Alright, so I got this idea in my head, right? Ancient Mesopotamian sailboat. Sounds kinda cool, doesn't it? I saw some pictures, probably from some dusty old book or something online, and thought, "Yeah, I could probably knock one of those out." Famous last words, as usual.
Getting Started - Or So I Thought
First things first, I needed to figure out what these things even looked like, really. Not just a vague idea. So, I spent a bit of time, probably too much, squinting at drawings. They all seemed to be made of reeds, bundled up, and had these real simple, square-ish sails. Looked easy enough on paper, you know?
Then came the materials. Now, I don’t have a bunch of reeds just lying around my place, obviously. So, I had to improvise. I rummaged through my shed and found some thin wooden dowels, leftover from some other forgotten project. "Close enough," I figured. For the sail, an old bit of canvas drop cloth seemed like it would do the trick. String? Got plenty of that.
The Actual "Building" Part - More Like Fumbling
Okay, so I started by trying to bundle those dowels together to make the boat's body, the hull. The pictures made it look like a sort of curved, shallow dish. Trying to get those dowels to bend and hold that shape? Nightmare. I snapped a few, got frustrated, and nearly gave up about three times in the first hour.
- I tried soaking them in water. Helped a bit, but they still wanted to spring back.
- Lots of string. I mean, a LOT of string, trying to tie everything into a boat-like shape. It looked more like a bird's nest for a while.
- Eventually, I got something that vaguely resembled a very, very rustic boat. Emphasis on rustic.
Next up was the mast. Just a stick, right? Popped that in. Then the sail. Cutting a square of canvas is easy. Getting it to hang right on a makeshift yardarm (another dowel) and then attach to the mast so it might actually catch wind? That took some fiddling. It kept flopping over or looking all saggy. Honestly, it was a bit of a mess.
Did It Float? The Moment of Truth
So, after a good few hours of what I'll generously call "construction," I had this thing. It definitely looked… handmade. Very handmade. I didn't bother with bitumen or anything fancy for waterproofing; this was more about seeing if the basic shape and idea worked with what I had.
I took it to the bathtub. Yeah, the bathtub. Seemed like the safest place for its maiden voyage. And you know what? It actually floated! For a bit, anyway. It was a bit tippy, and the sail didn't really do much in the still air of the bathroom, but it didn't immediately sink. I called that a win.
It wasn't pretty, it wasn't historically perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I made a thing that sort of looked like an ancient Mesopotamian sailboat. And it mostly floated. Good enough for a weekend fumble, I reckon. Makes you appreciate how they managed to build actual, working boats out of reeds and whatever else they had back then. They definitely weren't messing around like I was.
