Kerala Travel Pal Picture Blog: Manual ship making near Beypore beach

Kozhikode has an eventful history of thousands of years. It was the trading hub of Kerala spices to Arabs, Phoenicians, Chinese and others.

Kerala was also the land of Vedic knowledge, eventhough that knowledge was limited to a few people. Riches from trade kept on coming and Kozhikode under the stable rule of Zamorin was affluent.

Kozhikode not only traded spices, but also built ships. They were built at Beypore, a small port town just 10 kms from Kozhikode.

Through ages, Beypore ship building thrived because the vessels built here were best of the breed.

Beypore ship is called Uru, which is a wooden Arabian ship. Arabs were the main customers. History says they are the ones who passed ship building knowledge to Kerala.

Manual ship building yard is busy even today.

Here is a ship being built-

Ships are built under thatched roof, to prevent rain water coming in.

The exterior-

The ships are mostly wood, except for the necessary support structures. They also use basic tools and bare hands.

The photo below shows large nails getting hammered into wood.

And they need a lot of wood, don't they?

And it need a lot of work, as everything has to come out of bare hands.

Another carpenter at work-

Carpenter in picture below is working inside a ship, which is partially built-

See how the wood arches on the side-

Another photo just to show how elaborate the wood work inside the ship is.

These cotton threads are to seal the gaps between wooden planks-

A carpenter seals the gaps. See the difference -

Nowadays most orders are for private luxury ships for wealthy clients.

Beypore Urus are traditional vessels without machines. However, they can be modernised with engine, interior design etc. That is not done at Beypore.

Clients take the ship from here and do all that where ever they prefer.
The stairs-