Twenty minutes from the office

Watersports Centres on the City Embankments

Three boathouses on three urban rivers, open from six in the morning until dark, built for people who want to train, learn or simply get onto the water without leaving the city. Rowing shells, kayaks, canoes, paddleboards and a cable wakeboard line share the same site as changing rooms, hot showers, a gym, a repair workshop and a café that stays open after the last session. Courses run for complete beginners, clubs train from the same pontoons, and members can store a private boat metres from the water.

Courses & Hire Visit a Centre

Ornate brick boathouse standing on a river pontoon

City river with moored vessels beside a modern bridge

About us

Bringing Working Boathouses Back Into Use

All three of our centres occupy buildings that were nearly lost: a nineteenth-century rowing club with a collapsed roof, a municipal boathouse used for storing road signs, and a warehouse that had stood empty for fifteen years. Restoring them was cheaper than building new and gave each centre something no modern facility has — direct water access at the exact point where a hundred years of rowers already knew the current was manageable. The work was done with the municipalities, and the buildings remain publicly owned.

The programme is deliberately broad. Serious rowing and paddling clubs train here every morning, but so do office workers taking a first kayak course, school groups, stag parties on paddleboards and a growing number of people who simply row a stable single scull for exercise. Keeping those groups from colliding is a scheduling problem we take seriously: lanes are allocated by hour, beginner sessions never share water with a coxed eight, and the wakeboard cable runs on a separate basin.

Urban rivers carry traffic, debris and variable water quality, so we test the water weekly and publish the results, brief every user on commercial navigation, keep a rescue launch on duty during opening hours and cancel sessions when flow or clarity falls outside agreed limits. Twice a year the whole membership turns out to clear rubbish from the banks, which has become the largest volunteer clean-up in each of the three cities.

Advantages

Why the City River Works

Six practical reasons people train here rather than driving to a lake at the weekend.

Wakeboarder inverted mid-air above open water

Reachable Without a Car

Every centre sits within a ten-minute walk of a tram or metro stop and directly on a cycle route, with covered bike parking and lockers big enough for a work bag. That single fact changes participation completely: a session before work or at six in the evening becomes possible on an ordinary weekday, and people who would never commit to a Saturday drive train three times a week instead. It also means school groups arrive on public transport and older members keep coming after they stop driving.

Open From Six in the Morning

Boathouses open at six on weekdays and stay open until dark, with the café serving from opening and the showers hot at every hour. Early sessions are the calmest and least crowded time on any urban river, before commercial traffic builds and before the wind rises, and they are when most of our regular members train. Evening slots run until the light goes, with lit pontoons and reflective vests provided so that a late return is safe rather than improvised.

Water Managed by the Hour

An urban river is a shared and slightly hazardous space, so we allocate it deliberately. Club training, beginner courses, hire, school groups and the wakeboard cable each have defined hours and defined stretches, published a week ahead. Beginners never share water with fast boats, and hire boats stay inside a marked area away from the navigation channel. Every user is briefed on commercial traffic, and a rescue launch is on the water throughout opening hours rather than tied up at the pontoon.

Real Coaching for Beginners

Adults who have never held a paddle are our largest group, and the teaching is built around them: stable boats first, short sessions, technique taught on an ergometer or on the pontoon before anyone gets wet, and coaches who explain rather than shout. Class sizes stay at six, progress is recorded, and there is a clear route from a first course to independent use of the boathouse. Roughly half of our current members arrived through a beginner course and had no previous experience of any water sport.

Facilities Worth Coming Back To

Hot showers with genuine water pressure, drying rooms for kit, secure lockers, a small gym with ergometers and weights, a repair workshop with a bench and tools, and a café serving proper food from opening until closing. Boat storage racks are available to members for private singles, kayaks and boards, with trolley access straight to the pontoon. Everything is cleaned daily. These are the details that turn an occasional visit into three sessions a week.

Honest About the Water

We test bacterial levels and clarity weekly, publish the results at the door and online, and suspend contact sessions after heavy rain when combined sewer overflows raise the risk. Users are told plainly rather than reassured vaguely. We also lobby, with the clubs and the municipalities, for the outfall improvements that would make swimming possible again, and we publish the monitoring data that supports the case. Nobody who trains here is under any illusion about what the river is doing on a given week.

Canoe and kayak club building beside a quiet river

Services

What the Centres Offer

Courses, memberships, hire, storage, school programmes and corporate sessions.

Beginner Courses

Four-session courses in sculling, kayaking, canoeing and paddleboarding, run on weekday evenings and weekend mornings for six people at a time. Each starts on land with technique and safety, moves to stable boats and finishes with a short river outing. All equipment, buoyancy aids and a shower afterwards are included, and participants who complete the course can use the boathouse independently at supervised hours. Courses run year-round, with wetsuits and thermal tops supplied from October to April.

Membership and Independent Use

Monthly and annual memberships give access to boats, the gym, showers, storage and all supervised sessions, with a members' calendar showing which hours are allocated to which activity. Members qualified at the appropriate level may take boats out independently within published limits, signing in and out at the desk. Family memberships cover two adults and their children, and reduced rates apply for students, over-sixties and anyone in their first year after a beginner course.

Hire by the Hour

Kayaks, canoes, paddleboards and stable recreational sculls hired by the hour to anyone over sixteen after a short competence check and briefing, within a marked area away from the navigation channel. Buoyancy aids, dry bags and waterproof pouches are included, and a safety launch covers the whole hire area. Family bundles and multi-hour rates are available, and hire is suspended rather than sold when wind, flow or water quality fall outside our published limits.

Wakeboard Cable and Board Sports

A two-tower cable line runs on a separate basin at one centre, with beginner sessions on a slow setting, boards and helmets included and instructors on the platform. Sessions are booked by the hour, with a first-timer package covering wetsuit, board, buoyancy aid and coaching. The basin is also used for board polo, paddle races and lessons for children from ten, and it is closed for maintenance one weekday morning each week rather than being run until something fails.

Schools, Clubs and Competitions

Term-time programmes for schools with equipment, coaching, buoyancy aids and full risk assessments, plus training water and storage for affiliated rowing and canoe clubs on published schedules. We host regattas and time trials several times a year, providing marshals, safety boats, timing and a briefing plan, and we coordinate with the navigation authority for the necessary closures. Coaching qualifications and safety courses for club volunteers are run here each spring.

Corporate Sessions and Events

Two-hour team sessions combining paddleboards, canoes and a short relay, run for groups of up to thirty with instructors, safety cover and catering in the café afterwards. Boathouse halls can be hired for meetings, presentations and parties, with the river as the view and the pontoon available for a drink at sunset. We also run a corporate membership scheme that gives staff access to courses and hire at a reduced rate, which several nearby employers use as part of their health programme.

Contacts

Visit, Book or Ask

Tell us which city you are in and what you would like to try, and we will point you to the nearest centre, the next beginner course with places and the hours when the water is quietest.

Club affiliation, school programmes, competitions and corporate schemes are arranged through the same office.

OfficeVia del Corso 126, 00186 Roma, Italy

Phone+39 06 6994 3820

Emailquaysidewatersports@gmx.com

OpeningWeekdays 06:00–dusk, weekends 07:00–dusk