After I had collected the material I needed for a chapter on the European cemeteries at Surat for my book Great Burial Places I hired a car and driver and explored Gujarat for 3 weeks. During my travels I discovered a small town called Salaya (population 30,000). It is located on the far west coast of Gujarat and overlooks the Arabian Sea. It has been a centre of ship building since biblical times.
The boats are built entirely by hand. No machinery, power tools or even working drawings are used.
Channels have been cut into the banks of an estuary that runs in from the sea just south of the town. At low tide a temporary sea wall of rubble and earth is thrown across the entry to the channel to block it off from the estuary. After the last of the residual sea water evaporates the empty channel serves as a dry dock. When a boat is finished the sea wall is removed at low tide and the next high tide floods the channel and floats the boat, which can then be sailed out to deep water.
Until a few decades ago these dhow type boats were powered by sail but these days they are fitted with an engine.
Boats built at Salaya were trading up and down the coast of East Africa, into the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, down past the islands of Indonesia and up the China coast for centuries before the Europeans sailed into view in the 1500s. Built to order by Gujarati and Arab traders, they continue to do so today.
The finished product: locally built, sea going boats in the harbour at Salaya.