Ghurab
The Ghurab ( pl.aghriba or ghirban ; English: grab ) was a light, broadly built and fast square sailboat with two or three masts and a shallow draft , which was used as a warship in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially on the west coast of India . The ship had a particularly long, low and overhanging bow and a rectangular stern and could, if necessary, be moved with oars. It was the preferred ship of the Maratha , who used it in their navy and for piracy . A typical Ghurab was 150 to 300 tons tall, 13 to 17 m long and 5.5 to 6.5 m wide, and in the 18th century it was armed with up to 20 cannons . The ships common in the 17th century were equipped with six nine or twelve pounders. The smaller Galivats , mostly about 70 tons in size but similarly built, were usually equipped with six two-to-four-pounders.
The ship type became known around the middle of the 18th century in the Netherlands under the names "Goerab", "Gourab", "Gorab" and "Grab" and in England as "Ghorab", "Grabb" or "Grab". Since pirates preferred to use the ship, the term "grave" (English: "grab") was popularized by the English.
The Maratha admiral Konhoji Angre (1667-1729), who waged war against the Portuguese, Dutch and British all his life and was never defeated, operated with a fleet of 10 Ghurabs of up to 400 tons and 50 Galivats of up to 120 Tons of size.
After the English broke the Portuguese monopoly in maritime trade with India in 1612 and the British East India Company established its base in Surat , the company created a fleet of Ghurabs and Galivats, in addition to some larger ships built in England, to protect their sea trade against attacks by the Portuguese and the numerous pirates of different nationalities who were up to mischief off the west coast of India. The majority of the crews on these ships were Indian fishermen from the Konkan coast. The first warship built for the East India Company in Bombay was the 27 meter long Ghurab Bombay . She ran in 1739 in Bombay Dockyard from the stack , had 24 guns and a crew of four officers and 60 men, and served 50 years before its destruction by fire in the port of Bombay on 29 September 1789, the Navy of the company whose second largest warship she was for a long time. Their design was based on one of the Maratha Ghurab captured by the British. A second Ghurab called Bombay with 32 cannons was also launched in 1750 in the Bombay Dockyard for the East India Company.
In April 1999 the Indian Post issued a 3 rupee postage stamp showing a picture of one of Kanhoji Angres Ghurabs painted around 1700.
Footnotes
- ^ Rowan Hackman: Ships of the East India Company . World Ship Society, Gravesend (Kent), 2001, ISBN 0-905617-96-7 , p. 326
- ^ Rowan Hackman: Ships of the East India Company . World Ship Society, Gravesend (Kent), 2001, ISBN 0-905617-96-7 , p. 326
literature
- Dionisius A. Agius: In the wake of the dhow: the Arabian Gulf and Oman , Garnet, Reading, 2002, ISBN 0-86372-259-8 (pp. 61-63)
- Rear Admiral Satyindra Singh AVSM (Retd.): Under two Ensigns: The Indian Navy 1945-1950 , Oxford & IBH Publishing Co., New Delhi / Bombay / Calcutta, 1985 (pp. 33-34)