Bateira ílhava

The bateiras ílhavas, as their name indicates (Ílhavo is a Portuguese city, located in the district of Aveiro) are boats that, although they originated in the Ria de Aveiro, fished in the mouth of the Barra de Lisboa during the months of winter and were stranded in the summer on the beaches of Algés and Pedrouços, where the fishing companies had straw huts and clothes lines to store their nets and equipment. During the summer the staff stayed on land, working in the Torreira and Costa Nova areas.

Each company of thirty men had two boats with which they towed their tarrafa, a type of surface trawl net with which they fished for sardines, by oar. The bateiras ílhavas were also intended for the collection of moliço, aquatic lagoon vegetation used for fertilization and the transformation of sandy riverbanks into farmland.

The bateira ílhava was an open boat, with thin and elongated forms, a flat and arched bottom, with a fluttery bow and stern, shriveled and curved in the shape of a hook. Its length was around 14 m., and its beam 2.5 m. The boat could be propelled in two ways:

• By means of two large oars, about nine meters long, which were each handled by six men: three oarsmen on foot who held the handle of the oar, and faced the bow and pushed, and another three facing them who looked towards the stern and they talked about the cambão (rigging of ropes that for this purpose was moored at the head of the oar)
• With a lug sail, for which it mounted a short mast slightly inclined towards the stern in a central position.

The bateiras ílhavas were completely tarred, so they were black and had practically no decoration, unlike the moliçeiros, of which they seem to be predecessors.

Characteristics of the model

Length: 120 mm.

Beam: 24 mm.

Scale: 1/115