Smaller Dhows

If the big oceangoing dhows made the long journey from Arabia and western Indian ports, the workhorses of the coastal trade were the smaller dhows. We used to refer to them as 'Lamu Dhows' but they are properly called jahazi. This one is pictured in Mombasa's Old Port.

Unlike the big dhows, which have disappeared from African waters, there are still hundreds of jahazi working today. This photo shows jahazi beached at Bagamoyo in 2010. The main cargo being unloaded was cooking oil in yellow plastic cans.

This picture, taken several decades ago, shows a jahazi sailing out of Zanzibar. The building with the white clock tower to the right is the Beit al Ajaib, where my mother had her office when she worked for the Colonial Office between 1935 and 1941.

The mashua is a smaller vessel usually used for fishing but....

....it is also used as a cargo and passenger boat.

While all dhows are made of planks, traditionally they were sewn together using coconut rope, the belief being that, had they been constructed with nails, these would have been pulled out when they passed a magnetic mountain. Judging by this wreck on a Tanzanian beach, the tradition is no longer followed.