Jewel of Muscat is a ship based on the design of the Belitung shipwreck, an Arabian dhow that was found off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia, in 1998 and subsequently salvaged. It was built in a joint effort by the governments of Oman and Singapore and Mike Flecker, one of the people employed by the salvage company Seabed Explorations at the time of the original recovery. [1]
Present-day knowledge of the original materials and methods used in construction of the Jewel of Muscat and this type of Arab dhow stems largely from the shipwreck itself, found preserved under sediment. The sediment preserved the remains of the wooden vessel and without this the wreck would have been lost due to worms. Most important were the discoveries about the methods of construction which were repeated in the construction of Jewel of Muscat.[ original research? ]
Fortunately pieces of the original timbers were preserved, allowing scientists to analyse the remains and determine the types of wood used. Timbers from a number of tree species were found, including one that is unique to central Africa. After analysing the hull form, timber species, and construction methods, archaeologists concluded that the wreck was of Indian or Arabian origin, utilising some imported wood. [2] [3]
The Jewel of Muscat was built at Qantab near Muscat, the capital of Oman. [4] Construction began in October 2008 and it set sail for Singapore on 16 February 2010, arriving on 3 July 2010. [5]
The ship is remarkable in that it was sewn together, following the construction techniques used in the wrecked ship, rather than the using more traditional methods of pegs or nails. The dhow is about 21 feet (6.4 m) wide and 58 feet (18 m) long. It is an accurate reproduction thanks to the measurements taken by Walterfang's team during the excavation.
Timber for the ship was made from Afzelia africana trees felled in Ghana and cut into planks and frames at a Ghanaian lumberyard. [5] Boards were trimmed and sanded. Trimmed boards were steamed individually in a fire-heated steambox to make them flexible. When workers removed a board from the box, they had two minutes to carry it to the ship and clamp it into place in a bent and slightly twisted shape before it would stiffen again. [6] It was then sewn into position using coir rope and caulking made from multiple strands of fine coir rope with a diameter of about 3 millimetres (0.12 in). In addition, the planks were coated with shark liver oil to make them water-resistant. [7]
The Jewel of Muscat made one voyage, from its shipyard in Oman 5000 kilometers to its berth in Singapore, following an ancient trade route, in stages, via Galle in Sri Lanka. The captain was Saleh al Jabri, with 25 years of sailing experience. [4] Illustrations show that the ships were square-rigged, but virtually nothing else was known of their rigging. The sails were handmade from canvas. The main sail was 81 square metres (870 sq ft) and weighed over 150 kilograms (330 lb). The second mast bore a smaller mizzen sail. "Mizzen" is an Arabic word that means balance. The mizzen sail is used, in part, to steer the ship. A crew of at least eight is needed to manage the sails. [4] In Galle the canvas sails were replaced by sails woven from palm leaves by traditional weavers in Zanzibar to "test their strength and handling characteristics". [8]
An ancient navigational tool called a kamal is used to make sightings of known stars compared to the horizon, measuring the ship's latitude. [4]
The ship became becalmed and the captain procured a tow from the Indian Coast Guard. They were towed to the city of Cochin in Kerala State, India. After a month at sea, the boat was befouled with algae and barnacles. It was taken to dry dock, scraped, and coated with chunam , a mixture of goat fat and lime. [4] [9]
While the ship proceeded from Cochin to Galle in Sri Lanka cracks appeared on the mast after strong gusts of wind. In Galle the masts were replaced with freshly hewn teak logs.
From October 2011 the Jewel of Muscat was housed in the Maritime Experiential Museum and Aquarium in the Sentosa resort in Singapore [10] until March 2020 when the museum was closed to later on become part of the new Singapore Oceanarium, an expansion of the former S.E.A. Aquarium. [11]
A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing square-rigged or fore-and-aft sails. Some ships carry square sails on each mast—the brig and full-rigged ship, said to be "ship-rigged" when there are three or more masts. Others carry only fore-and-aft sails on each mast, for instance some schooners. Still others employ a combination of square and fore-and-aft sails, including the barque, barquentine, and brigantine.
A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as "fore-and-aft", "square", or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.
Dhow is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically sporting long thin hulls, dhows are trading vessels primarily used to carry heavy items, such as fruit, fresh water, or other heavy merchandise, along the coasts of Eastern Arabia, East Africa, Yemen and coastal South Asia. Larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty and smaller ones typically around twelve.
A sewn boat is a type of wooden boat which is clinker built with its planks sewn, stitched, tied, or bound together with tendons or flexible wood, such as roots and willow branches. Sewn boat construction techniques were used in many parts of the world prior to the development of metal fasteners, and continued to be used long after that time for small boats to reduce construction costs where metal fasteners were too expensive.
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Timothy Severin was a British explorer, historian, and writer. Severin was noted for his work in retracing the legendary journeys of historical figures. Severin was awarded both the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his 1982 book The Sindbad Voyage.
INS Tarangini is a three-masted barque, commissioned in 1997 as a sail training ship for the Indian Navy. She is square rigged on the fore and main masts and fore-and-aft rigged on the mizzen mast. She was constructed in Goa to a design by the British naval architect Colin Mudie, and launched on 1 December 1995. In 2003–04, she became the first Indian naval ship to circumnavigate the globe.
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Boitas were larger boats and ships that were built in the ancient Kalinga region during its maritime history. Kalinga's sea facing regions consisting of coastal Odisha had major trading ports for which boitas were used. Ancient Sadhabas sailed from Kalinga to distant lands such of Sri Lanka and South-East Asia including both mainland and insular Southeast Asian regions for trade.
Literally, the word pinisi refers to a type of rigging of Indonesian sailing vessels. A pinisi carries seven to eight sails on two masts, arranged like a gaff-ketch with what is called 'standing gaffs' — i.e., unlike most Western ships using such a rig, the two main sails are not opened by raising the spars they are attached to, but the sails are 'pulled out' like curtains along the gaffs which are fixed at around the centre of the masts.
The Beden, or alternate type names Beden-seyed and Beden-safar, is a fast, ancient Somali single or double-masted maritime vessel and ship, typified by its towering stern-post and powerful rudder. It is also the longest surviving sewn boat in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Its shipyards predominantly lie in the northeastern Hafun region of Somalia, as well as Muscat. There are 2 types of Beden ships, with one type geared towards fishing and the other, trading (Beden-safar). The average trading Beden-safar ship measure more than 15 m (50 ft) in length, and are significantly larger than the fishing Beden-seyed ships, which measure 6–15 m (20–50 ft) on average, but both are dwarfed by a much larger trading variant called the 'uwassiye'. This ship is the most common trading and voyaging vessel, with some measuring up to 77 ft (23 m). The ship is noticeable and unique in its strengthened and substantial gunwale, which is attached by treenail. Originally, all Beden ships were sewn with coiled coconut fibre, holding the hull planking, stem and stern-post. but Omani variants, beginning in the 20th century, began nailing instead of sewing the planks.
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The Belitung shipwreck is the wreck of an Arabian dhow which sank around 830 AD. The ship completed the outward journey from Arabia to China, but sank on the return journey from China, approximately 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia. It is unclear why the ship was south of the typical route when it sank. Belitung is to the south-east of the Singapore Strait by 610 kilometres (380 mi), and this secondary route is more normal for ships travelling between China and the Java Sea, which is south of Belitung Island.
Qantab is a village in Muscat, in northeastern Oman.
Galle Harbour is a natural harbour, located in Galle, on the south-western coast of Sri Lanka. Currently Galle port serves as one of the most active regional ports in the country. It is also the only Sri Lankan port that provides facilities for pleasure yachts. International yacht societies have recognised Galle Harbour as one of the world's best attractions for yachting.
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