Traveling in Brazil
Sailing in the Recôncavo Baiano
The colonial cradle of Bahia
Cultural heritage in Brazil :
Discover the local sailing culture
Chapter NAVIGATION
Saveiro-sailships
The Saveiros of Bahia
Today, we are going to deal with a very interesting theme, especially for those who live or lived, like me, in Cidade Baixa.
I remember the little market in the Baixa do Bonfim, on Saturdays, where you could find various goods: manioc flour well toasted, beiju wrapped in green banana leaves and banana sweets in dry straw, various fruits, among other delicacies, brought by saveiros, coming from the cities of the Recôncavo Baiano.
The saveiros had their heyday in the sea of the Bay of All Saints and in the rivers of the Recôncavo, especially the charming Paraguaçu, taking and bringing people and goods from the historical cities there to Salvador, and vice-versa, since the time of colonial Brazil, especially during the sugarcane cycle.
It was certainly very picturesque to see them sailing the sea of Bahia, light, charming, economical and simply moved by the force of the wind and guided by the wisdom and technique of the saver.
They were fundamental to the State's economy. They were responsible for the transport of goods and heavy loads between the cities of the Recôncavo such as Maragojipe, Cachoeira, São Félix and Nazaré da Farinhas.
But they were of great importance in the Independence of Bahia. In fact, the flotilla formed by João das Botas' schooners fought against and expelled Madeira de Melo's squadron, a famous Portuguese commander, from the waters of All Saints' Bay.
In the beginning of the 20th century, more than a thousand saveiros sailed by our Bay. As the years went by, reaching the century in which we live, 26 boats of this type, which made their history in Bahia, continue resisting so as not to end their saga and affirm their importance and usefulness before the minds of our people, mainly in the region of the recôncavo, in cities like Maragojipe and Caxixis, which had the good sense to give continuity to this means of transport.
Every year a date is chosen to commemorate the saveiro party, in which the Bay of All Saints is adorned with their presence, each one displaying multicoloured sails hoisted on their tall masts.
Each saveiro has a name, generally graceful and picturesque, like the "Sombra da Lua", which arrives at the port of the Bahian capital on Thursdays and returns to the quay of Maragojipe on Saturday mornings, carrying and bringing orders, such as refrigerators, cookers, and sacks of flour. On its return, it takes various products and orders to that city.
We know, dear friends, that to maintain the tradition of the saveiros, isolated works are not enough. It is necessary to work together. In this sense, some media have already taken this initiative and books have been written telling the story of these boats.
It is worth knowing the book "Viva o Saveiro- Patrimônio Naval da Bahia" to which is attached a beautiful video about the schooners of Bahia.
The writer from Pernambuco, Odorico Tavares, was perhaps the one who best understood the importance, the charm, and the imponderables of the Bahian schooner, as emerges from the excerpts taken from the book mentioned above, transcribed below:
"No one can escape the fascination of the saveiros. Without them, the beauty of this gulf, which is the very history of four hundred years of Brazil's greatness, would be incomplete. Since the civilization flag was planted here, the saveiros have brought their contribution of utility and beauty. Look at the verses of the first poets and the saveiros were already mentioned. Search the collections of the first poems published here and you will already find mentions of the boats that figure as characteristic of the seas of the Recôncavo Baiano".
And then he makes this brilliant observation:
"Do not look for the definition of saveiros in dictionaries because the poor owners of the language always repeat themselves to each other and give saveiros as mere river boats. The living and human meaning of the Bahian vessel is in the verses of its poets, in its songbooks, in the mouths of its guitar players. The history of the Bahian saveiro is one of poetry and song".
I couldn't conclude this post without saying a few words about the "graminho" and the saveiros' masts.
Despite the enormous variety of saveiros built throughout history for different uses, in different shipyards and by different masters, they have always possessed an impressive homogeneity of form. And the responsible for this is the "graminho", a piece of wood similar to an abacus, which serves to guide the boat builder.
Brought from India by the Portuguese, but with origins in ancient Egypt and ancient China, the graminho is, to the layman's eyes, just a scratched board. For those who know how to use it, it contains parameters that provide the craftsman, in a simple and comprehensive way, with a volume of technical information - structural and functional - that are fundamental to the construction of the boat.
And why do the masts of saveiros rarely break? "The story goes that the masters of naval construction used to wait for the right moment - the full moon - to get the wood that would give form to the most resistant mast. Cut during the period of the moon's strength, it was buried in the mud of the mangroves for a long period of healing.
The importance of the moon phase in cutting the wood is justified by a physical factor, the moon's influence on liquids. With a full moon, a greater amount of sap is preserved in the wood's organism, giving it a superior quality and less dryness than that taken at another period."
In conclusion: if you want to know what a saveiro is, if you have an adventurous spirit and want to experience the pleasant and exciting sensation of being driven by it, go to the ramp at the Mercado Modelo and arrange with a saver for a ride on the waters of the Baía de Todos os Santos, and go out bordering and admiring some of its charming islands, and when you return be sure to tell us your impressions. I don't know, but I think that boats of this type may have again, in a not too distant future, an important role as an alternative means of transportation. And the graminho a very sought-after instrument.
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