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A dhow (Arabic,???) is a traditional Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
 sailing vessel
Sailing ship

Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a full rigged ship of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant....
 with one or more lateen sails
Lateen

A lateen or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long Yard mounted at an angle on the mast , and running in a fore-and-aft direction....
.






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Dhow
Inhambane Dhow
Stamp Aden 1937 0
A dhow (Arabic,???) is a traditional Arab
Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
 sailing vessel
Sailing ship

Sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a full rigged ship of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant....
 with one or more lateen sails
Lateen

A lateen or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long Yard mounted at an angle on the mast , and running in a fore-and-aft direction....
. They are primarily used along the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula
Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitics role because of its vast reserves of petroleum and natural gas....
, Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
, and East Africa
East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN subregion, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
. Larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty, while smaller dhows typically have crews of around twelve.

History

Up to the 1960s, dhows made commercial journeys between the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes Persian Gulf naming dispute referred to as the Arabian Gulf by certain Arab countries or simply The Gulf, although nei...
 and East Africa using sails as their only means of propulsion. Their cargo was mostly dates
Date Palm

Phoenix dactylifera, commonly known as the Date Palm, is a Arecaceae in the genus Phoenix , extensively cultivated for its edible sweet fruit....
 and fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
 to East Africa and mangrove
Mangrove

Mangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in saline water coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics. The word is used in at least three senses: most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove swamp and mangrove forest are also used, to refer to all trees and...
 timber to the lands in the Persian Gulf
Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes Persian Gulf naming dispute referred to as the Arabian Gulf by certain Arab countries or simply The Gulf, although nei...
. They sailed south with the monsoon in winter or early spring and back again to Arabia in late spring or early summer. The term "dhow" is also applied to small, traditionally-constructed vessels used for trade in the Red Sea
Red Sea

The Red Sea is a salt water inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden....
 and the Persian Gulf area and the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering about 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by Asia ; on the west by Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean ....
 from Madagascar
Madagascar

Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar , is an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The main island, also called Madagascar, is the List of islands by area, and is home to 5% of the world's plant and animal species, of which more than 80% are Endemism to Madagascar....
 to the Gulf of Bengal. Such vessels typically weigh 300 to 500 tons, and have a long, thin hull design. Also, it is a family of early Arab ships that used the lateen sail, on which the Portuguese likely based their designs for the caravel known to Arabs as sambuk, booms, baggalas, ghanjas, and zaruqs.

Navigation

For celestial navigation, dhow sailors have traditionally used the kamal
Kamal

A kamal is a celestial navigation device that determines latitude. The invention of the kamal allowed for the earliest known latitude sailing, and was thus the earliest step towards the use of quantitative methods in navigation....
. This observation device determines latitude
Latitude

Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps ....
 by finding the angle of the Pole Star
Pole star

A pole star is a visible star, especially a prominent one, that is approximately aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation; that is, a star whose apparent position is close to one of the celestial poles, and which lies directly overhead when viewed from the Earth's North Pole or South Pole....
 above the horizon
Horizon

The horizon is the apparent line that separates earth from sky.More precisely, it is the line that divides all of the directions one can possibly look into two categories: those which intersect the Earth's surface, and those which do not....
.

Types of dhow

  • Ghanjah - a large vessel with a curved stem and a sloping, ornately carved transom
    Transom

    The term transom may refer to:* Transom , the horizontal lintel or beam across a window, dividing it into stages or heights. In the U.S. it also can refer to a fixed window over a door or another window...
    .
  • Baghlah
    Baghlah

    A baghlah is a bigger version of a dhow....
     - the traditional deep-sea dhow
  • Battil - featured long stems topped by large, club-shaped stem heads
  • Badan - a smaller vessel requiring a shallow draught


See also

  • Arab slave trade
    Arab slave trade

    The Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in Southwest Asia, North Africa, East Africa, and certain parts of Europe during their period of domination by Arab leaders....
  • Dhoni
    Dhoni

    File:Traditional Maldivian Dhoni.jpgFile:Doni aux Maldives cropped.jpgDhoni or Doni is a multi-purpose sail boat with a motor or lateen sails that is used in the Maldives....
     - a lateen-sail rigged boat used in the Maldives
    Maldives

    The Maldives , or Maldive Islands, officially the Republic of Maldives, is an island nation consisting of a Atolls of the Maldivess stretching south of India's Lakshadweep islands between Minicoy Island and the Chagos Archipelago, and about seven hundred kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka in the Laccadive Sea of Indian Ocean....
  • Felucca
    Felucca

    A felucca is a traditional wooden sailing boat used in protected waters of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean including Malta, and particularly along the Nile in Egypt....
     - a lateen-sail rigged boat used on the Red Sea
    Red Sea

    The Red Sea is a salt water inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden....
    , eastern Mediterranean, and the Nile
    Nile

    The Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the List of rivers by length in the world.The Nile has two major tributary, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and silt, but the former being the longer of the two....


Further reading

  • Clifford W. Hawkins, The dhow: an illustrated history of the dhow and its world.
  • Marion Kaplan, Twilight of the Arab dhow.
  • Esmond Bradley Martin and Chryssee Perry Martin; foreword by Elspeth Huxley, Cargoes of the east : the ports, trade, and culture of the Arabian Seas and western Indian Ocean.
  • Esmond BradleyMartin, The decline of Kenya's dhow trade.
  • Anthony Jack, Arab dhows.
  • Henri Perrier, Djibouti's dhows.
  • Tessa Rihards, Dhow building : survival of an ancient craft.
  • Richard LeBaron Bowen, Essay on the tradition of painting eyes, known as oculi, on the bows of boats among mariners and fishermen from ancient times to the present. Found particularly in the Indian Ocean region.


External links