The Dockyard

The Dockyard of Acitrezza born at the end of 1800 thanks to Salvatore Rodolico and his son Sebastiano started to build rowing and sailing boats for the customer of Catania. The first dockyard was situated in the area of Acitrezza named "stagnitta", in fact, there is a small street called with his name: "Via Rodolico". The tools used in the past to build the boats were the axe, the handsaw, the chianozzo (handplane), the chiano (a long plane) and the virrina (drills). The Sixties was the start of a good season for the dockyard. In fact, Salvatore Rodolico ( Sebastiano's son),started to build up massive wooden fishing boat. The orders were so much: they were from Tuscany,Aeolian Islands and D'Elba Island. Meanwhile, the dockyard was built in front of the Lachea island, inside the harbour, and the fishing was growing up even in Acitrezza thanks to the fishing boat. Lots of people worked there and in that period, 20 people were working for the dockyard. Today, none builds big fishing boat, the last one was built in 1989, but it is still working thanks to the building of small fishing boats and their maintenance. Now, the owner of the dockyard is the young Sebastiano Rodolico (Salvatore's son) who continues to build wooden boats and this beautiful art. The boats are resistant like in the past and this type of work is wonderful to see for the touristes who walk on the seafront "Lungomare dei Ciclopi" while the Rodolico's family is working.