The person that I will write about
is my uncle Muhammad Aljunaibi who is 62 years old. The reason of choosing my
uncle is because he did a great achievement through his athlete life such as
rowing sport in an Al Shahoof. At the beginning of his journey in rowing sport
back in 1974, he worked in a small factory manufacturing traditional boats and
ships. One of the traditional boats took my uncle’s attraction which was the Al
Shahoof. It’s a long boat that carries around 10 persons on it and has no
canvas to be used for sailing but only paddles. It was used only for fishing
purposes as they sail from the afternoon and until the morning. It was
difficult to carry the boat out of the shore because of its weight. He traveled
to different countries like Kuwait, Qatar and Oman to learn and see the
differences of designing Al Shahoof. The competition of rowing sport in the
past was not taken as a serious deal because of the poor condition of life but,
they usually collect money from each team to set as a price for the winner.
After discovering the oil in UAE lot of things
has changed. The design of the boat developed using Indian wood called Teak
which makes it highly rot resistance and very strong. At the beginning of the
1990’s they start to make competitions of traditional crowing sport with
valuable prices which is sponsored by the late president of UAE Sheikh Zayed
Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Each boat has 10 participants and additional one who used
to give spiritual songs to his colleagues. It was an advantage step to contain
the traditions and culture of UAE and consider it as a sport by practicing it
every year. Lately, Al Shahoof was modified with two engines and two seats
only. It was classified to the list of high speed boats. Nowadays, these boats
can be carried by cars using tow to transported from house to the shore or the warehouse
for preparing.
