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OMAN. Sur. Tim Severin's project The Sindbad Voyage.The famous adventures of the medieval sailor Sindbad, as recorded in One Thousand and One Nights, became the inspiration for Severin's voyage. After three years of researching the legend and early Arab and Persian sketches of medieval ships, he brought the project to Sur, Oman in 1980. Sponsored by His Majesty Qaboos bin Said al Said, Sultan of Oman, he guided Omani shipwrights in the construction of the "Sohar", an 87 foot (26.5 m) replica of a ninth-century, lateen-rigged, cotton-sailed Arab dhow. The ship was constructed in seven months of hand-sawn wooden planks sewn together with nearly 400 miles of hand-rolled, coconut-husk rope.Sohar left Oman on 21 November 1980. Navigating by the stars, Severin and his crew of 25 traveled nearly 6,000 miles in eight months. From Sur they sailed east across the Arabian Sea, south down India's Malabar Coast to Lakshadweep and on to Kozhikode, India. The next phase of their voyage took them down the coast of India to Sri Lanka. They were becalmed in the doldrums for nearly a month, but arrived in Canton, China on 6 July 1980.
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