Family of early Arab ships likely inspired the designs of caravel
TRADITIONAL Arab sailing vessels with one or more lateen sails known as dhows were the maritime vehicles primarily used along the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, India, and East Africa. Larger dhows had crews of approximately thirty, while smaller dhows typically had crews of around twelve.
As late as in the 1960s dhows made commercial journeys between the Arabian Gulf and East Africa using sails as their only means of propulsion, carrying mostly dates and fish to East Africa. They also carried mangrove timber on their return to the lands of the Arabian Gulf region.
They sailed south with the monsoon in winter or early spring and back again to Arabia in late spring or early summer. The term “dhow” is also applied to small, traditionally constructed vessels used for trade in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf area as well as the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to the Gulf of Bengal.
Such vessels typically weigh 300 to 500 tons, and have a long, thin hull design. Also, it is a family of early Arab ships that used the lateen sail, on which the Portuguese likely based their designs for the caravel known to Arabs as sambuk, booms, baggalas, ghanjas, and zaruqs.
For celestial navigation, dhow sailors traditionally used the kamal. This observation device determines latitude by finding the angle of the Pole Star above the horizon.