There are a couple of those vises in both Paolo’s and Saverio’s shops. One job is for holding forcole while carving. The other, of course is for holding remi … and how do you hold a 14-18 foot long remo (oar) in a vise? With a helper of course. See the neat tree-like helper in photo #7 in Paolo’s slideshow on this page. (click the photo to start a slideshow.) To understand what you are seeing in that photo, you are looking directly at the end of a remo which is clamped to the tree. The tree rests in a mortise in the top of a sawbench. The vise is mostly obscured, but is just like the one holding the forcula. The notches on the side of the tree provide resting spots for rotating the remo to work the edge and other surfaces. There’s another photo of both, #14.

When I carve rowing paddles on my traditional workbench, I long for one of these free standing vises and helper trees.