History

Up to the 1960s, dhows made commercial journeys between the Persian Gulf and East Africa using sails as their only means of propulsion. Their cargo was mostly dates and fish to East Africa and mangrove timber to the lands in the Persian Gulf. 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 and the Persian Gulf area and the Indian Ocean from 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. This observation device determines latitude by finding the angle of the Pole Star above the horizon.

Types of dhow

• Ghanjah - a large vessel with a curved stem and a sloping, ornately carved transom.
• Baghlah - 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
• Dhoni - a lateen-sail rigged boat used in the Maldives
• Felucca - a lateen-sail rigged boat used on the Red Sea, eastern Mediterranean, and the Nile

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.
• Mondfeld, Die arabische Dau
• Anthony Jack, Arab dhows.
• Henri Perrier, Djibouti's dhows.
• Tessa Rihards, Dhow building : survival of an ancient craft.
• Tom Vosmer, The durable dhow.
• Maritime activities of the Arab Gulf people and the Indian Ocean World in the 11th and 12th centuries
• Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade
• 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.
• Hikoichi Yajima, The Arab dhow trade in the Indian Ocean : preliminary report