Captains of Ancient Routes – The story of Building and Sailing Lenjs in the Persian Gulf

This work reports one of the Iranian intangible cultural heritages in need of urgent safeguarding. The essay narrates the story of traditional wooden boats (called Lenj in Farsi), the current state and usage of Lenjs in the regional market, the stories of senior and junior Captains (Nakhoda), and the state of Lenj construction industry in the northern coast of the Persian Gulf.

Since the time of Sindbad the Sailor, and even earlier, seamen have coursed the Indian Ocean waters on their Lenjs trading between the Persian Gulf, India, and Africa. These traditionally hand-built vessels have been used by inhabitants of the region for sea journeys, trading, fishing, and pearl diving for thousands of years. The related traditional knowledge includes comprehensive oral literature, performing arts, sailing, navigation, weather forecasting, and boatbuilding technique.

With development of new technology, prevalence of cargo ships, using engines instead of sails, and GPS instead of compass and charts, a big part of this traditional knowledge has been put in danger. There is only a handful of senior captains still alive who travelled with sail Lenjs from the Persian Gulf to India and the east coast of Africa, a journey that would take up to 9 months and needed very sophisticated navigation skills. Most of their knowledge hasn't been fully transferred to the junior captains leaving a big gap between two consecutive generations of Nakhodas.

At the same time, very few shipwrights are left who are skilled at building traditional wooden Lenjs. With increasing prices and lack of high-quality timbers in the market, demand for wooden Lenjs has remarkably dropped giving its place to cheaper fiberglass ones. Many construction workshops and workers dedicated to building traditional wooden Lenjs are losing their place in the market which might lead to gradual fade of wooden Lenj construction skills.