KOZHIKODE: It was a historic moment for the workers of the boat-building yard at Beypore on Wednesday when they gave the finishing touches to one of the biggest urus (wooden boat) in Asia. The hand-made wooden boat will soon be on a historic voyage.
Ordered by Sheik Mohammed Bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, from the royal family of Qatar, it is an engineering marvel, which has shaped into such a large boat.
In this hand-made dhow, the keel is the most important, which decides the construction of the whole boat. In this case, the uru is 140 ft long at the keel, 200 ft in length and 14 ft high from the keel, with about an 18 ft high cabin above the deck. The earlier biggest uru which set sail into the sea was 180 ft.
Abdul Gafoor, the proprietor of Binafa Enterprises, who got the orders to make the ship, said that it took them 30 workers and three-and-a-half-years to construct the uru, which weighed about 1,500 tonnes. “It has been made completely of teak wood, which was imported from Burma, and is of high quality,” he said and added that the boat cost about `4 crore.
The company has made another along with it, which is 62 ft long at the keel, 82 ft in length, 10 ft high and 25 ft wide. It is again for the royal family, which has demanded it along with the biggest uru.
Gafoor told ‘Express’ that the business of making uru was growing as orders were coming in from the Gulf countries, where the ship was a luxury and used for other purposes. The industry was at present thriving because of those orders and the great craftsmanship of the workers here, he said.
Even though urus are made in these countries, the boat-making skill, especially the ribs of the boats, are well-appreciated in other parts of the country. The biggest uru has more than 300 ribs, that helps the boat to float and accomdate the engine. While now it has a Chinese engine, the uru will be docked at Dubai for replacing it with a different engine and for interior work.
Gafoor said they were already a month behind the promised delivery period owing to various reasons. But despite that what was more encouraging was that the Qatar government had demanded 10 more urus which would require more space and support. Many of the companies which were into the business were working on rented land.
They had to pay a minimum of `30,000 as rent for the land. They had already requested land from the government for construction purposes, he said.