Sons of Sinbad

by Villiers, Alan; Al-hijji, Yacoub; Facey, William; Pundyk, Grace

• ISBN13: 9780955889462
• ISBN10: 0955889464
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-31
• Publisher: Arabian Pub Ltd

Summary

Sons of Sindbad is Alan Villiers's account of sailing with the Arabs in their dhows between Arabia and East Africa in 1938-39, is regarded by many as his masterpiece. Villiers first made a name for himself as a maritime adventurer in the 1920s and 1930s, by combining his sailing skills with his talent as a pioneering photojournalist. After various epic voyages on Cape Horners and other tall ships, in 1938 he completed a three-year round-the-world voyage in his own three-masted schooner. He then decided to go to Arabia because he was certain he was living through the last days of sail, and was determined to record as much as he could. It seemed to him, after two decades at sea, that "as pure sailing craft carrying on their unspoilt ways, only the Arab remained". Choosing Aden as his starting-point, Villiers was put in touch with Nejdi, the captain of one of the great Kuwaiti booms making the centuries-old voyage from the Gulf to East Africa, coasting on the north-east monsoon winds with a cargo of Basra dates. The return voyage would be made in the early summer of 1939, on the first breezes of the south-west monsoon, from East Africa to the Gulf and Kuwait. Throughout, Villiers travelled with his companions as an equal, in awe of their toughness and fortitude, and deferring to their traditional skills and habits of work. From this voyage, Villiers fashioned Sons of Sindbad. First published in 1940, it is a classic of Arabian travel that is today acclaimed as the maritime counterpart of Wilfred Thesiger's desert masterpiece, "Arabian Sands".