by Fernando Torre
Pyro Barbary Coast Pirate by Fernando Torre
This is a picture of my rendition of a Lindberg "gulf trader," an old Pyro box scale kit of the 70's. I believe it depicts a type of vessel that was used commonlly in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean though the 17th to the 19th centuries. Although how accuratly I can't begin to say. I have read some where that variations of these ships are still being built today in Kuwait. They were built in different configurations, two deck, one in a quater, ect. and where called Baggalas, Sambooks, and Booms. The word dhow has been applied by Europeans to many different types of Arab traditional ships. What they all have in common is the triangular lateen 1/4 point sails. The Lindberg (Pyro) kit seams to be about 1/100 scale allbeit the coronades are somewhat BIG! But what comes through in this kit is the general shape. Here you can see the true roots of these ships; they are decendants of the early Portuguese caravelles that both traded and terrorized these waters in the 16th century.
