This impressive structure is the realization of one man's vision and dedication to preserve Kuwait's maritime heritagefor the future generations. Apart from bringing back memories of those graceful bygone days of sail, it has been recognized by Guiness World Records as the largest wooden dhow in the world.
For Husain Marafie, one of the owners of the hotel,this was his third and most ambitious dhow-building project. Mohammedi 2, his first enterprise, houses the popular Al Boom Restaurant, followed by Al Ghazeer, which is the Radisson SAS Hotel's pleasure cruiser. Al Hashemi 2, the newest dhow dwarfs its older sisters.
Husain Marafie has named his present dhow Al Hashemi 2, in celebration and commeration of the memory of his forerunner,which saw active service for the Marafie family. For him, the preservation of Kuwaiti maritime heritage and the continuation of his family's shipbuilding and ship-owing traditions that span well over a couple of centuries are a driving passion. It was in 1985 that Husain Marafi started planning how to achieve his unique ambition of constructing a dhow of gigantic proportion.
His intensive involvement in the construction of his other two dhows, and the great amount of scholarship he had undertaken in traditional marine architecture,amply assisted himin this complex enterprise. The tragic Iraqi invansion however caused a setback in the progress of this project. For various reasons,groundwork for the permanent berth of Al Hashemi 2, could not resume until the second half of 1995. On 10th February 1997, the actual construction of Al Hashemi 2, began with the commencement of laying her keel. The construction of the ship cost more than 30 million dollars through 2001.
It is use as a restaurant and will never be put to sea. While maintaining all the qualities of an ocean-going dhow of the past century, Al Hashemi 2, is fitted out an exquisite banqueting hall. A replica of a pre-oil era Kuwaiti village fabricated using contemporary materilas and a marine museum to house about 30 scale models of various historical and exciting dhows dedicated to traditional art of shiping has been built beside Al Hashemi 2. A variety of marine articles, pictures of traditional significance and photographs depicting various stages of construction of Al Hashemi 2, form part of the marine museum. This time when we took my brother, we couldnot visit the museum as it closes at 5pm. We were little late. So we wandered over the dhow and took photographs. There is a large parking area under the concrete slab on which the Al-Hashemi-II sits.On the wall of the museum is a certificate, dated 2002, from the Guinness World Records announcing that Al-Hashemi II, the huge and unmissable wooden dhow adjacent to the museum, is the largest wooden boat on earth, measuring a world record-breaking 80.4m long, 18.7m wide and weighing an estimated 2500 tonnes. 
The centre piece of the lobby at Radisson SAS Hotel is an amazing 4772 kilogram granite ball floating on a bed of water. So perfectly balanced that it can be rotated with gentlest of pressure, the "KUGEL" is indeed unique. It was first seen by Husain Marafie, in 1975 in the USA and during the renovation of the hotel, he decided that the Kugel would be ideal for the renovated hotel. Already assembled before shipment from Germany and weighing a total of 8000 kilograms( or 8 tons) it took 9men over 10hours to transport the ball outside the hotel to its present position, two forklifts moving in tandem assisted the operation.So when you visit the hotel next time, check out the lobby and take a break to marvel at this ingenuity of modern physics.
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