This small shu’i was used for pearling, but remains in use today as a fishing vessel. Photo: Qatar Museums Authority
Qataris were accomplished boat builders, creating their wooden craft from imported timber. There were many types of vessel, known collectively to Europeans by the generic term ‘dhow’, writes Fran Gillespie
Look across from the Museum of Islamic Art park in the direction of Doha port, and between the park and the far quayside is a small sheltered lagoon.
A dozen traditional wooden boats lie at anchor, gently rocking amid the wind-blown ripples, the glossy brown of their hulls contrasting here and there with bright splashes of red or blue paint.
All shapes and sizes of craft are here, ranging from the small shu’i and sanbuq once used for fishing and pearling to a giant battil, built in Doha in the 1980s and capable of carrying cargo as far as China and beyond, as its ancestors did of old. It was recently renamed Fath al Kheir and completed a 27-day journey around the GCC states as part of last year’s Traditional Dhow Festival held at Katara.
Hidden away on the far side is a busy boatyard. Here other ancient craft are stored under shelter on land, awaiting restoration. Presiding over the activities is Reda al-Hajj, curator of the collection of dhows owned by the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA).
‘The finest in the whole of the Gulf,’ says Reda proudly, and he should know. An employee of the museums authority since 1978, he spends time each year searching the entire region for the last remaining specimens of these beautiful old ships and has them conveyed to Doha, where they are lovingly maintained, repaired and restored by his team of expert carpenters.
Before the oil era pearling, fishing and trading by sea were vital to existence in these desert lands. Along with their neighbours, Qataris were accomplished boat builders, creating their wooden craft from imported timber. There were many types of vessel, known collectively to Europeans by the generic term ‘dhow’.
The QMA collection contains no fewer than 11 different styles, sometimes several specimens of each. Reda buys damaged boats to ‘cannibalise’ their hulls for parts used in restoration. Unlike European ships and boats, which are classified according to their rigging, Arab vessels are distinguished by the shape of their hull.
At one time, there were some eighty names and sub-names of dhows in the Arabian Gulf and Oman but only about six are still in use today, albeit with engines rather than sails.
The most common fishing craft of the northern Gulf were sanbuq, shu’i, jalbut and badan. The shu’i, distinguished by its simple and elegant lines, is now the universal fishing dhow of the Arabian Gulf and Oman.
Sanbuq, shu’i and jalbut also served as trading vessels and cargo carriers, but for many years they were the principal Gulf pearling vessels. Just over seventy years ago, the traveller Alan Villiers, who made the best and most complete photographic record of the sailing dhows plying the Gulf, described the pearling fleet entering Kuwait harbour: ‘The sight was a stirring one — the burned brown hulls of the pearling ships with their long sweeps out looking like ancient galleys, the flags flying from the admiral’s sanbuq, the beating of drums…and the deep chesty grunting of her two-score sailors as a large pearler took up her berth and the oarsmen bent together for a final burst of sound.’
Looking at the dhows lying peacefully in the small lagoon in Doha, it takes an effort of the imagination to recall that they were once part of scenes like this.
For inshore fishing and for travelling short distances along the coast from one village to another, huri were in use until recently.
They were small wooden sailing vessels, and were also used by the pearl merchants, the tawawish, for getting around the pearling fleet while it lay at anchor, and to transport a variety of goods to and from larger dhows anchored farther out in deeper water.
The sanbuq has a high, square stern rather like the shape of a shield, often embellished with flower and petal carvings in blue and white. Its short keel made it suitable for use on oyster beds in shallow waters. Shu’i, referred to by Gulf seamen as the ‘sister’ of the sanbuq, are almost identical, explains Reda, the difference being the shape of the stemhead: the shu’i has a straight stem (the main upright timber at the bow of the ship) ending in a double curve, often painted blue, while the sanbuq’s stem is cut off in a single concave curve.
Unique among the sailing vessels in this magnificent collection is a baggarah constructed entirely without the use of metal, its planking stitched together with coconut fibre, held in place with wooden pegs. This was the method employed in boat construction in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean for thousands of years, before the Portuguese first introduced nailed boats a few hundred years ago.
Modern replicas of such boats have been built in modern times — one sits on a roundabout near the Al Bustan Hotel in Muscat, Oman — but very few original examples remain. This one was built in Oman and is estimated to be around 120 years old.
Another baggarah is also a source of pride, this one a modern nailed vessel, built in 1961. Its sleek and elegant lines earned it the first prize for the most beautiful boat in the last Dhow Festival held at Katara Cultural Village.
Baggarah were used for light cargo and for the shorter ‘cold season’ pearling expeditions, explains Reda, rather than the main dive which lasted from May to September and took boats far offshore.
Anchored beside the boatyard’s administrative offices is the battil built by master boatbuilder Yusuf al Majid in the 1980s.
Battils were trading vessels and were occasionally used as pearlers. They were renowned for their speed, which made them popular long ago with pirates and among slave traders, who often had to defend themselves against aggressors or escape patrol boats endeavouring to put a stop to the trade.
The battil has a long, overhanging fiddle-headed bow, a high sternpost and double, forward-leaning masts which makes it easily recognisable. There is a petroglyph of a battil at Jebel Al Jassasiya on the north-east coast of Qatar.
One of the finest ships in the maritime history of the Gulf, the boum is distinguished by its sharp, straight-pointed stemhead which is usually painted black and white. Though mainly used for trading, boum were also used for pearl diving. In the days of sail they had two masts; the main mast was raked forward and the mizzen mast was vertical.
Their pointed sterns made them fast ocean-going vessels.
Boats such as those in the QMA collection were constructed by master-builders throughout the Gulf without plans or drawings. The builder and customer would discuss the measurements with, perhaps, the aid of a rough sketch, a price and an estimated completion date would be agreed, and the transaction sealed with a handshake. It was then up to the builder to provide the best boat he could for the price.
The building season for dhows began in October, when day temperatures began to fall, and ended at the beginning of June. A relatively small shu’i took about three months to build, with bigger dhows taking anything up to nine months. Almost all Gulf dhows follow the shell construction with the keel laid first and the ribs of the ship being inserted after the planks on the outside have been fitted together. This is contrary to the method used in the West, in which the planks are fitted to a rib-skeleton.
Eventually, when the new National Museum is opened, the precious collection of traditional boats will find a permanent home, where they will continue to be admired for generations to come. But meanwhile the sound of hammering and sawing continues each morning from the boatyard as the carpenters go about their work of careful restoration, guided by Reda al-Hajj.