The Harbour Master

It would have taken improbable vision for someone living in Dubai 40 years ago to imagine skyscrapers would one day rise up to crowd out the city sky, or to believe that one of the world's largest passenger ships, the QE2, would cruise into its harbour soon to be one of the world's busiest.

In 1965, the 20-something year old, highly ambitious Abdul Wahab Al Diwani, a UAE national, looked out at Dubai, and saw what most of us would have seen virgin desert stretching as far as the eye could see.

At the time Port Rashid was not even a plan while skyscrapers were just distant dreams. Al Diwani, a recent marine transportation graduate from State University, New York, did not see his future in his native homeland.

For a young man determined to make it, a wider world beckoned and with a university degree from New York State he had a first class ticket to go anywhere he wanted.

Al Diwani's desire to make his name meant taking on a career outside the emirate or so he thought.

What he didn't know was that Shaikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the then Ruler of Dubai, was about to begin the building of a great city-state and that his career would become entwined in Dubai's meteoric development.

In fact, in telling us his story, Captain Abdul Wahab Al Diwani, consultant marine affairs, Abu Dhabi Seaport Authority and the first UAE national harbour pilot, told us much of the history of the UAE's port development.

It was his love of sailing that steered Al Diwani towards a maritime career. After graduation and a brief period as a junior officer on a tanker in 1968 Al Diwani headed out to Kuwait where he worked in the pilotage of the Shuaiba Port.

There he met William ("Bill") Duff, the advisor to the ruler of Kuwait who encouraged him to head back to Dubai.

Duff later became an advisor at Dubai Ports and Customs and was one of the select few British advisers of the late Shaikh Rashid, during the early development of the emirate.

Al Diwani remembers asking him why he should head back, reminding him that there was no port on the coastline of the Trucial States (as the UAE was called before 1971).

"I told him that there was nothing there a creek in Dubai, a creek in Ajman, a creek in Sharjah, and a few other 'creeks', but no deep port except for a single-finger wharf in Sharjah."

Nevertheless, he took Duff's advice and returned to Dubai in 1970 to find its first port Port Rashid had already completed its initial phase of construction.

"It looked like a dream to me. A few years before the port had been a large sandy beach with a rest-house for the late Shaikh Ahmad Bin Ali Al Thani, the then Ruler of Qatar."

Gray Mackenzie Dubai, headed by George Chapman, was managing the port under a company called Dubai Port Services.

Al Diwani, encouraged by His Highness Shaikh Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuaimi, Crown Prince of Ajman at the time and the present Ruler, applied and was sent to Bahrain for an interview by W.D. Orde, Gray Mackenzie's Gulf manager.

He got the job but was offered a position as a trainee harbour pilot even though he felt he had the qualifications and the experience to be a fully-fledged pilot. "I accepted, but under protest!" laughed Al Diwani.

At Port Rashid he had to work under the supervision of two British harbour pilots Ian Anderson and Armstrong Hitchcock, as well as Ian Butcher, the harbour master.

On the 10th day as a trainee he was hit by a "double challenge" which proved a turning point in his career.

"It was a hot summer day and both the senior pilots fell sick. On the same day a big tanker had to be brought into the harbour for a crew change."

Capt Arthur Jarman, the port manager, asked him to pilot the vessel into the port.

"I refused saying, "I am just a trainee."

Capt Jarman could not bring it in himself as he had an appointment to see Shaikh Rashid.

"So in the end I brought the tanker in. I did not know that Capt Jarman's appointment had been postponed and he was watching me, nervously, from berth one where I was told to pilot the ship," said Al Diwani.

"That's why I considered myself double lucky that day. Before I went out I had told him that if I brought in the tanker he should promote me to be a full-fledged pilot."

And so he was. Other promotions quickly followed as Al Diwani's stock rose and he became a valued and trusted figure.

"I also brought the first ship a P&O general cargo vessel into the Dubai Drydock. It was a memorable event because the Drydock was one of Shaikh Rashid's great achievements," said Al Diwani.

He is proud of his record at Port Rashid, having undertaken about 5,000 pilotage moves during those years without a single accident.

According to Al Diwani, "there was a period of congestion in 1974 when more than 200 ships were anchored outside Dubai waiting for a berth.

"There was a construction boom and all materials had to be imported because there were few manufacturing industries in the UAE at the time."

Port Rashid had 15 berths and to ease the congestion Shaikh Rashid ordered the breakwaters to be converted to berths.

"By the time I left there were 34 berths."

Al Diwani was the assistant harbour master when he moved from Port Rashid in 1976 to take up the position of harbour master in Sharjah's Port Khalid. Later he was made the director of operations and then the deputy director-general of the port.

The Jebel Ali port was yet another of Shaikh Rashid's visionary projects and Al Diwani recalls its initial stages.

"I was driving to Abu Dhabi one day by the Sabka road (these were rough tracks since there were no proper roads then) which hugged the coastline. Near Jebel Ali hill I saw a bollard (which is used to tie the ropes of the ship) lying on the sand and thought it had fallen from a truck, then I saw another and another. I was intrigued."

When he returned Al Diwani asked Capt Jarman about the bollards and heard that Shaikh Rashid was building a new 64-berth port opposite the Jebel Ali hill.

"It is a well known fact that many thought it would not work."

"But Shaikh Rashid was determined. He used to visit the port almost every morning at about 8am, and sometimes earlier. I was present at many of these occasions. I can see him tapping on the plans firmly and saying he wanted it done," remembers Al Diwani. "He would not accept anyone saying it could not be."

"Jebel Ali port has since emerged as one of the leading ports in the world, with diversified activities and dedicated efficient management, and, of course, with the unsurpassed entrepreneurship, farsightedness and tireless efforts of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Minister of Defence," he said.

"It is now one of the top 10 container ports in the world surpassing six million TEUs traf