Arabian Peninsula to East Africa

Narrator: “They came on the Monsoon yesterday. They will vanish on a different monsoon tomorrow.

They are as dependable as the wind and like wild things everywhere, next year they may not be needed”

This is the story of an adventurer on board one dhow. An adventure inspired by an ancient trading season that has begun every September for well over 2000 years during the date harvest at the top of the Persian Gulf. Cargoes may change with each century but generally the first stop has been the Hahdramat to pick up pilgrims bound for the Red Sea. The trick was to coast round the horn of Africa and then south to Zanzibar for ivory, cloves, slaves and mangrove poles.

From here intrepid Dhow captains might beat out across the ocean to India and then home to Arabia in time to refit for another season.

The ancestor of todays Dhow was the ‘Intepe’ which now has slipped into the limbo of history. The head of a favourite riding camel of the prophet Mohammad was the model of the prow. Timbers were sewn together with ropes, because it was believed a magnetic mountain on the floor of the Indian ocean would dismantle boats made with nails. The sails were also unique made entirely of reed matting.

“Lorenzo Ricciardi had dreamed of owning a Dhow for at least 5 years. Meeting Louis Baretto, an inveterate observer of these antique ships, Lorenzo’s Dhow dream suddenly took shape.

While Lorenzo makes plans, his wife Mirella professional photographer and native of Kenya, looked for faces to photograph in the old harbour of Mombasa. Unknown to her now, she was about to embark on an extraordinary adventure.

Narrator: “These are the people of the Dhow in Mirella’s pictures, not a woman in there midst. The captain who’s judgment stands un challenged, is often indistinguishable from the crew. Look at the faces, coated in salt spray, lined with years of Monsoons, clear eyed and tough. One generations of sailors like these has yielded another, for the last 2000 years. Now the blood of there ancestors is mixed the length of the East African coast. “

Narrator: “Lorenzo first lesson was in a Lamu Dhow, the type that trades along the Kenya coast,  its typified by coconut matting attached along the side to increase it 3 borders in high seas, like Dhows three and four times the size, it strength lies only in 1 sail a triangle, with a large belly, the rigging called Lateen, is standard Dhow rigging, a sail is hung from a long pole, called the yard, hoisted with great effort to the top of the mast.

The Dhow has one supreme talent running with the wind directly off its stern. Small Dhows might be able to cut across the wind but if given the choice they would prefer not. They were designed merely, to follow the wind, where it brought them, there they traded.

The most cumbersome manoeuvre on a Dhow is going about its here when a 6 man crew on a mere 30 foot boat becomes essential. The sail has been allowed to laffe, as the boat turns into the wind. The long high yard is bought into an up right position and then with the sail it is twisted over the main mast until it hangs over the side. Now all hands scramble for the sheets, as the sail soaks up the wind once again spinning the Dhow onto it course.

Narrator: …But Sailing well that is something else. Sailing a boat 3 times the length of this one through the Persian Gulf, along the coast of Arabia, across to Africa and then down the Somali coast to Kenya. Well, the safest advice would be your mad, don’t do it!  But Lorenzo did do it.

He flew to an Arabian peninsula, here in a boat yard a Dhow had been commissioned. Ten craftsmen were deployed to work on it and slowly its hull was laid. But soon the owner regretted the expense and began to cast around for a buyer. Lorenzo discovered this lucky wind fall, and with in a week he had become its owner.

Its stem was shaped like a scimitar and the design of its stern was stolen from the design of 15th century Portuguese gallons. Its mast would be stubby, nearly straight and at the the water line  its length would be nearly 70 feet . Any Arab sailor would be able to look at it and instantly recognise it as a Sambuk.

Lorenzo’s boat took nearly a year to complete. No worker believed there is a better tool that the ancient bow drill,  the adze, the owl, the axe. There were no blue prints, no plans no measurements. The concept and design, was fixed in the collective memory and needed to be evoked with only a quick glance.

Narrator: …..

But Sailing well that is something else.

Sailing a boat 3 times the length of this one through the Persian Gulf, along the coast of Arabia, across to Africa and then down the Somali coast to Kenya. Well, the safest advice would be your mad, don’t do it!

Lorenzo’s Sambuk will be the last Dhow to be built here. Next year this boat yard will be converted into a machine shop. Surrendering to the new gods of Arabia.

In September 9 months later the great day arrived Lorenzo boat was launched. He christened her the MIR-EL-LAH after his wife. It maybe the only dhow with a woman name. The Arabs think there boats are masculine, virile, robust and muscular.

…..The voyage begins down the Shatal-Arab, near the mouth of the Tigres and Euphrates rivers at the extreme north of the Persian Gulf. It’s October the 11th and ahead lies nearly 500 miles for the MIR-EL-LAH first stop at Dubai. In less than 6 month the Dhows southward journey must be complete, for it’s then the MIR-EL-LAH’s following wind will switch and blow into her face………….