Felucca

Felucca on the Nile at Luxor

A felucca (Arabic: فلوكة‎) is a traditional wooden sailing boat used in protected waters of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean including Malta, and particularly along the Nile in Egypt, Sudan, and also in Iraq. Its rig consists of one or two lateen sails.

They are usually able to board ten passengers and the crew consists of two or three people. Despite being made obsolete by motorboats and ferries, feluccas are still in active use as a means of transport in Nile-adjacent cities like Aswan or Luxor. They are especially popular among tourists who can enjoy a quieter and calmer mood than motorboats have to offer.

San Francisco's fleet

A large fleet of lateen-rigged feluccas thronged San Francisco's docks before and after the construction of the state-owned Fisherman's Wharf in 1884. Light, small, and maneuverable, the feluccas were the mainstay of the fishing fleet of San Francisco Bay. John Muir said of them, "These workhorses featured a mast that angled, or raked, forward sharply, and a large triangular sail hanging down from a long, two-piece yard".

Gallery

Sail-plan of a felucca  Feluccas on the Nile by Beniamino Facchinelli, circa 1880s  Feluccas at fisherman's wharf at the foot of Union Street in San Francisco, California, in 1891

See also

• Dhow

References

• Muscat, Joseph (2003) The Gilded Felucca and Maltese Boatbuilding Techniques. Pubblikazzjonijiet Indipendenza, Malta. ISBN 99932-41-45-8

External links

• "Tides of change: Fisherman's Wharf, 1870 - 1930": by John Muir, an Associate Curator of Small Craft at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
• Photographs from a felucca journey on the Nile

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