A CREW of fundraisers have rowed 32km from an island to Venice in ageing boat they transformed into a pirate galley.

Members of Pickering Rotary Club have raised £16,000 for cancer charity Marie Curier by competing in the Volgalonga Regatta boat race.

The event, started as a protest by Venetians who wished to show motorboats effect on the city’s structure, featured more than 1,800 boats racing from San Giorgio Maggiore island to Venice.

Club spokesman Hugh Morgan said: “Finding a suitable boat that could be modified to look like a pirate boat, and be rowed in the Vogalonga proved to be problematic, but after a false start a boat was found where it had been resting for many years in a boatyard in Hartlepool. It needed quite a lot of renovation work, and it also needed a new name.

“The name we came up with for the boat, Sweet Charity, did not sound terribly bloodthirsty, but we thought was apt.”

“Throughout last winter, the rotary crew trained hard at Wykeham Lakes, quite often in appalling weather conditions.”