14 October 2017

Göran R Buckhorn writes:

In 1990, I visited a friend who was working in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I toured the city on foot and admired the old parts of the city but also the new, modern part with its skyscrapers and Mercedes-Benz, Rolls Royces, Bentleys and other luxury automobiles parked outside offices, shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, I never investigated if there were any possibilities to row and as I only stayed in the city for slightly more than a week, I did some sightseeing outside of Dubai and managed to stay long enough to order a suit from Al Mansoor, one of the tailors in Dubai’s ‘tailors’ street’.

Some months later, after I had returned home to Sweden, the Gulf War broke out, which had a negative financial effect on the countries in the Persian Gulf, including UAE and Dubai. However, the city greatly recovered after the seven-month war had ended and is now prosperous with its free trade and tourism.

Nowdays, there is rowing going on in Dubai’s harbour. Sport360, which is a sports information and news provider in the Middle East, just had a piece about the second round of the Dubai Traditional Rowing Race in which 38 boats with nearly 400 young rowers participated at Palm Islands, Naill McCague reports.

Read McCague’s article here, and don’t miss the beautiful and interesting video about the race in these 10-oared boats. A couple of more rowing races remain before the rowing season finishes in UAE at the end of the year.