Afelucca[a] is a traditional wooden sailingboat with a single sail used in theMediterranean, including aroundMalta andTunisia. However, inEgypt,Iraq andSudan (particularly along theNile and in the Sudanese protected areas of theRed Sea), itsrig can consist of twolateen sails as well as just one.
They are usually able to board ten passengers and the crew consists of two or three people.
Contemporary accounts assert that in the summer of 1610, a felucca was the last boat on which Italian painterCaravaggio traveled from Naples, then under Spanish control, to Palo, Italy whereafter he died inPorto Ercole.
Despite the availability ofmotorboats andferries, feluccas are still in active use as a means of transport in Nile-adjacent cities likeAswan orLuxor. They are especially popular among tourists who can enjoy a quieter and calmer mood than motorboats have to offer.
Feluccas were photographed by writerGöran Schildt's travels on the Nile in 1954–55 as part of his Mediterranean sea travels. Schildt documented them as being called "Ajasor".
A large fleet of lateen-rigged feluccas throngedSan Francisco's docks before and after the construction, at the foot ofUnion Street, of the state-ownedFisherman's Wharf in 1884.[2] Light, small, and maneuverable, the feluccas were the mainstay of the fishing fleet ofSan Francisco Bay.John C. Muir, Curator of Small Craft,[3][4]SF Maritime Historical Park, said of them, "These workhorses featured a mast that angled, or raked, forward sharply, and a largetriangular sail hanging down from a long, two-piece yard".[5][6] Among the owners of feluccas in San Francisco Bay was the authorJack London, who recollected his adventure as a youngoyster pirate in his works.[citation needed]
FeluccaNuovo Mondo[7] built in 1987,[8] sails fromSan Francisco Maritime National Historical Park[9][10][11][12]
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The felucca Nuovo Mondo and the Wettons' Monterey will be on display – on Sausalito YC moorings – at the Sausalito Herring Festival tomorrow.
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