SIR BU NUAYR ISLAND, United Arab Emirates: Rashed Al-Humairi likes to trade the sleek glass and steel towers of modern Abu Dhabi for the thrill of reviving a seafaring heritage aboard an antiquated wooden sailboat.
The 30-year-old banker watches his shipmates push the long slender dhow from a trailer into the sea off Sir Bu Nuayr Island, 100 km west of Dubai and explains the joy of coaxing a proud Gulf maritime tradition back from near extinction.
“With traditional boats you need a lot of skills, especially with the wind,” Humairi said.
His voice is nearly drowned out by the morning wind and the buzz of the small port, where dhow crews are preparing for a race towards Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel. Dhow sailing, which has roots in the Gulf’s history of trading, fishing and pearl diving, was almost forgotten during decades of breakneck modernization after World War II in the United Arab Emirates.
But it is now catching a fresh wind among Emiratis, many from old pearling and fishing families. They want to get away from the glass and concrete of the UAE’s wealthy cities, while rising incomes have given them the time and money needed to develop an interest in some of their ancestors’ traditions.
“It’s a change, like an escape,” said Ali Salem Al-Falasi, a dhow navigator, who has been sailing on traditional boats since the late 1980s.
UAE nationals coming from other than seafaring families find it harder to learn how to sail a dhow, said Humairi, who is from a desert family. He learned the skill in the sailing team of Mohammed Rashid Al-Rumaithi, owner of Al-Fattan shipyards. The team builds four or five dhows for its own use each year.
Rumaithi has been teaching children how to sail to promote the tradition. “Around half of the people we see on all other boats today have been taught by us since the 1980s. They started sailing, and then they built their own boats,” he said.
Some 16 dhow races in 22-, 43- and 60-foot classes are held in Abu Dhabi and Dubai between September and May. Only Emiratis and other Gulf nationals may take part.
The season culminates with the Al Gaffal, or “Return” in Arabic; its 10 million dirham ($2.7 million) purse lured nearly 100 60-foot boats this year, each with two sails and a crew of 25-30, sometimes with three generations of a family aboard.
“It is now the 22nd year since its start in 1991 and it seems to me that there is an interest in it,” UAE Finance Minister and Dubai’s deputy ruler Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum told Reuters aboard the royal yacht Al-Fahedi.
