Boats and Boatbuilding in Tanzania (Dar‐es‐Salaam and Zanzibar)

Abstract

A wide variety of traditional wooden boats and small ships can still be seen in use and being built on the mainland of Tanzania and the island of Zanzibar. This paper compares different accounts in the literature with observations made in 2012, and documents in detail the various stages of building wooden dhows on the beaches of Zanzibar.

Key words:

• dhow
• logboat
• Tanzania
• Dar‐es‐Salaam
• Zanzibar
• Nungwi

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Ms De Leeuwe for providing him with a copy of her thesis (De Leeuwe, 2004). The author also acknowledges the interesting and helpful comments by two anonymous reviewers.