Apology for gondola theft 34 years ago

There's rather a good story in today's Gazzettino, (for those who read Italian: Il pentimento di un marinaio inglese: torna a Venezia e dopo 34 anni si scusa per il furto di una gondola) about a British sailor's return to Venice. The repentant visitor, in Venice with his family, went to a gondola stand to make an apology 'to all the gondoliers of Venice' for an escapade in 1974. He was stationed on the HMS Fearless when, with four other sailors, he took a gondola from its mooring one night. The carabinieri turned up to reclaim it the next day. Now one of the culprits has taken advantage of a trip to Venice to make his apologies... and to take an official gondola ride. 'I wouldn't have believed it' the newspaper quotes a gondolier who remembers the incident.