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Small Craft
Although the most exciting shipwrecks ever found are large - such as the Vasa or the Mary Rose
- most ships and boats built in the last 50 thousand years were comparatively quite small. But it was from this
diversity of basic floating solutions that all larger vessels evolved.
Small craft are a cheap way to improvise, to attempt new solutions, to test new ideas, or
to copy new technologies.
The study of small craft - both from a technical and an ethnographical viewpoint - is an
important component of any study of the history of wooden shipbuilding.
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This project was possible through the generous and
competent support of Carlos Carvalho.
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Boats of Portugal
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This page intends to be a meeting point for those interested in the study
of Portugal's small watercraft.
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Saveiro from Costa da Caparica
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Saveiro from Aveiro and silver model from Ur
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(in Lisbon's Museu de Marinha)
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(after Lixa Filgueiras)
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"Portugal was a meeting point for many traditions, and a springboard
for greater things."
Richard Barker*
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* "Sources for Lusitanian shipbuilding" in Francisco Alves, ed., Proceedings of the International Symposium 'Archaeology
of Medieval and Modern Ships of Iberian-Atlantic Tradition', Lisbon, 1998. Lisbon: IPA, 2001: 213-228.
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It is difficult to summarize the rich and diverse maritime culture of the Iberian Peninsula
without oversimplifying its reality. Today's Portuguese and Spanish territories constitute the extreme southwest
of Europe, from which they are separated by the Pyrenees. In the form of an ox hide, according to Strabo, this
stone raft, as it has been called by José Saramago, is a large plateau that slopes gently westward, into
the Atlantic Ocean. Along its extensive and diverse coast the population speaks Basque, Castilian, Asturian, Galician,
Portuguese, Castilian again, and Catalan.
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Muleta do Tejo
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(Courtesy Museu de Marinha, Lisbon -
Col. Seixas)
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The diversity of its cultures and populations encompasses the influences of the many visitors
and invaders that have established colonies and factories on this territory. Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians,
Romans, Goths and Arabs left their influences in the architecture, language, agriculture, religious beliefs and
many other cultural traits, including its shipbuilding techniques.
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Positioned between the Mediterranean and the Baltic maritime worlds, the Iberian Peninsula
developed a rich and diverse collection of watercraft, each type suited for its intended purpose, resulting from
the natural resources available, the existing trade network in what pertained to imports of shipbuilding materials,
and the foreign influences of the cultures to which its people was in contact at a particular time.
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Caique do Algarve
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(Courtesy Museu de Marinha, Lisbon - Col. Seixas)
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During the Middle Ages hundreds of types of ships and boats were referred in Portuguese documents.
Admiral Quirino da Fonseca has listed 167 types for Portugal alone.
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What we know of the traditional craft of the twentieth century sugests that they result from
diverse shipbuilding traditions. Octavio Lixa Filgueiras suggested that some of the craft that could be found on
the Douro River region was build with northern influence, perhaps from the Germanic Suevi people, which invaded
the Iberian Peninsula between AD 407 and 409 together with the Vandals and Alans. The dornas from Galicia are lapstrakes, built with a clear northern influence, and so are the barcos rabelos from the Douro River, in the north of Portugal, built
with flush laid planks on the bottom and lapstrake sides. The saveiros or barcos do mar from Aveiro, on the other
hand, are basically plank canoes and look incredibly like a Middle Eastern model, dated to c. 2250 BC, found on
one of the royal tombs of Ur.
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"It is not known definitely which civilization was the first to settle
on the shores of the Iberian Peninsula. The Phoenicians early in the first millenium, possibly the Aegeans, and
later the Carthaginians established outposts on the Spanish Medirerranean coast as well as the Atlantic coast of
Portugal. It is a reasonable conclusion from this that the early boatbuilding practices of thsi entire region were
first derived from the eastern Mediterranean."
Thomas C. Guillmer*
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* A
History of Working Watercraft of the Western World, Camden: International Marine / McGraw-Hill, 1994.
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We know that the shores of Portugal were visited by Phoenician merchants during the first
millennium BC, probably sailing on their sturdy shell-first built vessels, with large mortise and tenon joints,
such as the ones found on the Uluburun ship. They were followed by Greek sailors, possibly traveling on sewn boats,
and later by Carthaginian and Roman mortise and tenon joined ships. In the summer of 2002 the first small plank
with mortise and tenon joints found in Portugal was uncovered at the mouth of the Arade River, in the south of
Portugal, during survey operations.
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Barca de Tavira
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(Courtesy Museu de Marinha, Lisbon - Col. Seixas)
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Foreign influences probably mixed with local ones. In the first decades of the first century
AD Strabo refers rafts, skin craft and dugout canoes in the Iberian Peninsula. We know that the later were extensively
used. Five dugouts were found on the margins of Lima River, in the north of Portugal, between 1985 and 2003. Their
dates span from the fourth or fifth centuries BC to the tenth or eleventh centuries AD.
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From the less complex craft, such as dugouts and rafts, to the skeleton based Tagus working
craft, built with graminhos, many traditional boats have been studied, recorded and published by scholars such
as Octavio Lixa Filgueiras, Maria João Andrezes, or Ivone Magalhães, among others. We have several
lists of ship's and boat's names, types, sizes, and characteristics. Some of these have been recorded or preserved,
and some are lost forever.
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"The boats from Santarém raise now their heads further, and change
their names from cervilhas to muletas; and this is from four days ago to the present; imagine the change that will
occur in one hundred, or two hundred years from now."
Fernando Oliveira*
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* Fernando Oliveira, 1580, O
Liuro da fabrica das naos. Fac-simile, transcription and translation
into English, Lisboa: Academia de Marinha, 1991: 76.
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It is impossible to know how many types of vessels were developed, utilized and abandoned
through time. Carlos Carvalho is another researcher that has been gathering information on Portuguese working craft
for several decades. He has amassed an impressive collection of pictures and publications, and has reflected upon
this subject for quite a while now.
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He is currently working on an inventiry of small watercraft in Portugal. These are some of
the known lists:
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Basic Bibliography
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Octávio Lixa Filgueiras
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Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Açores
e Madeira: relatórios da viagem de serviço efectuada de 4 a 14 de Abril de 1976.
Lisboa: Ministério da Comunicação Social, Secretaria de Estado da Cultura, Direcção-Geral
do Património Cultural, 1976.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Algumas cenas e cenários ribeirinhos
de Vila Nova de Gaia em gravuras dos séculos XVII a XIX. Vila Nova
de Gaia: Gabinete de História e Arqueologia, 1984.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Algumas reflexões para a definição
duma política de defesa do nosso património arqueológico subaquático. Lisboa: Academia de Marinha, 1989.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Arquitectura do rabelo. Porto: Rozès, 1992.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Barco Rabelo: um retrato de família. Porto: Cálem, 1989.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Barcos de pesca de Portugal. Coimbra: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar, 1981.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, The Barco do Mar and the thera boats breed. Piraeus: Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Tradition, 1987.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Barcos do Douro- comentários técnicos
da sua iconografia (séculos XVIII-XX). Vila Nova de Gaia: Gabinete
de História e Arqueologia, 1994.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Os barcos da Nazaré no panorama
da nossa arqueologia naval. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos da Marinha, 1981.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, and Alfredo Barroca, O caique do Algarve
e a caravela portuguesa. Coimbra: Junta de Investigações
do Ultramar, 1970.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, and Alfredo Barroca, O caique do Algarve
e a caravela portuguesa. Coimbra: RUC, 1969, vol. XXIV (I Reunião
de História da Náutica), 405-441 (reed. Coimbra: AECA, 1970, sep. XLVI).
Filgueiras, Octavio Lixa, Canoas de tablas de tipo mesopotamico en zonas
de influencia tartesica. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, Direccion General
de Bellas Artes y Archivos, Subdireccion General de Arqueologia y Etnografia, 1985.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Comentários técnicos da
Tese do Moçarabismo Náutico. Lisboa. Centro de Estudos da
Marinha, 1975.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Common European Maritime Heritage Congress"-
Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum- Amsterdam, 31 Agosto - 4 Setembro 1992: Relatório da participação
no congresso. Porto: Centro de História da Universidade do Porto,
Faculdade de Letras, 1992?
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, "The Decline of Portuguese Regional Boats" in Maritime
Monographs and Reports No. 47. National Maritime Museum Greenwich, London,
UK, 1980.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, "Gelmirez e a reconversão da construção naval tradicional
do NW Sec. XI-XII: Seus prováveis reflexos na época dos Descobrimentos", Actas
do Congresso Internacional Bartolomeu Dias e a sua Época, 2: 539-576,
Porto: Universidade do Porto, Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses,
1989.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, "Gelmirez and the reconversion of the W.Peninsular shipbuilding tradition
(XI-XIIth centuries)" in Carvel Construction Technique, Ed. R.Reinders & Kees Paul, Oxford 1991: 32-41.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Introdução ao "Caderno
de todos os barcos do Tejo tanto de carga e transporte como d' pesca, por João de Souza, Lente d' arquitectura
naval e desenho da Companhia de Guardas Marinhas". Lisboa: Academia
de Marinha, 1985.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, As Jangadas de Botos.
Porto: Ministério da Cultura, Delegação R. do Norte, Centro de Estudos Humanísticos,
1984.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, A Jangada de S. Torpes: um problema de
arqueologia naval. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos da Marinha, 1977.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, ed., Local Boats, Proceedings of the 4th
International Symposium on Ship and Boat Archaeology, Porto, Portugal,
1985. London: BAR International Series 438, 1988.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Museus de marinha e de arqueologia naval. Lisboa: Academia de Marinha, 1978.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, A nave esculpida numa Torre da Sé
do Porto: ensaio de identificação. Porto: s. n., 1983.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Navegação à vela:
barcos à vela dos rios portugueses. Lisboa: s. n., 1982.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Os painéis introdutórios
da exposição de Oslo- critérios e conceitos. Lisboa:
Academia de Marinha, 1985.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Pré-aviso sobre acções
cautelares a promover nas zonas portuárias dos Coutos de Alcobaça.
Alcobaça?: s. n., 1978.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Uma presumível herança germânica
na construção naval tradicional portuguesa. Lisboa: Academia
de Marinha, 1985.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, "A presumptive Germanic heritage for a Portuguese boat-building tradition"
in Medieval ships and harbours in Northern Europe,
ed. S. McGrail, Oxford 1979: 45-75.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, A propósito da protecção
mágica dos barcos do Douro. Porto: s. n., 1976?
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, A propósito da protecção
mágica dos barcos. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos da Marinha, 1978.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Remanescentes de formas de navegar pré-romanas
em uso no Noroeste Peninsular. Porto: s. n., 1974.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Santos Graça: contribuição
para o estudo das raízes ideológicas duma obra. Póvoa
do Varzim: s. n., 1982.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Traineiras.
Lisboa: CTT Correios, 1994.
Filgueiras, Octávio Lixa, Zonas de influência tartésica. S. l.: s. n., s. d.
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Beverly McMillan, Susannah Livingston, and Susan Beaven Rutter
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McMillan, Beverly, Susannah Livingston, and Susan Beaven Rutter, eds., Aak to Zumbra, Newport News, VA.: The Mariner's
Museum, 2000.
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