Muscat: Jewel of Muscat, a replica of a ninth century merchant sailing vessel (dhow), moored at the Singapore port just after sunset on Saturday at the end of nearly five-month voyage that began at the Port Sultan Qaboos in Muscat in February.
“It is like a dream come true,” Tom Vosmer, the Boat designer and Project Director, told Gulf News on Sunday over telephone from Singapore. The American archaeologist was on board the sail ship during their last leg from Malaysia to Singapore.
See the Jewel of Muscat's journey in pictures
“The crew went through different experiences, including an impending threat from a storm, but they did extremely well to sail Jewel of Muscat to Singapore,” he said.
In reply to a question, Vosmer agreed that the success of Jewel of Muscat had encouraged him to revive the Majan boat project. Majan was a replica of 2500BC made of boat of reed and bitumen sails and was to sail from Sur in eastern Oman to India’s western state of Gujarat but sank soon after it set sail.
“The success of Jewel of Muscat has in a way rekindled the hope for Majan but it is extremely difficult to get someone familiar with the boat-making skills of that era,” he said.
But the ever optimistic archaeologist is keeping his fingers crossed. “Nothing is certain but let’s hope,” he added.
The 17-member crew, led by skipper Saleh Al Jabri, followed the ancient maritime silk route from Oman to reach Singapore. At the end of the journey, Al Jabri presented a kamal, a 9th-century navigational tool, to Singapore President S R Nathan as a symbol of the gift of Jewel of Muscat.
Jewel of Muscat was reconstructed by 34 workers, based on the only wreck of an Arabian sailing ship from this period ever discovered. Built without nails, it took two years to construct and was hand sewn on Qantab beach in Muscat, Oman.
The sail boat, which is a gift from Sultan Qaboos to Singapore and built with the help of wood and coconut ropes, stopped over in India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia on the way to Singapore.
The original boat was salvaged in 2004 in Indonesia's Belitung Straits. The discovery of the wreck excited maritime scholars, who viewed it as solid proof of a maritime silk route from West Asia to China. The salvaged boat had a cargo of 60,000 ceramic plates and pots from the Tang Dynasty, which are currently kept in Singapore.
The replica dhow with the discoveries of Tang Dynasty would be kept in a museum in Singapore.
