How a Kuwaiti Ship Was Built: From the Ustad Down to the Walid

The ustad who designed the ship took four rupees a day. The qallaf who sawed the timber and executed the design took two. The dharrab who assembled the planks and drove the nails took one and a half. And the boy who gathered the offcuts from under their feet from morning to sunset took nothing.

That was the wage map of the qallafa trade, the building of sailing ships, when Kuwait’s waterfront was an open workshop before oil.

Six positions in the yard

The yard was not a group of carpenters. It was a clear ladder, each rung with its name and its work:

• The ustad. Designer and supervisor. Merchants and captains competed for the famous ones, and not only that: many took the ustad along on the long voyage itself, because having aboard a man who knew the ship from her first rib changes the risk calculation at sea. Among the most prominent was Ahmad bin Sulaiman, called the sheikh of the ustads, who had his own yard.
• The muqaddami. The right hand. He stands in for the ustad in his absence, and rises until he becomes an ustad himself.
• The qalalif. The carpenters. They translate the ustad’s design into measurements and cut the timber to them.
• The dharrabs. They assemble the cut planks and fix them with iron nails.
• The mazrooi. He carries the timber and moves it between everyone’s hands.
• The walid. The boy. He gathers the qishbar — the small offcuts that fall away — and helps whoever asks. He has no wage. On delivery of the ship, the owner gives him whatever his hand is moved to give.

The walid is the detail worth pausing on. The trade did not pay whoever was learning it. It fed him and taught him, then left him waiting on the shipowner’s generosity on the last day.

The agreement before the first plank

Before a single piece of timber was cut, the merchant or captain sat with the ustad. And the agreement ran on one of two systems:

The day-rate system: a daily wage paid by the shipowner to each worker, recorded in a dedicated ledger.

The qantara system: a lump sum to the ustad, out of which he must bring the timber and materials and pay his men. The ustad here is a contractor rather than a hired hand, and carries the difference in cost himself.

What it cost and how long it took

A diving jalboot cost between one and two thousand rupees. A voyaging boom, the large ship that crossed to India and East Africa, between ten and eleven thousand, some reaching fifteen thousand, and some as high as twenty-five thousand.

And the duration, as related from the ustad Ali bin Abdullah bin Abdulrasoul: a jalboot around thirty days, and a large voyaging boom around three and a half months. On average fifteen or sixteen men worked on a single ship, the blacksmith among them.

Four meals a day

Work ran from sunrise to sunset without stopping, except for prayer and food. And the food was on the shipowner, four meals timed by the clock:

• First breakfast at six in the morning: bread, laban and tea.
• Second breakfast at eight: laban, bread and dates.
• Lunch at one: rice with meat or fish.
• Dinner straight after sunset, the same as lunch.

Two breakfasts before noon are not a luxury. They are a practical calculation for a man carrying heavy timber under an August sun.

Why Kuwait’s ships were better

All the timber was imported from India, brought by the merchant or captain at his own expense to bring the cost down. And some Kuwaiti ships were built in India itself under the supervision of a Kuwaiti ustad.

And yet the ones built in Kuwait were preferred. The reason given was not the hand that made them alone but the climate: the timber was left exposed to the Kuwaiti sun for a long period, drying to a hardness the same wood never reaches in a humid climate.

Which puts Kuwait’s competitive advantage in the harshest thing about it. The heat that wore the men down was hardening the wood.

Photo: wooden ships in Kuwait harbour — by Zairon via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. The photo is contemporary and does not depict the old shipyards.

Further reading: the Kuwait History Forum, maritime history section, carrying the testimony of the ustad Ali bin Abdullah bin Abdulrasoul on build times and wages.