Projeto IÇAR. Saveiros da Bahia, Brazil

The main objective of this project is to record the traditional watercraft of the region, which in some cases are built according to traditional processes described in the 16th century in Portugal. 

Architect Marcelo Bastos is developing 3D models of some sloops and MArLab has collected data in Valença, Bahia, which will allow us to reconstruct similar vessels and carry out comparative studies.

This project is a development of an old interest in the traditional watercraft of the region, started with the seminal work of architect Lev Smacevski and the American John Patrick Sarsfield, who published the first scholarly works on the boats of Bahia.

 The contact with architect Marcelo Bastos resulted from a 2013 visit to Bahia, in which Filipe Castro and Denise Gomes-Dias interviewed several shipwrights and recorded some of their boats and moulds.

Figure 01. Project Içar.

 

A second visit, by Rodrigo Torres and Samila Ferreira, resulted in the recording of some of the shipwrights that still operated in the area of Valença.

 

Figure 02. Graminho and molds used by Mestre Jose Crente to design the master frame of a saveiro (Castro 2013).

 

We expect to advance the  research on this ethnographic work and produce a paper during the following year. 

Marcelo Bastos’ project will continue in Brazil, with ambitious objectives, which entail the creation of a learning center and the adoption of saveiros to carry traditional cargos across the Bahia reconcavo.

 

References

Bastos, Marcelo. A preservação da memória e resgate das técnicas de projeto e construção dos saveiros através de ferramentas paramétricas. 27º Congresso Internacional de Transporte Aquaviário, Construção Naval e Offshore. Rio de Janeiro. 2018.

Castro, F., and Gomes-Dias, D., 2015. “Moulds, Graminhos and Ribbands: a pilot study of the construction of saveiros in Valença and the Baía de Todos os Santos area, Brazil.”  International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 44.2: 410-422.