Custom-built Traditional Dhows

This is a project for a client of ours wanting an exclusive, cruising dhow restaurant that he intends to operate in the Mediterranean. The construction is being executed in collaboration with an associate, combining our expertise and their yard facility. The dhow hull is 44m long x 10m wide x 3m high and would seat over 300 guests when completed. The rugged, traditional wooden dhow, that has for centuries been the main means of sea trading in the region around India, the Arabian peninsula and eastern Africa, is presently finding increasingly popular use as dinner cruise boat, liveaboard, diveboat and theme restaurant. The dhows, whose origins are Indian, are built by traditional craftsmen under the direction of a chief mestri (traditional shipwright) in the same manner they were built over two or three hundred years ago. They are built not from paper or software plans but according to calculations straight out of the chief mestri's head. The vessel calculation formulae are transmitted down the generations of mestris orally in the form of poems. Our chief mestri is one of the most senior and accomplished in the construction of this boat type. The dhow would be fitted with engines, machinery, air-conditioning etc and furnished in theme decor in the second phase of construction.