Word: motoscafi
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Outrage is exactly what the strange craft was intended to provoke. The stunt of putting an outboard motor in a gondola was perpetrated by Gino Macropodio, who led his 350 fellow gondoliers in their latest protest against the growing encroachment of motorized craft in Venice. The motoscafi, strikers pointed out, violate the canals' 7-m.p.h. speed limit and kick up waves that further weaken the foundations of the slowly sinking city. Some motorboatmen also violate the city ordinance limiting their working hours from midnight to 6 a.m., carry passengers and small freight afterhours in competition with gondolas...
...land of the Fra Angelicos and hand-painted Sicilian donkey carts has come the neon glare of modern living-billboards, Life Savers, Esso stations, Hopalong Cassidy, even a little TV. Venetian canals boast traffic lights, and only a lusty gondolier could raise his tenor above the gaseous snarl of motoscafi...
...victory the Italians mentioned consisted of the first action during the war of M. A. S.-motoscafi, anti-sommergibile, "motor boats against submarines." An Italian specialty, these darting little craft armed with two torpedo tubes, manned by ten men, will make 47 knots. The poet Gabriele d'Annunzio used to say that their initials stood for "memento audare semper"-"remember always to be brave." Five of them buzzed out from Pegadia to the attack. The destroyer Ilex spurted forward, intercepted them, sank two, damaged a third, and sent the other pair hightailing. As the vessels moved off, Italian planes...
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