Instead he works with his grandfather's manual tools, smoothing the wood by hand rather than with an electric plane.
"It's a hard task," he said, standing inside the hull of a boat and tapping each nail carefully.
He heads to his narrow, open-air workshop near the beach every day, despite the low demand and modest means.
"We are doing our best to overcome difficulties," said Bahlawan, his face covered in sweat and sporadic wood shavings.
'HISTORIC RESPONSIBILITY'
Boat-building has been a village tradition since Phoenician times, said Noureddine Suleiman, who heads the Arwad municipality.
In the past, the majority of Arwad's residents were boat-makers, he said.
"Today, only the Bahlawan family remains," he said.
Thousands of years ago the Phoenicians, renowned for their ship and boat-making, laid the foundations of marine navigation.
The skilled sailors and traders roamed the seas, bringing their knowledge, craftsmanship and their alphabet to other parts of the Mediterranean.
But traditional boat-making now risks disappearing altogether, Suleiman warned, as young people emigrate or search for easier, more profitable work.
Farouk Bahlawan, Khaled's uncle, said his family had preserved the original shape and structure of ancient Phoenician boats, with a few modifications.
"We mainly make ships from eucalyptus and mulberry wood from the Tartus forests," said the 54-year-old, a skilled carpenter.
Young children played hide-and-seek in the boats' hulls at the workshop, while an elderly man smoked in the shade of a large ship.
Close by, more than 40 wooden boats were moored at the Arwad port.
"We used to manufacture four big ships and several boats every year that we would export to Cyprus, Turkey and Lebanon," Farouk Bahlawan said.
"This year, we only worked on one ship, and it still needs a lot of work before it is done."
He gazed at the beach, where the children ran in the sand.
"We must continue this journey," he said, his voice welling up with emotion. "We bear a historic responsibility on our shoulders."
