It always seems to be teatime in Doha, especially when you’re trying to persuade a bunch of Qatari men to lend you one of their dhows. Like wind towers, falcons, and even the dishdash, there are few images that conjure up old Arabia quite like these majestic wooden vessels, once used for fishing, pearl diving and trading dates and spices between the Persian Gulf and East Africa. Such grand seafaring journeys don’t happen anymore, but Time Out Doha was determined to channel Sinbad and sail one of these relics around the Doha harbour.

It’s very easy to hop on board a dhow to be taken for a spin around the bay. But the larger, sturdier boats (used as floating restaurants or to ferry tourists around) are powered by diesel, and don’t have sails like the small one we spotted at the dhow wharfage near the Museum of Islamic Art. After some cajoling, the vessel’s wrinkled owner Mohammed al Hajri seems happy to lend it to us. But first, we have to drink tea with him in a ramshackle building on the wharf.

Centuries ago, the dhow wharfage was probably a very different place. Sea merchants would haul in their catch to sell at the nearby fish market. Pearl divers would set off to scour the seabed for lustrous gems, their journeys taking them away from their families for months at a time. Today it’s much quieter, but it’s not difficult to imagine Doha in the yesteryear. The scent of salt and fish is in the air, while men mill about, varnishing the moored dhows as they rock rhythmically, creaking when they nudge each other. The majority of sailors are Indian (like the one we spot preening himself in one of the larger dhow’s reflective windows), though there are groups of Qatari men sitting cross-legged on their Persian carpet-adorned decks, shouting out greetings to each other across the wharf.

As we drink tea, Mohammed tells us he bought his dhow – which is at least 40 years old – from Delma, an island between Qatar and Abu Dhabi, which was the centre of the pearl trade in the 19th century. He won’t be taking us sailing today – our captain will be another Qatari seaman named Abdullah Suwadi, who leads us to the dhow: a weathered-looking thing covered in faded burgundy and yellow cushions, and a beige patterned rug. There are many different names for dhows, but this vessel, measuring around eight metres, is one of the most common types found in the Gulf – these days known as a shu’ai, it rises at the stern (rear), curves low in the middle and rises again at the bow.

All dhows are crafted with wooden planks, which were once sewn together with fibrous rope, though these days many dhows are made of fiberglass.

Not this one. The planks of wood are old and dusty and, though they feel sturdy, creak under our bare feet. The mast is made out of a long piece of timber, while the boom is fashioned out of numerous pieces, tightly tied together with rope. There’s not much onboard apart from a couple of coils of chunky rope, a dinghy, an old oil lantern and, the most worrying part of the dhow, known as (rather fittingly) a ‘thunderbox’. This is a wooden structure hanging over the back of the stern with a hole cut into it to function as an open-air toilet. We start to turn a bit green, and not because of the rocking.

We set off, chugging past the museum and soon we’re well into the harbour. I’m keen to switch off the engine, which is spluttering noisily beneath deck, and hoist up the canvas sail (known as a lateen). But hoisting the lateen requires brawn. It takes the combined muscle power of Abdullah and his Indian crew mate to yank down the ropes so the boom rises up the mast and the lateen fills with wind. Once it’s secured, the sail billows and we spend the afternoon pushed along by a gentle north-easterly breeze with the Doha city skyline looming in the distance. We feel quite reluctant to return to shore, but when Abdullah berths the graceful old dhow back into place, I sheepishly hurry back to dry land. Sailing the dhow was a rare chance to relive Qatar’s fascinating seafaring past, but there was one aspect I didn’t want to resurrect: the thunderbox.