Moulds, Graminhos and Ribbands: a pilot study of the construction of saveiros in Valença and the Baía de Todos os Santos area, Brazil

Abstract

The survival of late medieval Mediterranean techniques to conceive and build ships and boats in Brazil was noted by John Patrick Sarsfield in the 1980s, but his study of the Valença shipwrights was interrupted by his untimely death in 1990. This paper summarizes Sarsfield's account of these shipbuilding techniques, examines that published by Lev Smarcevski (1996), and provides some preliminary results of the pilot stage of a project to further research traditional shipbuilding in Valença and the Baía de Todos os Santos region.

Key words:

• whole moulding
• graminho
• Valença
• Brazil
• 16th‐century shipbuilding

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the Valença shipwrights who received us so generously, and gave us so much of their time. Mestres Waltinho, Chico, Edir, Valmiro, Tenório, Zuza, and especially Zé Crente, for the long hours spent explaining each detail in the construction sequence, mestre Elpídio, for his warm hospitality at Camamu, Prof.a Adylane Santos, for her help and support, biologist Robson Lúcio Morais Santos, for his patience and competent input, and Fernando Borges, for his kind support in Salvador.