Dhow The term "dhow" is also applied to small, traditionally-constructed vessels used for trade in the Red Sea in earlier days and it became more and more popular in the arab world, which turned into Fishing Boats.The common most are the small, square-sterned dhows known as 'sambuks'. Then there are the smart 'booms', and the short, wide 'bedeni' ,The largest are the 'baghla'. These have carved, ornamental, square sterns copied from European ships trading with India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, overhanging bows, and two or three short, heavy, masts carrying the tall, triangular sail.