500 kilometres. Alone. Standing. And room for your name aboard.
In November 2026 I leave Venice on La Civetta, a wooden mascareta built in 1960, and row 500 kilometres alone along the old inland waterways of north-east Italy. Standing, with two oars, without an engine and without a support boat. Thirty days, documented every single day.
This is not a project looking for its first euro. Eighty-six people bought a place to fund the restoration of La Civetta, her prow is being rebuilt right now by a traditional Venetian boatyard, and the wood is ordered. The expedition will happen.
Between July and the end of September I run several shorter trips, from three days to a week, to test the boat and the gear in real conditions. Then comes the departure, in November 2026, for thirty days on the water. I am not giving a fixed day, and that is deliberate. It depends on how the restoration progresses, on where my own training stands, and on the weather. I would rather leave ready than leave on schedule.
A partner who comes on board now is visible across the whole season, not just for one month.
Audience
Not the biggest reach.The one that acts.
More than ten thousand people follow me across Facebook and Instagram, and that is where this project lives. It is not a huge audience, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
But when I asked them for one hundred euros each to save a boat, eighty-six of them paid. In under two months. That is the number that matters, and very few audiences do that.
What I offer a partner is not impressions. It is content, proof under real conditions, and a story that people actually act on.
10 000+ followers
Across Facebook and Instagram, in a niche of craft, heritage and slow travel.
86 paying supporters
Each of them paid one hundred euros to fund the restoration of the boat. Not a like. A payment.
8 600 euros raised
Raised from that same audience in under two months, with no advertising budget.
5 months of content
Preparation trips from July to September, then thirty days of daily documentation on the water.
Who is rowing
Romuald Mesdagh, master mosaicist in Venice.
I am an Italo-Belgian master mosaicist, trained at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli in Spilimbergo, the only legally recognised mosaic school in Italy. I have led the restoration of the mosaics of the Al-Aqsa Mosque for the United Nations, and I run Artefact Mosaic Studio in Venice with Alessandra Di Gennaro.
The studio is recommended by Homo Faber, Well Made Italy and La Repubblica. I have been rowing La Civetta in the Venetian lagoon for six years, standing, voga alla valesana, the old two-oar Venetian technique.
This expedition is not a stunt. It is a slow crossing of a two-thousand-year-old waterway that almost nobody travels by oar any more.
What a partner gets
Concrete visibility,and honest proof.
I only promise what I can actually deliver. Here is exactly what a partner receives.
Your name on the site
Your logo, a description and a link in the partners section of ilviaggiodellamascareta.com, for the whole season.
Daily documentation
Photo, video, drone and 360° footage every day of the journey. Your product appears in real use, in real conditions, and the images are yours to use.
Social media
Mentions and tags across the project channels, on Instagram and Facebook, during the preparation trips and throughout the thirty days.
The film
A documentary film about the journey is planned. Partners are credited in it.
A real field report
Thirty days at 85 to 90 percent humidity, sleeping aboard, in October and November. Very few products are tested that hard. You get my honest feedback, and you are free to use it.
Live tracking
My position is public and live during the whole expedition, on the logbook page. People come back to the site to follow the boat, day after day.
The film
A documentary,and the festivals.
A documentary film about this journey is planned. Thirty days alone on the water, on a boat built in 1960, along a waterway that has been travelled for two thousand years and is now almost forgotten. It is filmed every single day, with camera, drone and 360°.
My intention is to take that film to festivals. That is where a story like this one finds an audience far beyond my own, and where the name of a partner stays visible long after the boat has come home.
This is the part of the project that still needs funding. It is also the one that gives a partner the longest life, because a film keeps travelling for years while a social post disappears in a day.
What I am looking for
Two kinds of partners.
Equipment partners. Sleeping and shelter, food, clothing, navigation and safety, filming gear. If you make something that has to survive a month of cold and damp on an open boat, this is the place to prove it.
Film partners. The documentary is the part that still needs funding. A partner who makes the film possible gets the strongest and longest exposure of all, because a film outlives the expedition by years.
Support can be in product, in funding, or both. Tell me what is realistic on your side and I will adapt, as I did with the partners already on board.
Expedition food
The largest European retailer of freeze-dried expedition meals. They feed the thirty days on the water.
lyophilise.fr →
Venice · since 1993
A Venetian fashion house founded in 1993, working in natural fabrics drawn from the colours of the lagoon.
barenavenezia.com →
Venetian craft
The Venetian workshop that still hand-cuts the tabarro, the old cloak of the lagoon, as it has been made for centuries.
tabarro.it →