Some 37 miniature boats built by a well-known Ribeira do Porto craftsman are being prepared for shipment to Macau by a local businessman
For centuries, many boats and ships were put to sea from the “Cais da Estiva”, in Ribeira do Porto. Now, in continuation of the tradition, some 37 boats are preparing to leave the mouth of the Douro River and sail the more than 10,000 km that separate the two cities.
Among them will be sardine fishing boats, codfish boats, caravels, trawlers, and sailboats. All of them carefully built by the calloused hands of José Fernando Marques Teixeira, also known as Naná, and bought by Asai, a restoration businessman from Macau.
OLD AND SMALL BOATS
A long time resident of the river coast of Porto, Naná keeps alive the art of building miniature boats of various sizes in his workshop, located against the Bacalhoeiros Wall and the Grupo Desportivo Infante D. Henrique, with Gaia as a view.
Naná is already the 4th generation of a family connected to river work on the Douro River, something that has earned them the nickname “River Rats” among locals, with Naná following in the footsteps of her father and siblings and starting her connection to maritime work at the age of 14. But while the rest of the family always stayed close to the river, Naná would explore seas long since sailed, as a sailor on merchant navy ships or tankers, learning to build the miniatures whenever he returned home from long commissions working on the high seas.
All built of pine, the reduced vessels require meticulous work, from the two weeks to build the sardine fishing trawlers, to the months it takes to build a replica of the transatlantic sailing ship – Naná’s favorite – that used to ply the route between Portugal and Brazil in the 19th century.
Now a great-grandfather, Naná doubts that any of his five children or grandchildren will continue the same art he learned from his family, since it requires patience to handle and assemble a whole panoply of small wires, pulleys, and parts that perfectly imitate a boat in its natural size. After 76 years and two strokes, Naná now continues this manufacture almost as if by instinct and therapy, in a workshop almost hidden among all the tourist industry that has conquered the space around her.
PRESERVED IN MACAU
Accompanied by his wife Rosa and his dog Lua, sitting with a FC Porto hat in the small workshop covered with sawdust and boats, tools, and other maritime elements, Naná tells PLATAFORMA that he will take “more time” to build his boats from now on.
He only builds boats that he knows by memory, and it is the larger replicas that give him more pleasure to build, namely a transatlantic sailboat, because of the many sails and nautical cables involved.
The Ribeira resident is disappointed that the Porto city council has never shown any interest in establishing a sea museum where he could exhibit the many boats he has built.
“I can’t understand how a city where so many boats were built in the maritime history of Portugal doesn’t have a sea museum. I’ve already made several requests to the city council and was willing to offer them for free. But they never took any notice,” he tells PLATAFORMA.
For now, the craftsman decided to concentrate more on the construction of small rabelo boats, more popular among the tourists who daily populate the small alley where he is located.
Customers from Indonesia to East Timor have already taken their boats to Asian ports, and Asai, a well-known restaurant entrepreneur in Macau, is now preparing to take a sizeable fleet to another former Portuguese colony.
“It was the biggest raid on our store,” Rosa tells PLATAFORMA, as she shows the shelves now empty, save for a few boats set aside by Nana as heirlooms for her grandchildren. Years ago, in a pre-pandemic world, the Macau businessman was making one of his annual trips to Portugal when he came across the shop and Naná, then wrote a mental note of adding them to his already vast collection of Portuguese antiques in the city, which he uses for decoration in his Portuguese food restaurants or as a personal collection.
“I went to a restaurant [in Caminha] decorated with boat models and I liked it. Anything I see in Portugal that I don’t see in Macau, I bring back to share with other people who probably haven’t had a chance to see them,” Asai explains to PLATAFORMA.
“My upcoming restaurant projects are related to fishing and port wine, so these boats are a perfect decoration,” he says.
Many of the restaurants opened by Asai in Macau, such as Três Sardinhas or Portucau, are decorated with antiques or curiosities bought by the entrepreneur in Portugal. After this delivery, the Macau SAR will have the distinction of being the place in the world with the largest collection of boats built by the skillful hands of Naná, who has even received an invitation from the buyer himself, Asai, to visit the city.
However, already in a fragile state, the former sailor now only thinks about how to fill the shelves of his workshop with sailboats and trawlers again. With calm and patience, of course.
