The Omani Dhow Editorial Photo

The traditional Omani wooden-hulled Arabian boats called dhow, in the port of Khasab. Oman was formerly famous for the excellence of its boats and the skills of its sailors, whose maritime expertise – backed up by a detailed understanding of the workings of the local monsoon a word derived from the Arabic mawsim, meaning “season” – laid the basis for the country’s far-reaching commercial network, and for its string of colonies in East Africa.