agree with the choice to move the mooring, last summer in Sant’Agostino I saw some indescribable scenes.”
A meeting on Tuesday
However, there is a fear that the same problems seen at the port will simply be moved to the Villa Geno pier. «With fewer boats, moorings, fewer public boats – says Porta – with a freer pier, not so exposed, in my opinion, to wave motion. Waves that are often created by motor ships that go too fast, with inexperienced if not novice captains who by law should acquire a qualifying title before taking the helm.”
On Tuesday morning in the Chamber of Commerce, Cna, at the instigation of the Prefecture, organized a conference open to operators in the sector with all the bodies involved. The objective is to clarify the rules of rental with and without a driver.
