Indigenous Boats

Dhow Racing in Abu Dhabi

2012-01-24T18:06:00.000-08:00

Great video here of a dhow regatta in Abu Dhabi, with more than 80 boats competing:

If part of the video frame is cut off in your browser view, here's the link to Youtube.

These modern racing dhows look fast and sexy. It's very nice to see a culture adopting and adapting modern yacht racing to its native boats (or vice versa).

Models in the Madrid Naval Museum, Part III

2012-01-21T15:13:00.000-08:00

This final series of photos from a recent visit to the Museo Naval de Madrid looks at models from the Pacific region other than China and the Philippines, which we covered in the two previous installments. (Also included here are a couple of full-size canoes, not from the Pacific.) As before, the captions are rough translations of the Spanish exhibit cards, followed by my own comments (if any) in parentheses. Click any photo to enlarge.

This photo and the next two: Parao (19thC.), Mayalan warship

(Interesting slanted shields fore and aft to protect the gunners and helmsmen. I wonder if they were sheet iron.)

Parao (19thC.), Malayan merchant vessel. (The term "parao," which also applies to both the previous and the following models, evidently doesn't describe a particular hull type or the usage of the vessel.)

Parao (19th C.), Moluccan warship model made from cloves

Piragua (19th C.), Pacific Ocean; fishing and passenger carriage on rivers and bays

Tambil (19thC.), Singaporean pleasure boat

Piragua withoutrigger (19th C.), Hawaiian fishing canoe. ("Piragua" is another ambiguous term, apparently referring to boats with narrow, canoe-like hulls that may nevertheless be very different from one another.)

(unknown. I failed to record the exhibit card. Chinese sampan?)

Canoe from the forest of Betancu, Rio Sinu Provinceof Colombia (1862): 15M LOA, 1.13M beam. Presented to Queen Isabel II of Spain. (A 49' 2" dugout -- that requires some big tree!)

(Unknown. I could not find an exhibit card for this large dugout canoe. Note the difference between the bow of this canoe and the previous one.)

(Same canoe as previous photo.)

Models in the Madrid Naval Museum, Part II

2012-01-14T13:50:00.000-08:00

Here's a look at Chinese ship and boat models in the Museo Naval de Madrid. As in the previous post, about Philippine vessels in the same museum, the captions are my none-too-adept translations of the Spanish exhibit cards, followed by my own comments in parentheses. Click any image to enlarge.

Champantain(19th C.), Chinesecoast guard vessel, generally used to pursue opium smugglers (I've never come across this name for a vessel type. I wonder if there's a different term in English.)

(another shot of the champantain in the previous photo. She looks speedy, as a contraband patrol boat should.)

Junk Keying(19th C.), Two models of junks similar to the Keying, the first Chinese vessel to sail from Hong Kong to London (The trip was via Cape of GoodHope and USA, in 1846-48. See the Wikipedia article for more.)

(the stern of the junk on the right of the previous photo)

Chinesefunerary offering (17th C.) (Just as Chinese grave goods often depicted the happy home and residents of deceased lands-people, so too did boat dwellers depict their homes in goods buried with loved ones)

Sampantanka(19th C.), River vessel forpassenger carriage and selling merchandise (i.e., a sampan. The model wasn't specifically identified as Chinese, but I'm pretty confident that it is)

Lorcha (19th C.), Chinese; used for cabotage and piracy. (Cabotage is coastal cargo carriage. This one is definitely a pirate. If you click to enlarge, you'll see cannon in the bow and stern, and the rowers are protected by round shields, as in the old, inaccurate illustrations of Viking ships.)

"House ofFlowers" (18th C.), Chinesepleasure vessel (model appears to be made of ivory. The detail carving is lovely and intricate.)

(closeup of the vessel "House of Flowers," in previous photo)

Models in the Madrid Naval Museum, Part I

2012-01-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

If you get tired of fine art at Madrid's incredible Prado museum, a nice break is the Museo Naval de Madrid, almost next door. Run by the Spanish armed forces, it has extensive exhibits of Spain's naval history, ranging from Columbus to the present-day Spanish navy. The exhibits are entirely in Spanish, so those who don't read the language have to be able to appreciate what they see without explanatory material.

In this post, we'll look at the museum's models of Philippine boats. Of course, the Philippines were a Spanish colony prior to the Spanish-American War, and the Spanish had plenty of opportunity to observe the local watercraft and collect models thereof.

The museum allows photography but not the use of flash which, combined with the fact that all the models are behind glass, partially explains the quality of the photos here. Click any image to enlarge. Captions are my inept translations of the Spanish exhibit cards. My own comments follow the main captions, in parentheses.

Philippine Prao(19th c.), Dugout for passengers and fishing. (double outrigger, Chinese-style reed-mat lugsails.)

Banca(19th C.), Philippine, passenger vessel used in ports and bays; also for fishing. (Double outrigger, canoe-shape hull, multiple thwarts, European-style lugsail with a line of reefing points. No rudder: might have been steered with a paddle.)

Casco (19thC.), Philippine river cargo launch (To all appearances, a Chinese Sampan. Chinese-style mat sails look very small, are probably not to scale. Identification might be faulty. If so, probably my error.)

Panco (19thC.), Jolo, Philippines. Used for piracy. (Top view. This ungainly vessel seems unlikely for its stated use.)

Casco (19thC.), Philippine river cargo launch (Euro-style lugsails with vertical seams)

Guilalo (18thC.), Philippine, used especially on the Bay of Manila to transport passengersinto the capital and Cavité. (Settee sails have an Indian Ocean flavor. Double outrigger. Clipper bow.)

Different Coats for Different Boats

2011-12-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

The skins with which skin-on-frame boats are covered differ considerably from place to place, and even from boat type to boat type within a geographic area.

The angyapik (umiaks) of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, just south of the Bering Strait, are covered with the hides of female walruses. Removed from the carcasses after the spring hunt, the hides are stored until the hunting season ends in June or July. Any flesh or blubber that still adheres is then scraped off, then the hide is folded up into another old skin and left in a warm place for several days or weeks. This "sours" the skin so that the hair can be scraped off easily.

St. Lawrence Island woman splitting a framed walrus hide stretched on a vertical frame. In her right hand she holds a honing stone, with which she frequently touches up the blade of her ulu knife. (Click any image to enlarge)

The edges of the skin are split 1"-2" (2.5-5cm) deep, then holes are punched into the blubber side and the skin is hung and stretched on a vertical frame. The skin is then split from the top down with an ulu-type knife, great care being given to maintaining equal thickness on both sides. The two halves are not separated completely: they are left attached all along the bottom edge, so that the hide can be "unfolded" to cover very nearly twice its original surface area. It is then stretched and laced onto a larger, horizontal frame and left to dry for two to four weeks, after which is is soaked for up to a week in fresh water just before it is laid over the upturned hull with the blubber and hair side facing inward. The blubber-side half of the split hide goes bow-first, it being considered better able to resist abrasion from floating ice than the hair-side half. Women, by the way, do all the hide preparation and sewing.

The walrus hide has been split but the two halves remain attached. (See the raised line along the center, just to the right of the center timber.) It will dry on this stretching frame for several weeks.

Some 200 miles north, on King Island, in the Bearing Strait, the walrus hide is split completely, but only the hair side is used to cover boats. This means that twice as many hides are required. (A typical St. Lawrence Island angyapik requires at least two full hides, and often part of a third for patches to raise the sides amidships.) On Diomede Island, close by King Island, the two halves of the hide are separated completely, but both parts are often used, with the blubber-side half placed toward the bow, as on St. Lawrence. (In contrast, kayaks of the region are skinned with seal or sea lion hides, not walrus.)

Fully-skinned angyapik of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. Two full skins are sewn together amidships in a straight seam. Also visible are ridges halfway between the center and the ends, where each split hide remains attached. Note the large side panel, required to make up the full width of the hull.

To sew the hides together, women use thread made from whale or caribou sinew. For the main hull seams, they use a blind waterproof stitch in which the thread does not completely penetrate either of the pieces. With the two pieces overlapped by 1"-2", the needle is inserted into the side-edge of one piece then down into the underlying piece, where it takes a U-turn within the thickness of the hide before emerging just outboard of the top piece's outer edge. The same procedure is followed on the opposite side, for a double row of waterproof stitches with no holes through the hide.

Half a world and perhaps 1,000 years away is the leather-covered curragh used by early Irish Christian missionaries, as reproduced by Tim Severin in The Brendan Voyage. While it's impossible to know the real details of the boat used by St. Brendan (c.489 - c. 570 or 583), Severin conducted careful and persuasive research in attempting to recreate the type of boat that might have been used to cross the Atlantic long before the Vikings. What he concluded as the most likely covering was ox hides tanned in oak bark solution and dressed with raw sheep's-wool grease (i.e., lanolin). As these 6th-century boats were made in and for the use of monasteries, I feel we can safely assume they were built entirely by men.

Ox hides being installed on Tim Severin's curragh Brendan.

Severin bought his hides from one of only two or three traditional tanners remaining in the UK in the mid 1970s. He observed the process by which hides were first soaked in a lime solution, then stripped of their hair with hand scrapers. They were then soaked for weeks in an oak-bark solution. After drying, they were dipped into a hot bath of wool grease, then laid out flat one atop another with more hot grease poured between each one. After soaking thus for weeks, the hides had taken up 30-37% grease which, I think, means that the weight of the hide increased by that amount.

The 36'-LOA Brendan required 47 hides to cover. They were sewed with hand-twisted flax cord made of 14 individual threads and rubbed through a mixture of black wax, wool grease and beeswax. Although the needles pierced straight through the seams, the thread's grease coating, and the high grease content of the hides themselves effectively sealed the needle holes against water. On the trip across the Atlantic, seepage through the hull was never a problem.

The finished Brendan.

The differences in materials between the umiaks of Alaska and the curraghs of Ireland imposed significant differences in usage. Because the umiak skins are neither tanned nor dressed, their waterproof performance is extremely limited. They must be removed from the sea every day and allowed to dry, or they will become quickly waterlogged. This will promote rot but, long before that happens, the skins would become too weak to maintain any integrity, and they would simply fall to pieces. This being the case, the umiak/angyapik is strictly a coasting vessel. Although trips lasting several weeks might be undertaken, the crew must land each evening to dry the boat's cover.

The curragh's leather cover, on the other hand, resisted both waterlogging and rot over a period of months at sea, at least in cold waters. (The Brendan voyage took the "stepping stone" route from the British Isles to the Faroes, and thence to Iceland and Newfoundland. Severin speculated that it might not have performed so well had a more southerly route been taken.) The leather-covered curragh, then, was a true ocean-going craft, capable of extended voyages and not requiring drying-out time.

Acknowledgments:
Angyakpiks/umiaks: Information and photos from The Skin Boats of Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska, by Stephen R. Braund
Curraghs: Information and photos from The Brendan Voyage, by Tim Severin
This post was inspired by a communication from Carlos Pedro Vairo, director of the Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia, Argentina, and author of The Yamana Canoe: The Marine Tradition of the Aborigines of Tierra Del Fuego.

"New" Bronze Age Dugouts Uncovered

2011-12-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

According to this article on BBC News, an important Bronze Age archaeological site is being excavated at a quarry in Whittlesey, England. The village, located along the old course of the River Nene, burned about 800 B.C., and was subsequently buried by 3 meters of peat and silt, which preserved a great many artifacts, including six (count 'em!) oak dugout canoes, along with other items such as ropes, buckets, swords, spoons, and a pot of nettle stew. (We don't wonder why that was left uneaten.)

There's the usual nonsense about the artifacts being "perfectly preserved," when it's clear from the photos that the canoes, at least, did of course suffer deterioration: but that's not to imply that they were not sufficiently well preserved to be of potentially great archaeological value Unfortunately, the article includes no details about the canoes, but if you learn anything elsewhere, please leave a comment.

Thanks again to Marian for this tip.

Junks, Sampans by the Hundreds

2011-12-19T16:34:00.000-08:00

Aberdeen Harbor, Hong Kong, 1973

Just learned of this site, featuring hundreds and hundreds of photos of junks and sampans in Hong Kong, Macau and elsewhere, almost all from the 1970s. There's no easy navigation: you just scroll to the bottom of the page and click the link for the next one: there are nine pages in all. The number and variety of vessels shown is spectacular.

Thanks to Marian (last name unknown) for this tip.

A Bevy of Brazilian Boats

2011-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

Brazilian Boats & Canoes is a great blog, featuring articles on (currently) more than 30 different boat types in use throughout Brazil. Among those that were clearly developed largely independent of European influence are:
Canoa Baiana (dugout)
Canoa Bordada (dugout)
Canoa Caiçara (dugout)
Canoa de Casca (bark canoe)
Casco (dugout)
Jangada (sailing log raft)

Most of the others feature Euro-derived construction methods or designs, but even so, most of them are uniquely indigenous to Brazil. Well worth a visit. Kudos to author Jan W. Aten, and thanks to Silvio Antunha for the tip.

Carving a Pirogue in Louisiana

2011-12-06T16:45:00.001-08:00

Here's a lovely film, ca. 1949, showing the construction of a traditional Louisiana dugout pirogue.

The 14 minute film was shot in 35mm by filmmaker Robert Flaherty, who was working on "The Louisiana Story." To quote the "film facts," Flaherty "was searching for a small boat, or 'pirogue' for his young hero. Flaherty soon became aware that pirogue-making was a disappearing art. Finally, when he found Ebdon Allemon, a Cajun craftsman, he persuaded him to make the pirogue. It may well have been the last pirogue made in Louisiana. This is a record of that event."

Details to note:

The cypress they felled was huge in comparison to the boat they built from it. It looks like they had to split and hew off much wood to get the boat down to the proper width.
The hull was first hewed to its plan-view shape with the sides perfectly plumb. Then the waterline shape of the flat bottom was scribed, and the angled sides hewed from those lines to the gunwales.
The hull was carved to its final shape: it was not "expanded" or widened, as is common practice in some other dugout building cultures, such as in this Siberian example.
It appears that a single hole was bored in the hull amidships to monitor the thickness of the bottom. A stick is periodically inserted in the hole to monitor the thickness. This is unlike the process used in Siberia, where plugs of a fixed length are inserted into multiple holes from the outside, and the interior is hollowed until the plugs are revealed.
Much care is given to producing thin hull with consistent thickness and a smooth and fair surface. Profiles are lined out carefully. Razor-sharp adzes and axes are used with great care, and are followed by careful use of planes, with one man putting his eye right against the surface of the hull to sight for high spots and directing the other man's use of the plane.
Canoes this small are often propelled with a double-bladed paddle, but the single-bladed paddle is used here. Perhaps this is because pirogues are often used in dense vegetation and very narrow channels, where a double-bladed paddle would get hung up?

Note also:

at 2:40 a pirogue being paddled rapidly by a man sitting well back in the stern, causing the boat to "porpoise."
at 2:48, an interesting oared scow.
at 3:00, the ease with which the (single-paddled) pirogue makes its way through dense vegetation

Thanks to the blog FrancoAmerican Gravy for passing this link to us.

Carving a Siberian Dugout

2011-11-27T07:48:00.001-08:00

Here's a nice video showing two men carving a dugout canoe from a trunk of Siberian aspen. It's not in English, but among the points of interest are:

the use of an axe with curved lips, like that of an adze, for hewing the sides of the log
the care and precision with which the sides are hewed. A long straightedge is used to detect high spots that are then hewed down.
the use of dozens of small pegs to achieve a consistent wall thickness. Dozens of holes are drilled into the outer surface of the log, then small pegs of a consistent length are pounded into the holes. As the inside is hollowed out and the inner ends of the pegs revealed, the builders know they have hollowed enough in that place. Note how the canoe is carefully lined off first, so that the pegs are installed at consistent intervals.
the use of fire, not boiling water, to soften the sides in order to "expand" them (keep watching past the hunting sequence for this)
the fact that the top of the log is not hewed off flat before being hollowed. The builders leave a fairly narrow opening and hollow out the log wider beneath it. When the hull is expanded, this leaves the sides higher and produces a nice sheerline that's higher amidships.
the canoe is paddled kayak-style: the paddler sits in the bottom and uses a double-bladed paddle.

An Abandoned Planking Method

2011-11-21T16:59:00.001-08:00

It may seem out of place to examine the shipbuilding methods of the ancient Greeks and Romans in a blog whose subtitle is "small craft outside the Western tradition," given the fact that so much of Western culture is directly descended from those early civilizations. But the boatbuilding methods they employed ultimately went nowhere -- they died out and ended up contributing little to the boatbuilding traditions that we currently recognize as Western.

"Traditional" Western boatbuilding is characterized by one of two planking methods: carvel and clinker (or lapstrake). Carvel is the smooth-skinned method of planking, with the planks set edge-to-edge and attached to a pre-assembled framework. In clinker boatbuilding, each plank overlaps the one below it. Clinker construction proceeded shell-first. That is, after the keel, stem, and sternpost were assembled, the planks were fastened to one another, after which the ribs and other internal stiffening structures were installed. (Some modern artisan builders of lapstrake boats set up a complete temorary framework before planking.)

The ancient Greek and later Roman method differed from both of these. Planking was laid edge to edge, for a smooth skin like a carvel hull's. But construction proceeded shell-first, as in clinker construction. Most interesting was the method used to fasten the planks to one another.

A section of plank recovered from an ancient Greek shipwreck, showing tenons on both edges. Note how they overlap in places. From Lionel Casson: Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World
CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Left: schematic showing the method of mortise-and-tenon joinery, with pegs to fix the planks to the tenons.
Right: a plank recovered from an ancient shipwreck, split down the middle, shows how a large percentage of the plank was taken up by the mortises and tenons.
Both images from Lionel Casson: Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times

As can be seen in the images above, both edges of the planks were deeply mortised, and held in alignment by free tenons. The planks were then drilled through the tenons at both of their ends, and tight-fitting dowels were driven through the holes to hold the tenons in place.

In this amazingly labor-intensive fastening method, the mortises took up a large percentage -- often more than 50% -- of the length of each plank's edge. Sometimes, the mortises were staggered alternately toward the inner and outer faces of the plank, so that they actually overlapped, thus totalling more than 100% of the length of a plank's edge.

Having been used for thousands of years in trade, war, and explortation, it could hardly be said that this method of shipbuilding was a failure. But it was ultimately superseded by methods far less time-consuming to employ. The clinker method was developed in Scandinavia. The source of the carvel method is subject to dispute, but it appears to have originated in the Mediterranean independent of the Greek and Roman tradition. Both ultimately overlapped in northern Europe and made their way to the Americas.

Proposed construction cross-section of a Greek two-level fighting ship. This ship would have used the mortise-and-tenon planking method described here. From Lionel Casson: Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World

The Indonesian Phinisi

2011-11-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

There's a nice post in the latest edition of Old Salt Blog about the phinisi, a traditional sailing craft of the Bugis people of Indonesia. Scroll down the post for some links to more articles on this interesting craft, which appears to me to be related to the dhow.

Note in the photo the twin steering rudders that extend through quarter galleries, much like the steering arrangement on ancient Greek galleys.

Canoe Racing in Brazilian Indigenous Games

2011-11-08T18:18:00.000-08:00

Some 600 Brazilian Indians from 29 ethnic groups competed in sporting events in the tenth edition of the Indigenous Nations' Games in Pagagominas, north Brazil. Along with conventional and blow-gun archery, a log-carrying race, tugs of war and many other events was a canoeing race. REUTERS/Paulo Santos

Captain Voss and Tilikum

2011-11-08T03:11:00.000-08:00

Capt. J.C. Voss

Capt. J.C. Voss, one of history's greatest small-boat sailors, was also one of its least pleasant.

A lifelong mariner, Voss was a Canadian, living in Victoria, BC, in 1901. He was intrigued by Joshua Slocum's first-ever solo circumnavigation of the globe in a small boat between 1895 and 1889, and by the success of his book Sailing Alone Around the World in 1900. When Norman Luxton, a journalist, proposed teaming up for a similar trip in a smaller boat than Slocum's Spray, Voss agreed. As Luxton had no sailing experience, Voss would handle things nautical, while Luxton would document the voyage.

Tilikum in Samoa. (CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Voss purchased a large red cedar dugout canoe from a Nootka Indian on Vancouver Island, describing in The Venturesome Voyages Of Captain Voss how he got the seller drunk in order to obtain better terms and, in doing so, knowingly broke Canadian law. To prepare it for sea duty, he substantially modified the boat, raising the topsides, adding a cabin and cockpit, installing frames, floors, keelson, keel, water tanks, fixed and movable ballast, rudder and tiller, and a rig consisting of three small stayed masts, a jib, gaff sails on the foremast and mainmast and a leg-o'-mutton sail on the mizzen. Named Tilikum ("friend"), the boat was 38' LOA and 5'6" in beam.

Tilikum in New Zealand.

Leaving Victoria, the two made their first stop on Vancouver Island, where they looted an Indian burial cave for "curios" (including human bones) to sell later on their journey. This was no abandoned burial site: it was actively venerated by the local people, but Voss seems to have thought nothing of the ethics of his action, evidently assuming that Indian sensibilities were irrelevant and that being white gave him a prerogative in this area.

At Penrhyn Island, their first landfall in the Pacific, Voss assumed that the natives would be dangerous cannibals. Before entering the small harbor, he and Luxton fortified their cockpit with sandbags and prepared their guns (there were at least four aboard) to repel boarders. It turned out that the natives were perfectly friendly, having been satisfactorily "civilized" by a European missionary. As the voyage continued and further contacts were made with numerous non-European cultures, this inherent distrust seemed to diminish, though not Voss's disdain.

Tilikum under all plain sail. (Image from Wikipedia.)

Luxton proved to be a bad sailor, and he left Tilikum in Sydney, Australia. He was replaced by a succession of substitute mates, none of them lasting very long. Apparently, Voss was an unpleasant shipmate. On one passage, his mate disappeared -- swept overboard in a storm, according to Voss's account, although some have speculated that Voss murdered him.

Voss made many stops in Australia, displaying the boat and giving lectures to fund the ongoing voyage. Next, he went to New Zealand, where he again entered upon the lecture circuit. An incident there is worth quoting at length:

A splendid critique in the next morning's newspapers (in Wellington) served as an instigation to us to speak on several succeeding occasions to full houses, and at the request of a white Maori chief from Palmerston North, a fair inland city, we put the boat on a train and, in company of the chief, journeyed overland to that place. In the country surrounding Palmerston live many Maori farmers who came to town by the hundred (sic) to give us a call. They were more than pleased to see a canoe which had crossed the ocean to their country, and the fact apparently strengthened their belief that in days of yore their ancestors had emigrated in large canoes to New Zealand from some distant region of the Pacific. One Maori, who spoke English fluently, told me that he had never credited the legend, as he thought it impossible to cross the ocean in such frail craft. "And now, as I see with my own eyes that you have covered thousands of miles in this Indian canoe and have arrived safely on our shores, I do not longer question that my forefathers can have accomplished the same!"

The maps show the rest of his voyage, which he completed in England in 1904, three years and three months after it began. While he did not return to the west coast of North America, he used the term "circumnavigation" to describe his voyage, on the rationale that he had crossed the three major oceans.

Voss and Tilikum weathered some horrendous storms, often relying on a sea anchor -- a device in which Voss was a firm believer and great champion. He was undoubtedly a seaman of great skill, and his choice of boat and the way in which he outfitted it demonstrate superb insight into small craft design for ocean voyaging.

Tilikum is now on display in the Maritime Museum of British Columbia.

The Ainu Itaomachip

2011-11-01T17:07:00.000-07:00

The Ainu people of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost large island, are culturally distinct from the Japanese. (See earlier post.) Frequently depicted as a primitive, hunting/gathering culture, the Ainu actually maintained a sophisticated trading economy prior to the 19th century.

The Ainu conducted trade with mainland Asia, especially with ports on the lower Amur River (now the border between northeastern China and Russia), as well as with Korea and with other parts of Japan. They used sewn-plank boats called itaomachip, built on an expanded dugout base and powered by both oars and sails as shown below. Some of the boats, at least, were about 50 feet long.

(Click to enlarge)
In this ca. 1798 illustration of an itaomachip, the rowers are Ainu and the passengers are Japanese merchants. Note the woven mat sail on an interesting double-mast rig. The masts can apparently be moved freely, tilting them forward or aft, relocating their bases forward or aft, and possibly even port to starboard. This might create a great deal of flexibility in the set of a very simple rig, ranging from squaresail to something approximating a fore-and-aft sail in a number of configurations.

Taking advantage of a law that banned almost all Japanese nationals from engaging in foreign trade, the Ainu exported their own products (furs, marine products), and acted as middlemen for Japanese merchants, exporting Japanese manufactured goods like pottery and ironware, and importing silk, glass and metal products, which the merchants sold for huge markups. But in 1809, this semi-black-market trade ended when the shogun decided to take over Japanese import/export activities for itself. It was then that the Ainu were forced into a life of subsistence foraging.

In 1989, after a gap of almost 200 years, three Ainu men built a 45-foot long itaomachip. Team leader Tokuhei Akibe initiated the project in 1988 as a means of reviving Ainu cultural heritage, enlisting the assistance of the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka. The design was derived from old illustrations like the two shown here.

The plank stitches are clearer in this illustration. Note the elaborate decorations at both ends.

One of the first difficulties encountered was the acquisition of a katsura tree large enough to form the boat's dugout base, requiring intense negotiations with the management of an experimental forest -- the only place in Hokkaido with a tree of the necessary 3' diameter. Hollowing the dugout, by alternately burning and chopping, took a full month. "Expanding" it by filling it with water, and then heating the water with hot rocks, was described as the most difficult part of the project. The sides were then raised with 16"-wide pine boards and sewn with 325 feet of hemp rope. (The two processes of expanding and extending the hull are common to many other dugout boats worldwide.) Sea trials confirmed the good handling and seaworthiness of the type.

The 1989 reproduction boat, looking mighty fine under sail. (It seems to be much smaller than the 45' LOA reported in the article cited here.) As of 1999, it was on display at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka.

Illustrations, photo, and information are from "Itaomachip: Reviving a Boat-Building and Trading Tradition," by Kazuyoshi Ohtsuka, in

Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People. Many thanks to Yoram Meroz for this article and his insights.

Stolen Dugout Returned 205 Years Later

2011-10-02T06:12:00.000-07:00

In 1806, the U.S. Corps of Discovery -- also known as the Lewis & Clark expedition -- took a dugout canoe that didn't belong to it from the Clatsop people in Washington state, at the mouth of the Columbia River. Now, better late than never, descendants of William Clark have presented the Chinook Indian Nation (to which the Clatsop tribe belongs) with a so-called "replica" in order to make amends. While it's doubtful that the stolen canoe was documented closely enough to call its replacement a replica, the gesture is certainly a good one, and the Chinook people accepted it in an elaborate ceremony. Here is a straight news story with further details, and here is a bit of cultural commentary. Aside from the photo above, I haven't found any details about the boat itself or its builder.

Indigenous Boats will go dark -- or at least quite dim -- for the next month, as I have a large project -- unfortunately not boat-related -- to complete on tight deadline. We'll be back with more posts about small craft outside the Western tradition as soon as the decks are cleared. Thanks for your patience.

Nivkh Dugout

2011-09-19T12:25:00.000-07:00

My previous posting, concerning the sturgeon-nose canoes of the (North American) Pacific Northwest, generated a comment by "Anonymous" who mentioned that the Nivkh people of Siberia also built sturgeon-nose bark canoes. I did a quick Google search which didn't reveal any specifics about these, but it did turn up the information that the Nivkh people were a maritime culture of the Siberian northeast with certain cultural similarities to the Ainu of northern Japan. In addition to their use of bark canoes, the Nivkh also built dugouts of poplar.

Nivkh dugout canoe. (Click to enlarge.)

The photo above, from the Russian pages of Wikipedia, shows a Nivkh dugout under oars. Three oarsmen sit in the bow, each pulling two oars, while a helmsman sits high on the rounded stern, steering with a paddle. There is much empty space between them for cargo or passengers. The bow has substantial overhang, and some kind of decorative stem post rising about to the level of the rowers' heads. There is one thwart visible aft of the aft-most rower, and from the first and third rowers' elevated positions, it appears that they are not sitting in the canoe's bottom; i.e., they must be sitting on seat thwarts or some loose objects. The middle rower appears to be somewhat lower and might be sitting in the bottom.

I can not make out the object that appears between the head of the first rower and the stem post. It looks like a paddle or oar blade, but its location there makes no sense to me.

Sturgeon-Nose Canoes

2011-09-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sturgeon-nose canoe on Kootenay Lake. Image courtesy of Touchstone Nelson Archives, from the Virtual Museum of Canada website. Click any image to enlarge

Sturgeon-nose or ram-ended canoes of were used in the interior of British Columbia and Washington by the Kutenai, Kalispel, Salish, and Sinixt people. While instantly recognizable by the unusual reverse slope of the bow and stern, they possessed several additional features that distinguish them from other North American bark canoes.

According to Adney (in Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, from which most of the following content derives), sturgeon-nose canoes were built from whatever bark was convenient: birch, spruce, fir, or white pine, the latter apparently being a common choice. (As with birchbark canoes, the rough outer surface was turned inward to face the boat's interior.) Whenever possible, upper panels of birchbark were sewn in for the entire length of the boat, with the grain running fore-and-aft.

15'4" LOA Kutenai canoe, from Adney & Chapelle. Click for larger view.

These canoes had no sheathing in the normal sense. Typically 12 cedar battens, measuring about 3/8" by 1.5" in section, ran fore-and-aft, leaving about half of the bark unsheathed on the inside. (In most North American bark canoes, thin planks sheath the entire interior surface of the bark, with the exception of a few inches toward the very ends.) There was also a light keelson, about 1/2" x 3" in section. The battens and keelson were held in place by the pressure of light (1/4" x 3/4" section) ribs, spaced on very wide (8" - 12") centers. Some of the ribs were tied to some of the battens, but not all intersections were thus lashed. In the ends, the ribs were hoop-shaped, i.e., closed at the top. All woodwork was cedar.

There were no stem-pieces per se, but three stem battens reinforced the upward-facing bark end seam, one on each side, and one at the end, forming a "cap." The three battens and the bark were pitched and sewn together. The end battens extended a few inches above the gunwales: this must have been purely aesthetic.

Two gunwale arrangements were common. The first was the common three-piece combination of inwale, outwale, and cap, with the rib ends sandwiched between the inwale and the bark. The other arrangement, which I have not seen in other North American bark canoes, involved upper and lower inwales and an outwale, but no cap. The ribs pierced through holes in the bark envelope where the upper, birchbark panel was sewn to the lower main envelope, so that their uppermost few inches were on the outside of the hull. Their upper ends were sandwiched between the outwale and the bark.

Often, only one thwart was used, amidships, but there were not infrequently three. While thwarts keep the gunwales apart and thus spread the boat's opening, sometimes hide straps, spaced between the center and end thwarts, were used to pull the gunwales inward.

Bottom sections tended to be very round, but some canoes had a slightly flattened bottom and flaring sides, The enclosed ends were nearly elliptical, except for their pointed upper end. The bottom tended to be hogged, but because of the boat's light structure, the ends came up when it was loaded so that in use, the boat had a slightly rockered bottom.

Most were 14' to 20' LOA and quite narrow -- 24" to 28" in beam, although examples as long as 24' and as broad as 48" are known.

The overall form is somewhat of a mystery. Although they have the reputation of being particularly well-suited to the particular mix of condition in their users' environment (large open lakes, swamps, swift rivers), it's hard to see what aspects of their form makes it so, or in any way superior to other First People designs. The ram bow might provide benefits when crossing large areas of open water, by extending the waterline and by providing what amounts to a "bulbous bow" similar to that seen on most large modern cargo ships. But the narrow beam is a liability here, and the bow, with its lack of flare and its rapidly-diminishing buoyancy, is far less suitable than that of a conventional flared bow when encountering wind-driven waves. Furthermore, the pointed bow at or below the waterline would be tend to catch vegetation in swamps, and would impair both maneuverability and durability in rocky rapids.

J.R. Bluff paddles a Kalispel sturgeon-nose canoe he built of western white pine bark on cedar. (Photo by Robert C. Betts/Vanguard Research.) (Source. Scroll halfway down page.)

While a rarity today, there have been a few modern replicas and interpretations of the sturgeon-nosed canoe. The white pine-bark example shown above was by built by J.R. Bluff sometime after 1991.

Harvey Golden's canvas-skinned Kutenai canoe.

A fine canvas-covered example was built in 2010 by Harvey Golden (above).

Paul Montgomery's modern, nylon-skinned interpretation of a Sinixt sturgeon-nosed canoe.

Among the nicest is a nylon-on-frame example recently completed by Paul Montgomery (above). Montgomery's project is detailed on his website PaddleAndOar.com, which also contains a valuable list of links on the subject.

Raft Wackos and Quackos

2011-08-28T08:27:00.000-07:00

In 1998, adventurer Phil Buck mounted an expedition to demonstrate the feasibility of Thor Heyerdahls' theory that Easter Island was settled by people from the west coast of South America. Heyerdahl, of course, had already shown that a raft built of balsa logs could make its way across vast stretches of the Pacific, but it had yet to be demonstrated that Easter Island in particular could be reached via pre-Columbian seagoing technology.

At Lake Titicaca, Buck hired a boatbuilder who had experience building reed boats, and the result was the hull of Viracocha, measuring 64 feet LOA,16 feet in beam and weighing 16 tons.This was trucked to the coast of Chile where it was completed with the addition of decking and deck house, a steering platform with twin steering oars, and a rig consisting of two bipod masts hoisting lateen sails. Buck and a crew of seven then sailed it without mishap, and with few serious difficulties, from Arica, Chile, to Easter Island. (Two ducks were also shipped as crew, but one abandoned ship mid-ocean.)

Heyerdahl's theories concerning the settlement of the Pacific by people from South America are controversial and are generally dismissed by scientists. Nevertheless,
8 Men and a Duck : An Improbable Voyage by Reed Boat to Easter Island, by Nick Thorpe, is one of the better first-person accounts of modern raft voyaging.

Thorpe met Buck by happenstance while Viracocha was still under construction in Bolivia. A reporter for a Scottish newspaper, Thorpe was really on the lookout for a personal adventure, and he joined Buck's project as crew first, and only secondarily to document it as a journalist. Thorpe's narrative is unassuming and mildly comic in tone, and his concern is far more with the personalities and interactions of the crew during the six-week voyage under crowded and uncomfortable conditions than with the technical aspects of seafaring.

All illustrations from
Eight Men and a Duck.
(Click any image to enlarge)

One of the expedition's greatest difficulties was its opposition by another rafting adventurer, Kitin Munoz, who considered himself to be Heyerdahl's "spiritual son," and whose two previous attempts to sail reed boats across the Pacific met with failure. Munoz sniped at the Buck expedition constantly in the press, declaring it invalid due to a small amount of synthetic rope that had been used to bind some of the innermost bundles of reeds. According to Thorpe, Munoz exaggerated or lied outright about several aspects of the project, and he even managed to get Heyerdahl himself to make some fairly negative comments about the Viracocha expedition in the press. Buck, who as a youth had been deeply influenced by Heyerdahl's book Kon Tiki, was deeply wounded by this criticism from his hero.

In the end of Thorpe's narrative, however, he describes a meeting between himself, Buck, and Heyerdahl, some time after Viracocha's voyage. In it, Buck was able to persuade Heyerdahl of the validity of his project, gaining his approval and thus helping Buck to justify his otherwise almost entirely successful project in his own eyes.

The first third of the book describes the expedition's planning and the boat's construction and launching as a narrative, while an appendix gives a good amount of detail about the boat's design and construction. As shown below, Viracocha consisted of two main hulls of tortora reeds bound closely around a central pontoon known as the corazon ("heart"). The main bundles were somewhat blunt-ended, but to these were added extensions of more bundled reeds that tapered to points. In the front, the two end-bundles merged into a single, upturned pointed bow, while in the rear, the two end bundles remained separate, curving up into a bifurcated stern. Both centerboards and leeboards ("guaras") controlled leeway, and steering was by way of a pair of steering oars with their huge blades placed entirely abaft the shafts. These, according to Thorpe, was physically challenging to manage. They obviously would have been handier had they been "balanced," -- i.e., had part of their blades ahead of the shaft.

Model Hawaiian Canoes

2011-08-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

Hawaiian sailing canoe model by Jeremy Reyes.

I was contacted recently by Jeremy Delos "Romes" Reyes, a Hawaiian wood carver and high school carpentry teacher whose interest in Hawaiian outrigger canoes has taken him in at least two -- possibly three -- interesting directions.

Taking part in Maui's annual Festival of Canoes, he and his shop class build a full-size single-outrigger dugout canoe, as described here.

At the other end of the size spectrum, Romes builds model canoes. Working at a scale of 1:12 (i.e., 1 inch = 1 foot), he builds both full models and "wall" models -- essentially a half-hull model of the main hull with an outrigger attached (maybe we should call this a 2/3-hull model?). Although the photos on his website are rather small, it appears that he does very nice work.

Along with sailing canoes, Reyes seems to devote special attention to modeling racing (paddling) canoes. Looking at the arms on this fellow, it wouldn't surprise me if actual canoe racing represents a third expression of his interest in Hawaiian outrigger canoes.

"Romes" Reyes

Northwest Dugout Gathering

2011-08-11T02:15:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago there was an amazing gathering of 70 or more Northwest-Indian-style canoes in LaConner, Washington. Most were true dugouts, but a few were replicas produced by other means -- fiberglass, strip-plank, etc. Some great photos in this post on the WoodenBoat Forum. (Scroll down and you'll also see a few great shots of a Maori dugout and a few other dugout oddities.) I had no idea that the native people of the US and Canadian northwest were so active in reproducing and using these beautiful boats.

The Ancient, and Occasionally Huge, Coracle

2011-08-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

It's quite possible that the coracle was the first true boat -- certainly, it was among the earliest, for it is among the quickest and easiest to build with a minimum of very simple tools and with raw materials that are easily gathered in most regions. Round in plan and made from a simple framework of flexible sticks tied together, the smallest, like the bull boat of the Mandan and Lakota Indians, could be covered and made waterproof with a single hide of a large mammal.

The best known coracles are those of the British Isles, where they remained in practical use until well into the 20th century. According to Lionel Casson, "Julius Caesar was the first to report seeing them there, and they are frequently mentioned by later writers. Other areas, too, found them of service, for they have also been reported in the Po Valley, along the north coast of Spain, in the Red Sea, on Lake Maeotis in the Crimea."

Assyrian quffa, with four oarsmen and a load of large building stone. Note the fishermen astride inflated hide floats to the left and right. (From Lionel Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World) Click to enlarge image.

But the coracle has an even more ancient pedigree. The quffa, a coracle of the lower Euphrates that, like the British version, was used in the 20th century, is shown on Assyrian reliefs dating as far back as the 9th century BCE. The one pictured above has four oarsmen transporting a large cargo of building stone, so it is certain that smaller, simpler versions must have predated this image by several centuries -- quite possibly by millennia. According to Casson, 20th-century quffas were as much as 13 feet in diameter and 7.5 feet deep - a veritable Hormuzmax Coracle!

Later than the quffa but still ancient was the Egyptian pakton, described by Strabo (64/63 BCE – ca. 24 CE) based on direct observation. Used on the Nile, these were "originally very small craft made of woven branches; they must have been like the coracles of basket work used on the lower Euphrates, and like them must have been liberally pitched over to be made watertight," according to Casson. Later versions, made all of wood, were capable of carrying as much as 13 tons.

A modern British coracle.

Pacific Voyaging Canoes Make it to California

2011-08-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

Six traditional double-hull Polynesian voyaging canoes that have been sailing around the Pacific since April entered San Francisco Bay on Tuesday. A few more details on their arrival here, and a full description of the project on the Pacific Voyagers website.

Kayak Used in Criminal Getaway

2011-07-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

A Maine man suspected in an assault in the town of West Gardiner managed to elude police by commandeering a kayak and paddling away, according to this article in the Portland Press Herald. Police then sought assistance by radioing some game wardens who were in a boat nearby. When the wardens approached the suspect mid-lake, he did a wet exit and managed to escape by swimming away! No word on what sort of boat the game wardens were using, but it was evidently slower than a swimming man.

Dugout Canoes in Costa Rica

2011-07-29T04:25:00.000-07:00

According to a slide show on the Washington Post, a group called "Bikes for the World" is collecting used bicyles (bear with me here; I'm not off-topic) in the Washington, DC, area and shipping them to Costa Rica, where, it appears, they're sold to adults and/or donated to kids. The fees that they charge adults -- up to $60, plus finance charges -- seem outrageous, and I really question what this "charity" is about. (I can buy a brand new adult bike at WalMart for about $60 - not a very good one, but new.) But the slideshow (once you get past the obnoxious Cisco video clip) features a few photos of some fine dugout canoes, still evidently used very functionally by indigenous people in Costa Rica.

Precolonial Canoe Found in Alaksa

2011-07-20T17:29:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: REUTERS/Sarah Dybdahl/Sealaska Heritage Institute/Handout

According to an article by Reuters, a large unfinished cedar dugout canoe, thought to be about 500 years old, has been discovered near the village of Kasaan on Alaska's Prince of Wales Island. Inhabited by Haida and Tlingit people, the area is a rainforest, making the survival of such an artifact all the more extraordinary.

Thanks to Silvio Antunha for pointing this one out.

Bancas III

2011-07-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't be blogging this weekend: I should be on a week-long canoe trip on the West Branch of the Penobscot River. But a bad back forced cancellation of the trip, so instead, while I'm sitting around healing, here's the third of three posts on Philippine bancas, this one concentrating mostly on construction details. (Previous posts on bancas are here and here.) As always, click any image to magnify.

1. This deteriorating banca is clearly of "five-part" canoe construction: a dugout base upon which are attached single side strakes, and large bifurcated stempieces bow and stern to close in the raised sides.

2. This hull also appears to be built on a dugout base, but it's interesting that it is flat-bottomed. Also note the complex frame-piece that supports the raised sides and provides a mounting/lashing point for the outrigger boom. The lashings appear to be cheap synthetic material.

3. A hull under repair, with one side-piece removed, shows multiple combination frame-thwart assemblies and a stringer that appears to run along a joint between lower and upper side-strakes. Note how the frames bulge around the stringer.

4. Not a construction shot, this one shows a different hull configuration than we've seen before, with very high sides relative to length; a fairly sharp transition between the bottom and the stems; sizable decks fore and aft; and a distinct, well-protected cockpit defined by square-ended coamings all around. With its high freeboard and coamings, this style of hull is intended for use in rougher waters.

5. Massive, roughly-hewn side-strakes are tacked to the outer surfaces of a narrow dugout base. (In photo #1, in contrast, the side-strakes are flush with the upper edge of the dugout base.) The bottom ends of the outer stems are temporarily being held in place by lashings.

6. A trio of newly-built hulls of the deep, coaming-protected type shown in photo #4. The one on the right shows a stringer joining upper and lower strakes, and has a pointed front coaming made up of two pieces.

Photos courtesy of Capt. Rob Whitehurst; please do not re-use without permission.

More Philippine Bancas

2011-07-06T18:32:00.000-07:00

This is a continuation of the previous post on the Philippine banca, a wide class of double-outrigger canoes still in general use.

1. Only small bancas still use sail. This appears to be a standard "oceanic sprit" rig. Many of the smaller bancas are used by fishermen.

2. Another fishing boat, but this one large and engine-powered, with a crew of at least 18. The boat is returning from sea with nets and catch aboard, heading to market.

3. Note how, on the banca in the background, one of the floats is well clear of the water. On the foreground boat, note how the long tiller extension allows the helmsman to remain forward of the engine box.

4. While this boat has distinctly different ends from the one in the preceding photo, the interior arrangements are generally similar. In addition to the long tiller extension and engine box, note the internal frames and thwarts. I presume the lovely raised ends are purely decorative, as they don't appear to lend any weather protection or buoyancy.

5. This large banca has a short pipe tiller, requiring the helmsman to remain aft of the engine box. Contrast the flattened raised stempost here to the narrow one in the previous photo. Note too the very small rudder, and the two-layered outrigger boom..

6. A temporary derrick of bamboo posts has been built around a banca's main hull, and a chain hoist is being used to install or remove the engine. (The shaft is in place, but no propeller is installed.) The outrigger boom is a flat board -- an unusual feature -- and the outrigger float consists of several bamboo stalks in a bundle, not side-by-side as on the boat at the extreme right in photo #3 above.

As in the previous post, all photos used here by kind permission of Capt. Rob Whitehurst. No further re-use permitted.

Philippine Bancas

2011-07-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Friend and contributor Capt. Rob Whitehurst sent me a bunch of photos of Philippine bancas that he shot in the 1980s on both sides of the San Bernardino Strait, which separates the islands of Luzon and Mindoro. The banca is a double-outrigger canoe. Most have inboard engines, although some of the smaller ones still use sail.

Lest anyone fear that the banca might have disappeared in more recent years, Rob did some searching on Google Earth and provided several satellite photos of the same area, of which one is shown below. As can be easily seen (click the image for an enlarged view), bancas are still quite numerous -- they're the water-bug-like structures floating all along the waterfront. They are used for both cargo and passenger transportation and for fishing.

There's much variety apparent in the boats in Rob's photos -- enough to form the basis for at least two blog posts, of which this, the first, will look at general hull and outrigger configurations.

Three bancas of different sizes, each with a very different stem treatment. (Click any image to enlarge.)

A lightly built sailing banca in the shadow of a much larger motor banca.

A large motor banca in the background: in addition to its raised, decorated transom end, note the deeply rockered form of its outrigger floats. In contrast, the boat in the right foreground has dead-straight outrigger floats and narrow stems. In the boat on the left, note the hull's deep, narrow, flat-bottomed shape.

The large banca in the background, apparently round-bottomed, has well built-up stem and stern with nicely curved transitions to the keel line. Four lengths of bamboo have been lashed together to provide extra flotation on the outrigger float. The smaller boat in the foreground appears to use a solid log for its float. The outrigger booms are consistently lightly built.

The boat in the far background has slab sides tacked to the upper outside edges of a vestigial dugout base, with false stems added at both ends.. The boat in the middle ground is a deeply-rockered dugout with strakes added carvel-fashion to provide greater freeboard. In the extreme foreground, the curved, multi-part outrigger booms are quite unlike all the other simple straight booms seen elsewhere.

With all this variety, it appears that the banca is not a highly specific type. Instead, it must be a general term in the Philippines for any double-outrigger boat. More bancas to come in future posts. (With the exception of the Google Earth satellite photo, all photos here are property of Rob Whitehurst; used by permission. Permission is not granted for further re-use.)

Seagoing Capabilities of Monohull Dugouts

2011-06-19T14:40:00.000-07:00

Landstrom's reconstruction of a

Greek galley of the Homeric era.
Click any image to enlarge.

In a recent post about competing concepts for the reconstruction of Greek galleys of the Homeric era, I suggested that the one championed by Bjorn Landstrom seemed unlikely due to its apparent lack of seaworthiness. My assumption was that the boat – a long, sleek monohull dugout equipped with rowing outriggers, but no outrigger floats – had too little stability and too little freeboard to venture outside of well-protected waters. To counter this argument, reader Edwin Deady, who maintains the website Dark Age Boats, called my attention to the Monoxylon II experiment, which amply demonstrated the seagoing capabilities of an open monohull dugout of an even more ancient design.

Conducted in 1998, the Monoxylon II Expedition sought to determine whether dugouts could have been the vehicle for cultural transmission in southern Europe around 7,000 BC. This was the time at which the Mesolithic began to give way to the Neolithic in Europe, as evidenced by the spread of agriculture, animal husbandry, new pottery styles and other technological advances. There's ample evidence that the beginnings of the new technical complex in Europe were imported from western Asia, not homegrown. And since its initial appearance in Europe was not only along the mainland shores of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, but also on numerous islands, it must have been transmitted, at least in part, by boat.

Evidence about the nature of those boats appeared in 1994 with the discovery of a large, well-preserved oak dugout in Lake Bracciano, on Italy's west coast. Although discovered in a lake, the boat's size (35 feet LOA; beam of 3.5 feet at the stern and 2.5 feet forward) appear excessive for lake use. It is thought that higher sea levels at the time to which the boat has been radiocarbon dated (5450 BC) would have caused the lake to be connected to the sea by a river, so there is good reason to believe it was a seacraft.

The canoe had four braces, created by leaving original material standing proud on the interior surface, in the manner of ribs. The recovered hull's thickness varied from 2 to 4 cm., but it is thought that the wood may have compressed over the millennia, and that the original thickness may have been about 5 cm. The possibility of the use of sail is suggested by the presence of a rectangular notch in the bottom (a possible mast step?) and some fragments of textile, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Paddles were more likely the primary means of propulsion.

Monoxylon II, with a crew of eleven.

In 1988, Czech archaeologist Radomir Tichy led a team that recreated the Lake Bracciano dugout quite faithfully. The finished replica was some 1.25 meters shorter than the original, not by plan, but because rot was discovered in the trunk partway through construction. This truncation also resulted in the elimination of one of the four "ribs" in the replica. Because the upper edges of the Lake Bracciano boat had been lost and its full height is therefore unknown, the replica's depth, at 90 cm, was a guess. A substantial amount of construction was done with Neolithic-style stone tools to prove the concept, after which iron tools were substituted for efficiency. The experimenters estimated that to build the entire boat using only Neolithic tools would require only 300 man-hours.

That same year, the team campaigned the canoe in various locations around the northern shores of the Mediterranean. Various crews of 8 to 10 paddlers plus a helmsman on a steering oar put about 500 miles under the boat's keel in a variety of conditions. With the boat's center of gravity below the waterline, the crew found stability to be very good, even in 2-meter waves (although bailing was necessary in those conditions). The boat was not noticeably affected by current, but headwinds greatly impeded progress. (They paddled in conditions up to 7-9 Beaufort.) Average speed under all conditions was 4 km/hr. Cargo of more than 100 kg. of obsidian (an early trade good), plus water and bagged wheat did not overload the boat. With a total load of nearly a ton (cargo plus crew), the paddlers felt that much heavier loads would have been both feasible and safe.

Tichy concluded that the dugout was indeed a viable vehicle by which the "Neolithicization" of Europe might have occurred. Some islands in the Mediterranean would have required more than a single day's paddling to reach, but none, apparently, were out of the practical range of a well-built monohull dugout, and "it would be possible to travel the whole coast of the Western Mediterranean up to Sicily in at most several months of persistent going," Tichy wrote.

According to Tichy, "A place probably without preneolithic occupation could be colonised by a group of 40 people with the necessary minimum amount of domesticated animals and crops a total of 15-18 ton load (sic). The load would be carried with 10 to 15 boats, each of them would take one to two tons."

I believe Tichy is here referring to colonization of a carefully planned nature – a conscious intent to establish a permanent community en masse. I think the process could also have occurred on a much smaller scale, with possibly as few as one or two boats containing one or two families and a couple of goats striking out to set up a farmstead on unoccupied land across a strait or down the coast.

Afterword: Once I got going on this post, I realized that monohull dugouts have proven themselves as seagoing vessels in more modern times than the Neolithic, or even the Greek Bronze Age. The Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest famously conducted whaling, warfare, and trade in their huge cedar canoes from Alaska to California well into the 19th century, and from 1901 to 1904, Capt. John Voss took his modified Nootka dugout Tilikum two-thirds of the way around the world. The Maoris also built enormous monohull dugouts into the historic era, and it is thought that these may have been the vehicle by which New Zealand was colonized from Polynesia prior to 1100 AD.

Acknowledgments: Much of this post derives from the English-translation appendix to Monoxylon II by Radomir Tichy (Dobrodruzstvi Experimentalni Archaeologie, 1999). Also consulted was this article in Discover. Many thanks to Edwin Deady for his inspiration and assistance on this post.

Canoeing Styles, Paddle and Otherwise

2011-06-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend I attended the Maine Canoe Symposium, as I've done every June for the past five or six years. Held on Moose Pond in Bridgton, Maine, it is one of the highlights of my year -- a great weekend of paddling workshops, fine people, and abundant good food. If you're in the area at the right time of year, I recommend it highly.

One presentation each year is the so-called Paddling Styles Demonstration. Although it's by no means exhaustive in presenting all the ways that canoes can be propelled, it does cover the variety of canoeing styles that are taught at the workshop. Here they are.

Caleb Davis demonstrates the Classic Canadian Solo paddling style, also known (oddly) as "Omering" for its popularizer, Omer Stringer.

Not really a demonstration of a paddling style, the kids at the symposium raise a salute while paddling a "war canoe" to remind us that they represent the future of the sport.

Geoff Burke demonstrates "double-paddle" canoeing, a.k.a., double-bladed paddling, in a Rushton-style lapstrake canoe that he built.

Lisa DeHart gives a demonstration of poling, touring-style.

Lynne Lewis (bow) and Jane Barron show the Northwoods stroke, a paddling style developed in Maine that allows the paddler to keep going all day with minimal effort.

River touring skills were demo'd by Kevin Slater (bow) and Kevin Silliker.

Kim Gass shows off her technique in a Freestyle demonstration. I borrowed her lovely little boat later and managed to dump it in flatwater.

Benson Gray reminds us that it's not all paddling that can make a canoe go. He restored that beautiful old Old Town sponson canoe.

For the first time, Stand-Up Paddling was included at the symposium, demo'd here by Mark Hamlin. While it's certainly related to canoeing, I question the inclusion of SUP in the symposium.

Just because I want to, here's my son Max trying out a SUP board for the first time. Rotten kid stole my PDF!

Reinhard Zollitsch taught a workshop on paddling a solo outrigger canoe. My wife, who is a timid and not very accomplished paddler, found the outrigger very confidence-inspiring.

Jim and Lisa Lisius demonstrate "sit and switch" paddling, a.k.a., American Touring Style. They're doing it in the same canoe in which they paddled entirely across the continental U.S.

Harry Rock showed us how to do Recreational Poling. It differs from Lisa DeHart's style in that it's somewhat sportier and not specifically oriented toward touring with a laden canoe.

Why Keep it a Secret?

2011-06-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

Edwin Deady, who maintains the fascinating website Dark Age Boats, recently posted the following comment to one of my posts. Rather than having it languish there in the Comments section where only a few dedicated readers will see it, I thought it worthwhile to repost it here for greater visibility:

"May I pose a question about the reproduction and use of indigenous boats? Some builders seem reluctant to share plans other than with the indigenous group for whom they are build, see http://www.applegateboatworks.com/coastal.html for example. Now I am not criticising their particular stance and had a very friendly and helpful email on construction details from them but I do wonder what point is served by exclusivity. The same is seen in the singing of some traditional songs where I have even heard a performer say that they had sought permission from a Council of Elders before singing to a non-ethnic audience. If all of my culture is available to the World, you play football everywhere and paddle coracles where you will, why should not the same apply to indigenous boats from other countries?"

I can understand why a group of reenactors or serious academics might want to hide technical aspects of work in progress: so that they can claim credit for new insights and/or gain the glory of a "first." But I agree with Edwin that, once they've introduced their glorious reproduction, there seems to be little reason to hold the information as proprietary. I also question why people of any given culture should attempt to restrict access to elements of their culture's artistic expressions: it seems like the fruits of a parochial worldview, to say that this or that culturally distinctive activity is what separates us (i.e., makes us better than) everyone else.

Cork Boat

2011-05-25T17:58:00.000-07:00

This one isn't indigenous to anywhere except perhaps the Realm of Whimsy, but it sure is outside the western boatbuilding tradition.
Cork Boat: A True Story of the Unlikeliest Boat Ever Built, by John Pollack, is a fun little book about one man's "dream" to build a boat entirely out of wine corks. Pollack first had the idea at the age of five or so, after his first attempt at building a displacement boat failed. Figuring that a boat made out of corks couldn't sink, he began collecting them, aided by his family. As he reached adulthood, he was still collecting corks, but the dream had become quite remote -- just something to think about, and likely never really do.

Pollack worked as a speechwriter for David Bonior, the Democratic Whip in the U.S. House of Representatives. But disillusioned by the nastiness and futility of politics in general, he quit his job and began to focus on the cork boat as a kind of therapy. The notion of devoting himself to something whimsical appealed to him and enabled him to turn his mind away from the dispiriting nature of national politics. He spread a wide net, asking restaurants around D.C. to save corks for him. He joined up with an architect friend who helped him design the boat and agreed to crew with him, although no particular trip or voyage had been discussed. After months of collecting, they realized that they weren't even close to the hundreds of thousands of corks required. They sought, and most amazingly, found the perfect sponsor in a company called Cork Supply Group, which distributes corks to wine makers all over the world. CSG ultimately supplied hundreds of thousands of corks in exchange for sponsorship. They went further, providing generous financial backing that was probably all out of proportion to the promotional value of the arrangement (which was, however, substantial). Like Pollack, it seems that the folks at CSG just thought the idea of a cork boat was really cool, and they wanted to help out.

Pollack briefly came out of "retirement" when he had an opportunity to work in the Clinton White House but, even there, he continued collecting corks and building the boat in his spare time. After the Supreme Court's dubious resolution of the Bush/Gore presidential race, followed not long after by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pollack's disillusion with politics was complete, and he turned his sole attention back to his project, with renewed vigor.

Pollack's greatest skill was that of organizer, and he persuaded dozens of people -- friends, relatives, and strangers -- to help him with the phenomenally tedious process of assembling the boat. (See below for details.) When complete, it was shipped to Portugal (home to Cork Supply Group), then trucked up the Douro River to the Spanish border and launched. Over the course of about three weeks, Pollack, his architect friend, and a revolving crew of friends and family descended the Douro, mainly rowing and occasionally sailing down to Porto on the coast.

Building the boat takes up most of the book, and it's unfortunate for we boaties, but probably better for most readers, that Pollack doesn't give much detail on the boat's design, and provides little in the way of illustrations. (The image above is the only one of the boat itself, other than the photo on the book's jacket.) It was, of course, a raft, not a true boat. The basic unit of construction was a hexagonal "disk" formed by bundling 127 corks together with long rubber bands. Dozens of these hexagons were stacked and sewn together inside a tubular net to create "logs." Nine logs were lashed together, four above five, with the front ends curving sharply upward in what the author imagined to look like a Viking ship. (It actually looked much more like a reed boat, which it also more closely resembled in its hydrodynamic properties.) Decks were added, along with two sets of oarlocks, a centerboard, rudder, mast step, and mast hoisting a square sail.

It's a cute book about an "adventure" that's neither harrowing nor grand. The whole idea was to do something offbeat and personal, something based on a private inspiration of no real social significance. As it turned out, the boat and the adventure did generate a number of pleasant social encounters for the author, and he took heart in the power of a silly but pleasant idea to bring out the best in people. Occasionally, Pollack veers a bit close to oversentimentality, but he seems like a sincere and likable fellow, and he's easily excused.

Homer's Ships - Two Views

2011-05-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Since few of us read much academic literature, and even fewer read the literature of more than one field of interest, our views of the distant past are necessarily colored by the interpretations of experts who do. Where experts agree, and where their interpretations have been promulgated in popular literature or other media, our views may be about as accurate as those of the experts', albeit considerably less nuanced and detailed. But sometimes, even the experts' best guesses can be wrong: for example, tyrannosaurus rex used to be depicted with an upright posture, based on the consensus view of paleontologists. But with more research, that view changed, and the consensus is now for a more birdlike posture, with the torso held horizontal. The new consensus has been sufficiently popularized so that anyone under the age of 30 or so probably pictures the "new" version of the beast while, for some of us over 50, it's hard to shake the image of the upright t.rex we knew and loved in our youth.

Left: tyrannosaurus rex, Beta version
Right: the new, improved t.rex 2.0

Where the experts disagree with one another, however, we non-experts are left to choose among competing visions based on incomplete evidence. Obviously, the experts' evidence is incomplete too, or they would not be in disagreement. But at least they're disagreeing on the interpretation of the best available evidence, while we non-experts can only guess at who's right based on a fraction of the available evidence and, more likely, on which expert's argument is more persuasive to our untutored intellects.

That's why it's hard (for me, at least) to choose between two different interpretations of Greek warships of the 8th century BC, by Lionel Casson (in Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World) and Bjorn Landstrom (in The Ship: An Illustrated History). This was the period when the Iliad and the Odyssey were first written down. When Homer's epics were composed for oral recitation is a matter of dispute, however. Some believe it may have been only 50 years or so before they were committed to writing; others think it was much closer to the time of the events they describe: some 400 years earlier. In any case, we'll be looking here at the graphic evidence for the vessels from the 8th century BC. Whether that graphic evidence was an accurate depiction of the vessels of Homer's time (whenever that was), and whether Homer was accurate in his descriptions of the vessels of Odysseus's time, are both different questions.

Casson describes the aphract as a vessel with a single bank of rowers, based on painted images on pottery like the one below, labelled "Casson #1." Note the ram bow, the small platforms in the bow and stern, and especially the structure between the ram and the bow platform. This appears to be a shield for a warrior on the platform, and perhaps it is also meant to deflect spray from the rowers. The raised stern would seem to perform the same functions. Although it is obscured, there appears to be a horn-like decoration mounted atop the bow "shield." Note also the white band that runs horizontally beneath the rowers -- we'll address this detail below.

Casson #1: An aphract, a galley with a single bank of rowers, mid 8th-century BC. (Click any image to enlarge.)

Following is Landstrom's lovely illustration of a vessel very much like the aphract. (I "cleaned up" this illustration using a free-download design tool, removing extraneous and overlapping images from the picture for clarity, and knitting together two separately scanned halves into a single image. In doing so, I have made Landstrom's image somewhat less crisp and lovely, but I have not altered his interpretation. I apologize for the amateurish quality of the alterations.)

Greek galley, from Landstrom. This dugout-based boat seems to logically interpret every feature of the aphract pictured on the pottery fragment in Casson #1 above.

Note that Landstrom's vessel, while lovely and undoubtedly fast, could not possibly be a seagoing ship. It is clearly a boat suited only for the most protected waters. But the oddest thng is that Landstrom's illustration was based on Greek originals that, though similar to the aphract pictured in Casson #1 in many respects, were apparently more substantial vessels.

See the illustration below labeled Casson #4. Casson interprets this illustration as a two-banked warship -- i.e., one with rowers on two levels. Landstrom, in contrast, insists that it is a single vessel with two lines of rowers -- i.e., two rowers per thwart, sitting side by side. A third interpretation is possible: that Casson #4 represents two vessels side by side, seen overlapping in perspective. I make this interpretation based on what clearly (to me) appears to be two bow rams. If my interpretation is correct, then I do not think that the arrangement of rowers in the two boats can be definitively interpreted. While the artist may be showing an early use of perspective (although Landstrom says that this technique was not known at this time), he is almost certainly not attempting to depict such details as rowing arrangements with literal accuracy.

Casson #2: Warship ashore; two views on the same piece of pottery.

Casson #3: Warship cruising with upper level manned

Casson #4: "two banked warship"

Casson believes that Casson #2, above represents a decked vessel, and that rowers would have sat below the deck. (Oars are not in evidence because the vessel is beached.) But while the presence of a deck seems clear, the black hull is virtually unchanged from Casson #1. Is it possible that, rather than a deck/platform, the grid of fine lines above the black hull represents rowing outriggers as shown in Landstrom's illustration?

Casson #3 represents, in Casson's view, a two-banked warship, with rowers shown on the top level only. The broad white area between the main hull and the level on which the rowers are shown would appear to represent a lower bank where more rowers might be seated -- perhaps during a sea battle, leaving the upper level free for combat, and protecting the rowers from missiles. But if we interpret the broad white band as a lower level, then what do we make of the narrow white band in Casson #1?

In Casson #5 below are two more images showing, in Casson's interpretation, the bows of two-banked galleys. Graphically, these are still very similar in most respects to Casson #1, (showing the same ram, "shield," horn ornament, and overall hull shape) but Casson interprets them as quite different vessels; biremes with semi-enclosed rowing cabins vs. open single-banked vessels.

Casson #5: Note: i) the horns mounted on the bow shield, ii) the round, "spoked" decoration on the bow shield, and iii) the apparent presence of an upper deck, i.e., two banks of oars..

Here, then, is Casson's interpretation of the vessels shown in Casson #3, #4, and #5:

Casson #6: reconstruction of an 8th Century BC bireme: a true warship with two banks of rowers.

Casson's and Landstrom's interpretations couldn't be more different. Landstrom's is a dugout canoe -- a simple boat not even extended vertically with the addition of washstrakes. Casson's is a full-fledged, sea-going ship, built plank-on-frame, with an upper deck consisting of a fighting platform that runs the length of the vessel amidships, and thwarts to each side of it, upon which a second bank of rowers could sit in good weather or anytime when not engaged in battle. There may be a keelson, but it is very slight, and two wales have been added for longitudinal strength. Note how the round, spoked decoration -- merely painted on in Landstrom's version -- is a large hole pierced through the otherwise solid timber bow, with actual spokes added for decoration. The horns -- actual antlers on Landstrom's dugout -- are probably fabrications on Casson's vessel meant to represent (immensely oversized) animal horns. I doubt they would be real elephant tusks, for their presence in the illustrations is too consistent while elephant tusks would, I presume, have been extremely rare in 8th century BC Greece.

The plank-built ship of Casson's interpretation is obviously more capable than Landstrom's dugout canoe of having crossed the Aegean Sea to make war on Troy. But there is a grace to Landstrom's illustration of a fast dugout that is so appealing that one hesitates to reject it entirely.

Junk Rigs for Non-Thinkers

2011-05-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

Among its many flaws, The Chinese Sailing Rig - Design and Build Your Own Junk Rig by Derek Van Loan suffers from an identity crisis. It appears to be known primarily by its subtitle, and on the front cover, the subtitle is far more prominent than the main title (and on the spine, the main title doesn't appear at all). In fact, "Design and Build Your Own Junk Rig" is a more accurate title than "The Chinese Sailing Rig," but even then, it's a stretch, which I'll get to.

Van Loan says virtually nothing about the Chinese sailing rig -- nothing about its history, nothing about its current usage, next to nothing about how to sail it and, most seriously, nothing whatsoever about its pros and cons compared to Western rigs like the Marconi, gaff, etc. He seems to assume that the reader is already persuaded about the superiority of the junk rig and is ready to retrofit an existing non-junk-rigged boat with one -- and that he or she only needs to know how.

Which gets me to the promised criticism of the subtitle. Van Loan gives very little advice about how to design a junk rig, per se. Instead, he tells you how to spec a junk rig following his favorite design. Van Loan evidently has a good amount of experience playing around with the rig, and he's found a formula that works for him...and for the type of boat he likes, and the type of sailing he does, in the location where he uses it. And he expects the reader to follow his system, even if the reader's needs may differ. So he gives guidelines without explanation, such as this:

The number of battens is dependent on the sail area. Up to 200 square feet, four or five battens will suffice. Use five or six battens on a sail where the area is from 200 to 700 square feet.

As to why you should use fewer or more battens, he gives no explanation. Following his guidelines, one could use anywhere from four to six battens for a 200 square foot sail, but Van Loan doesn't give any help in deciding what is the right number within a range that contains a full 50 percent spread.

One suspects that the reason for this is that the author's understanding is entirely experiential, and that he is lacking is theoretical knowledge. His instructions for finding the center of lateral resistance consist of making a cardboard cutout of a profile of the boat's underbody and balancing it on a pin (perhaps he doesn't know how to do the math?), with this caveat:

If the rudder of the vessel is large or if the vessel has a fin keel, daggerboard, or centerboard, include about one-third its area, from its leading edge, in your underwater profile

Oh great: "about one third". Perhaps if he had explained in the first place how to calculate area, we might be able to make a start. But even so, how precise do we need to be to meet his "about" one-third guideline? Is 30% too little? How about 25%? Don't bother looking, for there's no help to be found.

By eliminating theory and math, Van Loan has attempted to make things as simple as possible, but therein lies the problem: he gives the reader not enough information upon which to make informed decisions. And then he compounds the problem by assuming specialized knowledge that the reader is unlikely to have, especially sailmaker's and rigger's terminology. The glossary is only occasionally helpful, consisting mainly of the better-known terms, and ignoring some of the more obscure ones.

Van Loan's line drawings are clear and good, and his prose is generally easy to follow. If one were to follow the book's recommendations, one would probably end up with a workable -- maybe even a very good -- rig. But that rig would be based more or less blindly on someone else's preferences, and the DIY'er would have little understanding of why it works the way it does, or how it might be improved.

"Design and Build Your Own Junk Rig" is full of editing errors, lacking in theory, and inadequate in its discussion of the author's particular preferences. For a book in its third edition, it's a notably weak effort.

William Willis, Raft Wacko Extraordinaire

2011-05-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

William Willis building Seven Little Sisters.

Thor Heyerdahl's world-famous Kon Tiki expedition in 1948 spawned a whole raft (ahem!) of emulators. Some of these sought to demonstrate some scientific principle or theory of prehistoric settlement, as Heyerdahl had done, based on theories ranging from plausible to absurd. Some sought fame. William Willis apparently did it for the pure hell of it.

As described in Seaworthy: Adrift with William Willis in the Golden Age of Rafting by T.R. Pearson, Willis was a nearly-rootless adventurer. Beginning as a merchant seaman, he drifted through literally dozens of jobs, wrote reams of unreadable literature, and practiced yoga and ate a macrobiotic diet decades before hardly anyone in the U.S. had heard of either. In his mid-40s, he spent over a year of appalling hardship in French Guiana on a hare-brained, but ultimately successful, plot to spring his landlady's son -- a man he had never met -- from the penal colony of Devil's Island: no special reason, but the hardship and the challenge seemed to appeal to him.

It was in that vein that, at the age of 60, he decided to outdo Heyerdahl in terms of distance, self-reliance, deprivation and audacity. He traveled to Peru, built himself a balsa raft named Seven Little Sisters, and set sail alone (if you don't count the cat or the parrot), provisioned with starvation rations of ground meal, raw sugar and little else.

Seven Little Sisters under sail.

Willis was a curious case. Intelligent, thoughtful, and capable of careful planning, he always got tired of details before he was done with them, essentially saying to himself, "well, that may be close enough." And then, when things went wrong, he would invariably curse himself, saying "I just KNEW that was going to happen!" So when his only mainsail split wide open, he accepted it with equanimity, because he knew that he should have sailed with a spare. Ditto when most of his water supplies disappeared because they had been stored in rust-prone containers. And when he almost died in mid-ocean due to a perforated ulcer and, later, a strangulated hernia -- well, he knew these problems existed, and very consciously decided not to have them treated before embarking. He had the self-knowledge at all times to blame only himself for his hardships, and indeed, it appears that he purposely threw hardships in his own way. Perhaps there was a death wish. Perhaps he was driven to see just what kind of stuff he was made of. (He believed that he was almost supernaturally resistant to the effects of age.) Almost certainly, he enjoyed facing the challenges that such hardships presented.

Willis made it to Samoa, his intended destination, wrote a book about the trip, and achieved a modest degree of fame that proved fleeting. (His book The Gods Were Kind sold less than 10,000 copies in the U.S., but when it was translated into Russian and sold as a children's book in the USSR, it moved over 100,000 copies!) But he wasn't done. More than ten years later, in his early 70s, he built another raft, which he took -- again alone -- from Peru to Australia. This was followed by three attempts to cross the Atlantic in a small, apparently not very suitable, open sailboat. The first two attempts were turned back by poor conditions and miserable progress. Willis disappeared on the third attempt, although his boat was recovered.

Seaworthy (not to be confused with Linda Greenlaw's fishing memoir of the same title) is a quick, fun read and a fascinating profile of a very strange but oddly admirable individual. Author Pearson places Willis's adventures in context by describing at substantial length some of the other notable raft expeditions of the time: Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki, Alain Bombard's L'Heretique, Eric de Bisschop's two Tahiti Nui expeditions, and DeVere Baker's well-funded but ludicrous Lehi expeditions (which last sought to prove Baker's fantastic, Mormon-inspired "theory" that the western hemisphere had been settled by ancient Israelites sailing rafts across the Indian and Pacific Oceans). One might reasonably suspect that these other raft expeditions are included mainly to pad out the text, but in fact they are described in fascinating detail in their own right, and they serve the important function of holding Willis up to the mirror of his colleagues and competitiors in terms of their seamanship, their motiviations, their craft and equipment, and the nature of their achievements.

Greeland Umiaks, Part IV (more uses of the umiak)

2011-04-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

This is probably my last post based primarily on content from the very useful Skinboats of Greenland (Ships and Boats of the North) by H.C. Petersen. Along with describing a few more interesting aspects of the umiak's use, it's an excuse to show some more nice images.

Umiaks escorted by kayaks. Wood engraving from a Danish magazine, 2nd half of 19th century. From an original by C. Rasmussen. Click this or any image to enlarge. (All images from Skinboats of Greenland (Ships and Boats of the North))

Umiaks were almost always accompanied by kayaks, as shown in the lovely image above. Petersen states that if the umiak got into trouble, an escorting kayaker could be dispatched to obtain help. It's not clear to me if this escort was provided primarily because the umiak generally carried women and children, who were felt to either deserve or require the assistance of men, or if, perhaps, the umiak was more subject to damage than the kayak and hence more likely to need assistance. (I speculate that the greater number of sewn seams, and the greater expanse of unsupported skin, may have made the umiak more prone to springing a leak. There are, indeed, stories of umiaks that sank due to contact with the sharp edges of new ice and which were assisted by escorting kayakers. Of course, there are also stories of kayakers running into trouble and either being assisted by other kayakers, or sinking.)

The escort also provided an opportunity for the occasional flirtation. Since a hunting kayak is so much faster than an umiak, the escorts could take the time practice throwing their javelins, darts or spears when traveling in convoy. A kayaker who threw his spear into the little whirlpool left by a woman rower's oar was making an explicit overture for her affection. If he hit the oar blade itself, he was considered to be especially serious. (Ain't love grand?)

When rowers became weary or bored, they would sometimes enliven themselves with a "game" consisting of establishing and maintaining an unusual stroke pace: for example, five long strokes followed by two quick, short ones. At least this would focus the oarsmen's attention away from their weariness for a while.

Another relief from rowing was to be had on some journeys, as when traveling to a seasonal camp to hunt seals or caribou. When families relocated on the mainland, it was common to hug the coast, and to allow the dogs to follow along the shore. Dogs learned the locations of seasonal homes and camps, and in many instances they would cut out across the land and arrive before the boats did. But sometimes, along stretches of straight and easy coast, the umiak would be tied to a harness of dogs, and the dogs would haul the boat for miles. Of course, care had to be taken to steer the boat to avoid it being pulled into shore by the dogs, and a sharp lookout kept for rocks near the surface.

A Danish official on a voyage in an umiak owned by a European cleric, 1875. Photo by E. AE Lutzen.

During the colonial period, Danish officials used umiaks with native rowers for voyages of inspection (again, with kayak escorts), and clerics used them to visit remote flocks. Several voyages of coastal exploration by Europeans were also conducted in umiaks, from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

Whaling n Greenland, by Hans Egede, 1741. The triangular object at left center is a hunting-camp tent.

And umiaks were used for whaling, both before and during the colonial period. Several kinds of whales were hunted with hand-thrown harpoons. Whalers attached inflated sealskin floats to the ends of their harpoon lines and, after a successful strike, they would follow the floats, striking with additional harpoons as the opportunity arose. The floats prevented the whale from sounding deeply, slowed the whale down as it sought to flee, and enabled the rowers to keep track of the whale's position, allowing them to avoid taking a Nantucket sleighride in their fragile umiak. After the whale died, a man would enter the water to tie its mouth closed and to insert a wooden plug in its blowhole, to keep it from sinking. Several umiaks usually hunted together, because it takes a lot of oars to tow a large whale to shore.

Men generally rowed the umiaks when hunting whales, but women would take an oar if a sufficient number of men could not be found to make up a crew. In the old engraving above, it appears that there could be stern-facing rowers and forward-facing paddlers in the same boat -- presumably the women "manning" the oars, and men handling the paddles. One or two men stood in the bow as harpooners, and the boat was steered by a male helmsman . Note the three umiaks in the background, towing a whale in "line ahead."

In the early 20th century, toward the end of the umiak's period of practical use, men adopted the "female" or European practice of facing aft and rowing with an oar on the gunwale, as shown below.

Aft-facing male oarsmen in Ilulissat harbor, 20th century (?).

Greenland Umiak, Part III: Propulsion

2011-04-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

Greenland umiak under oars, W.A. Graah, 1832 (All images from H.C. Petersen, Skinboats of Greenland. Click any image to enlarge)

Let's begin by quoting H.C. Petersen in Skinboats of Greenland (Ships and Boats of the North):

The coastal stretch from Kap Farvel to Melville Bay on the West Coast [of Greenland] covers about 2000 km, and the umiak has been the connecting link along this coast. During the summer the Greenlanders used to sail in many umiaks together in hunting expeditions of varying length, or to visit friends. There were large summer meetings like those in Taseralik at the mouth of Nassuttooq where umiaks from north and south gathered. Hunters met in the large fiords for reindeer hunts, some sailing up to 1000 km to reach these meeting places. Friends got together, trading was carried out and at the meeting places at the outer coast European whalers could be seen by the mid 17th century. Young people met, marriages were arranged, arguments were settled by singing contests, and there were sports. The umiak brought the Greenlanders together and made group activities possible.

Singing contests to settle arguments! Well, I suppose they had their flaws too, but that sure is a nice thing to emulate. ("Rag doll Oooh, I love you just the way you are." -- Hah! Take that, suckah!)

Getting back on topic: the Greenland umiak was rowed, not paddled. Some sources have said that rowers sat one to a thwart, as shown in the picture at top, but instances of two rowers per thwart are also known. Often, the rowers all sat toward the bow, leaving much of the aft section free for cargo or passengers, while the helmsman (or more often, woman) sat in the sternsheets, steering with a paddle.

Sealskin strip used as a grommet to hold the oar.

Half-rowlock.

Oars were usually held on the gunwale with grommets made of strips of sealskin tied to a thwart or the inner stringer, although sometimes a fixed half-rowlock (thimble?) was used. Oars were two-piece, with blades attached to shafts, not carved from a single piece, and some of them featured a button that helped prevent the shaft from slipping through the grommet if the oar was released.

Two-piece oar with safety button.

There seems to be contradictory information regarding whether men would regularly assist in rowing an umiak, or only do so under unusual circumstances. (The top image shows men and women rowing together; the bottom image women only.) It appears that when a man rowed an umiak by himself, he would do so facing forward, apparently to draw a clear, if symbolic, distinction between himself and the women. (Only Inuit men paddled kayaks, and they did so facing forward.)

Umiaks were also sailed. A short mast was set up right in the bows, passing through a hole in the headboard. Square sails, made of seal or reindeer skin or seal intestine, were lashed to a yard that was raised and lowered with a halyard that passed through a hole in the masthead. There were no stays or shrouds. Sheets led from the clews (lower corners) of the sail directly to the thwarts, where they could be tied off. The squaresail was used only for downwind sailing, and it is possible that the Inuit learned about it from the Vikings. Later contact with Europeans influenced them to adopt the spritsail, of which they used an essentially square, very low-aspect-ratio version.

Greenland umiak under sail, 1767.

An important accessory of the umiak was a pair of short wooden logs, used primarily as rollers to move the boat into and out of the water while preventing abrasion to the skin. When it was necessary to travel in very rough conditions, sometimes these rollers would be lashed athwartships to the gunwales near the stern, each one extending outboard an arm's-length on either side. Then a pair of kayaks, their cockpits sealed with paddling jackets, would be lashed to the underside of these outrigger shafts, temporarily turning the umiak into a more stable trimaran.

Greenland Umiak, Part II: Construction

2011-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Umiak from the Nuuk area in west Greenland. Drawing by M. Gothche. From Skinboats of Greenland, H.C. Petersen. (Click any image to enlarge.)

Continuing our earlier discussion of the Greeland umiak, the frame was built entirely of driftwood (until sawn lumber became available after European colonization), and mostly lashed together with strips of sealskin. As described by H.C. Petersen in Skinboats of Greenland (Ships and Boats of the North) , the bottom consisted of a keel and two chine stringers, connected by several floor timbers or "bottom ribs," The bottom ends of the side ribs did not match up with the floor timbers; rather, they were fastened to the chine stringers between the floors.

In addition to the three bottom longitudinals there were three longitudinal members on each side. Working from the top down, these were: the sheer stringer or gunwale, the inner stringer, and the (outer) side stringer. The gunwale was round and let into semicircular notches at the top of the side ribs. The side stringers were sized and placed so as to force the skin away from the side ribs, so that it contacted the framework along the sides only along the gunwale, the side stringer, and the chine stringer. This accomplished two functions: it made for a smoother, quieter hull, without indentations in the cover between every rib; and it minimized the surface area of skin in contact with the framework. This latter was important to aid in drying the cover and thus preventing rot.

The inner stringer supported the thwarts and provided a lashing point for the cover. The cover was stretched around the boat's bottom, around the chine stringers, and up over both gunwales. Holes were pierced in the edges of the skin, and continuous sealskin strips were led from the inner stringer, through a hole in the skins and back down to the stringer, over and over again, to stretch the skin tight. The gunwale was rounded to ease the stretching of the skin over and around the sheer.

Atop the stem and sternpost was a headboard, a small, trapezoidal platform angled slightly down inboard to match the sheerline. The gunwale ends were lashed to the sides of the headboards. In some instances, the gunwales would extend past the headboards, forming "horns" that served as handles. On other umiaks, the gunwales ended on the headboards, and horns were lashed on separately. This was especially the case where the horns were to be bent in at the ends toward each other to form a closed loop, as shown at the bow (right) of the image at the top.

The stems were tenoned into square mortises in the headboards. In east Greenland, the inner stringers were sometimes mortised partway into the side ribs, and occasionally the ribs were pierced entirely so that the inner stringers passed through rectangular holes in the side ribs. (This would have required considerably more labor but produced a much more rigid structure.) Neither of these practices were followed in west Greenland, where the inner stringers were always placed flat on the inboard surface of the side ribs.

Another factor distinguishing west Greenland umiaks (above) from east Greenland umiaks (below) is flare, the western variety being considerably more straight-sided. Note also the conventional curved sheer of the western example, compared to the slight reverse curve of the eastern boat's sheerline.

East Greenland umiak, by A. Saelen, from Petersen. Note the hooked scarf in the keel, the substantial flare amidships, and the reverse curve of the sheer.

Dugout Canoe Tourism in Botswana

2011-04-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

There's a travel article in today's Washington Post about a tour of Botswana's Okavango Delta in the local dugout canoes. Called a mokoro, the canoe is carved from the trunk of a sycamore fig. Propulsion appears to be mainly by poling.

That's about the sum total of information about the boats themselves that you'll find in the article, but if you're looking for a holiday in an indigenous boat, this sounds like some fun.

The Greenland Umiak

2011-04-09T07:04:00.000-07:00

Greenland umiak, 1767. (Click any image to enlarge.)

"In the Greenland legends the umiak appears almost as often as the kayak," writes H.C. Petersen, in Skinboats of Greenland. "It was part of the daily life."

The umiak was used throughout and beyond the North American Arctic, from eastern Siberia and Alaska to Greenland. (I wrote about the angyapik, the umiak of St. Lawrence Island, in the Bering Strait, here.) It was the vehicle used by the Inuits to colonize the Thule region of northwestern Greenland (and from thence, the rest of the island), and there is good reason to believe that an early version was used by the island's first inhabitants, the Dorset culture.

Petersen writes, "I enjoy following the trail of the Inuit ancestors along the long coast of Greenland, on the mainland as on the islands. It is just as difficult to manage without a sea-going vessel in Greenland today (i.e., 1986) as it was 4500 years ago. The land is scarred by deep fiords (sic) and off the mainland there are extensive archipelagos. To survive, a family vessel is needed, especially as the greatest part of one's subsistence must be taken from the sea."

Often referred to as the "woman's boat" to distinguish it from kayaks, which were used exclusively by men, the umiak was really the Greenland family's boat, for its capacity (or "burthen" -- what a fine word!) was essential to the Inuits' nomadic lifestyle. True, when moving from place to place, the men might paddle their kayaks in convoy with the umiaks, as shown in the top illustration. But without the umiak, there would have been no transportation for the young, the aged, or cargo of any sort -- to say nothing of the women who rowed and steered them. And umiaks were used by men, for hunting whales.

Greenland umiaks ranged from five meters to more than ten meters in length. Until the island was colonized by Europeans, who made sawn lumber available, the umiak frame was built entirely of driftwood, since no trees grew on the island. Working without metal tools or fasteners, the Inuit developed a strong, flexible, lightweight structure characterized by impressive woodworking and thoughtful design. The illustration below shows the complex joinery between the stem or sternpost and the keel and chine stringers. (Sophisticated hook scarfs were also common, and were often used instead of the mortise joint between the stem and keel as shown.) Fastening at the stem/sternpost was done with pegs of bone, tusk, or antler, and/or by lashing with strips of sealskin or baleen.

Complex joinery between stem (or sternpost), keel, and chine stringers.

Almost all other joints were lashed with sealskin strips. As shown below, the lashings were fed through holes bored in the members, in order to prevent the lashings from creating bulges beneath the skin cover. Boring these dozens of holes, using only a bow drill with a bone point, required an immense expenditure of labor, and would only have been done for a compelling reason. While it would have made the boat quieter and marginally faster through the water, the main reason was to protect the skin from abrasion.

Reconstruction of an old Greenland umiak. Note how the bottom ends of the side ribs are hollowed to fit around the chine stringer, and how all joint lashings pass through bored holes.

The umiak's cover was made of sealskin -- anywhere from seven to more than 30 skins were required, depending upon the size and species of seal, and the length of the boat. The cover was quite fragile, especially when wet, and the boat had to be removed from the water every day to prevent the cover from becoming totally waterlogged and disintegrating. Although great care was taken to lift the boat and avoid dragging it, some abrasion was inevitable, so the elimination of "hard spots" in the skin was essential to preventing the premature formation of leaks.

I'll continue this discussion of Greenland umiaks in the near future.

All images are from Petersen, Skinboats of Greenland (Ships and Boats of the North)

Variety in Greenland Kayak Types

2011-03-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Kayaks in Greenland varied considerably by region, purpose, and era. The variety is so great, in fact, that referring to "a Greenland type kayak" in the singular, as if it constituted a consistent, known category, would be almost as meaningless as referring to an "American-type rowboat".

Old Greenland kayak, collected by Dutch whalers. Click any image to enlarge.

Dutch whalers were the first Europeans to encounter Greenland kayaks, in the mid-17th century. The kayaks they found there -- and they brought a few back to Holland as evidence -- were extraordinarily narrow and had extraordinarily high length-to-beam ratios. The average length was 565 cm (18'6"), and the average width 40.5 cm (only 16 inches -- yikes!). While such a calculation may not be statistically sound, if one uses the two average figures, the length/beam ratio works out to 13.95 to 1.

Over the years, shorter and broader kayaks came into favor, and by the 20th century, the average figures were 515 cm (16' 10 3/4") long and 50.5 cm (20") wide -- still mighty narrow by the standards of modern recreational kayakers, but no longer a demanding balancing act in calm seas.

One of the most common designs was the "flat" kayak, so-called because of its sheerline, which curved very gently. The ends do not turn up at all from the general line of the sheer. The foredeck has only a very slight curve athwartships, and the after deck is dead flat. This style is very shallow -- there is scarcely enough room for the paddler's legs under the foredeck and, with its small, round cockpit, entering the boat could be difficult. The bottom is also quite flat, both side-to-side and front-to-back.

The deck of the "Dutch" kayak in the top photo is symmetrical fore-and-aft. Compare to the "fish-form" shape of this "flat" kayak of southern Greenland, with its widest beam forward.

The construction drawing above does not refer specifically to the flat kayak in the photo, which was built for a 14 year old boy.

Dramatically different was the avasisaartoq type, with its substantial sheer and rocker and very high ends. Such a design has the advantage of greater maneuverability and potentially greater seaworthiness amidst steep seas in the hands of an expert paddler. But on the other hand, the high ends are a liability in high winds. The style was popular in the 19th century, but it faded out by the 20th, when kayak hunters began using rifles, because the high ends interfered with clear sighting-lines.

An avasisaartorq kayak.

When Eskimos immigrated from Canada to northern Greenland around 1860, they brought with them the Thule type of kayak, with a high bow, low afterdeck with a very slight upturned end, and maximum beam aft of the cockpit.

Thule kayak.

One more interesting type is a cult kayak known as the piaaqqisiaq. Distinguished by sharp upturns at the very ends, it existed for reasons of belief rather than pragmatism. A man whose first son had died in infancy was supposed to build a kayak of this type for his other sons when they grew old enough to have their first kayak. Boys who did not have a dead older brother were given conventional kayaks, and that boys who did grow up with the piaaqqisiaq got a standard kayak when they attained the age of a hunter.

Cult kayak, or piaaqqisiaq, in foreground

[Content, including art, for this post are mostly from H. C. Peterson Skinboats of Greenland (Ships and Boats of the North)].

Two Shows, Two Canoe Models

2011-03-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

Two consumer shows (exhibitions) this weekend yielded some photos of two very different canoe models. The Pinetree State Sportsman Show, in Winslow, Maine, is mainly for the hunting/fishing crowd. The Maine Boatbuilders Show, in Portland, is a boat show with a difference: a focus on craftsmanship, not glitz. (Click any photo to enlarge.)

This four-foot long model, by Burt Libby, was on display in the booth of Kimball Pond Boat Barn, the only canoe exhibitor at the Pinetree State Sportsman Show. Burt is a well-known builder of full-size cedar-canvas canoes, and this model shows excellent craftsmanship and close adherence to scale in most respects. Not for sale, the model was an attention-getter for the Northeast (i.e., Maine) chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, which Kimball Pond owner Bob Bassett was making room for in his booth. Kimball Pond Boat Barn is a builder and restorer of small boats, primarily cedar-canvas canoes.

This bark canoe model with two paddles was on sale at the Maine Boatbuilder Show by Jeff Pearson Antiques. I didn't have a chance to learn much about it, but a booth attendant thought it represented a Malecite style canoe. Price was thought to be around $1200. I don't know if that's accurate, nor if it's reasonable, but it does have a nice aura of authenticity.

The longer of the two paddles was in better condition.

The shorter paddle had a bad crook in the shaft and a big chip out of the blade.

Kirk Wipper is Gone

2011-03-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

Sad news: Kirk Wipper, founder of the Canadian Canoe Museum, died on Friday. He was 88 years old. A nice obituary and capsule biography is here.

Kirk with a school group at the Canadian Canoe Museum, Nov. 2009

Kirk played an immeasurably important role it the preservation of the history of the canoe, Canadian and otherwise, and he was considered a heritage hero in Canada. Just yesterday, before I learned of his death, he came up in a conversation at the Pine Tree State Sportsman's Show in Winslow, Maine. Bob Bassett, owner of Kimball Pond Boat Barn was there displaying his wares, and he generously devotes part of his booth to promoting the Northeast (i.e., Maine) Chapter of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, of which chapter he serves as president. I was there helping Bob on the WCHA end of things, as so was Benson Gray, a direct descendant of the Grays who owned and ran Old Town Canoes for generations. Benson is an authority on the history of Old Town and immensely knowledgeable about cedar-canvas canoe history in general.

Kayaks and other skin-on-frame boats at the Canadian Canoe Museum. One of these may have been the subject of Benson Gray's story.

According to Benson, the Canadian Canoe Museum (CCM) had acquired a historically significant Inuit kayak whose cover was in poor condition and in need of conservation. After some searching, Kirk and others of the CCM found some of the very last Inuit women with experience at sewing kayak covers from sea-mammal skins, and transported them at great expense from their home in the Far North to the museum in Peterborough to have them make repairs to the kayak's cover. These women examined the canoe and said that the cover could not be repaired: it must be replaced. Museum personnel tried to explain the conservation objective of the project, and the women tried to explain that the existing cover was no good. Neither convinced the other, but the women won, because they refused to do a job that they considered useless, and the museum had to return them to their homes with the job undone.

I met Kirk at the Maine Canoe Symposium, and found him to be easy-going and somewhat of a kidder. It took me a while to learn that he was a dedicated humanitarian and a historian, capable of great humility, sensitivity, dedication and kindness. In November, 2009, I visited the CCM with my wife and son, and we had the honor of being shown around the museum (including its spectacular storage areas) by Kirk. With all his accomplishment and esteem, he was extraordinarily open, approachable, and generous, and it's an experience I'll long remember.

Cate, Max and Kirk at the CCM, Nov. 2009

Ancient Dugout Excavated in Florida

2011-03-05T04:28:00.000-08:00

A dugout canoe estimated at 1,100 years old was recently excavated on Weedon Island, near St. Petersburg, Florida. At 40 feet long and reasonably complete, the canoe is a remnant of the Manasota culture. The Manasota were indigenous to Florida's west coast from about 550 BC to 900 AD, according to this report in the UK's Daily Mail.

Discovered about ten years ago, excavation did not occur until recently, after the development of a proper plan for preservation and the necessary fundraising. After about two years of preservation efforts, the canoe is expected to go on display at the Weedon Island Preserve Cultural and Natural History Center.

Watch the cheesy local news report.

Thanks to friend Tom Rankin for this news item.

The Ultimate Fashion Accessory

2011-02-28T04:27:00.000-08:00

From yesterday's New York Times Magazine. LOL.

Junk Blue Book is Up -- And This Time, I Mean It

2011-02-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

And I hope, hope, hope I don't have to eat my words again. The home page is here: www.junkbluebook.com, and it now contains a working download link to the PDF document. Thanks for your patience, and thanks to my patient and charming web lady who corrected by multiple errors.

Junk Blue Book Site is Back Up

2011-02-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Readers: The Junk Blue Book website, announced in the previous post, promptly went down due to technical ineptitude on the part of yours truly. It's now back online, so please take a look if you'd like a free download of this valuable resource on the junks of southern Vietnam, circa early 1960s. My apologies for the inconvienience.

Junk Blue Book of 1962

2011-02-23T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here's a special treat for my readers: we have made the Junk Blue Book of 1962 available for free download here. This isn't the download link itself, but it'll take you to the page where you can get the download. No registration required, no fees -- all you need is a fair amount of patience: at more than 80 MB, it'll take a good half hour or so to download at broadband speeds. (If you're on dial-up, don't even bother.)

But before you go feast your eyes, let me tell you what it is and how this came to be.

In the early 1960s, Colonel Marion Dalby of the U.S. Marines was assigned to survey the coastal craft of South Vietnam. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces needed a kind of "spotters guide," to distinguish presumably friendly local craft from those "visiting" from North Vietnam for the purpose of infiltration and smuggling. A sailor who obviously had a strong appreciation for the culture in which he was working, Dalby took to his assignment with gusto. He collected far more information than was needed for the purposes of mere identification, and created instead a comprehensive description the junks of the country, including their construction, their use, and even ethnographic information. The work was printed in 1962 under the title Junk Blue Book by the U.S. government in a dual English-Vietnamese edition. The press run was very limited.

Capt. Robert Whitehurst, whose photos of Vietnamese junks appear in the previous post, served in Vietnam in the early 1970s, and it seems that he too contracted a jones for junks while he was there. Long after returning to the States, he had to look long and hard to find a copy of the Junk Blue Book. Appreciating both its rarity and its importance, he wanted to make it available to others. After cleaning up a complete set of scans of the book, sharpening images and otherwise improving them, he contacted me and we soon came to an agreement for Indigenous Boats to place the document online for free download.

To that end, Indigenous Boats has created a new static website, The Junk Blue Book of 1962, with a download link for the book itself. I am greatly appreciative of Capt. Whitehurst for making the document available, and we both hope you enjoy it.

Vietnamese Boats, Early 1970s

2011-02-20T06:21:00.000-08:00

Rob Whitehurst is a tug driver in Louisiana. When serving in Viet Nam from 1970-72, he had the opportunity to observe and photograph hundreds of native boats of all types, on rivers, canals, on the Mekong Delta, and in Saigon Harbor. Here are a few that I particularly like, along with Rob's own captions. (Click any image to enlarge.)

Fishing near the Kinh Cho Gao, the Rice Market Canal

River packet boat running downstream off of My Tho (Indig.Boats comment: this is very similar to certain Cambodian passenger boats of the present day)

Sculling and Rowing a small river sampan on the Vai Co River

A Hoa Hao Buddhist minaret. There were over 800 of these in the Mekong Delta in 1975. Most are gone today.

Market at Binh Phuc-Nhut Village on Kinh Cho Gao canal.

A girl named Phuong at 14, never smiled more than this, but cheerful and intelligent, always accompanying her mother on the river at Vinh Long

Net fishing on the Rach Ong Chuong, An Giang Province

Waterborne tea-shop, with smiles. (Indig.Boats comment: This one is my favorite.)

For more (there are 199 in all, though not all are boat shots), see Rob's Facebook album. Many thanks for permission to reuse these wonderful photos here. Please note that permission for further reuse is not granted or implied.

Jangada VIdeos and Stills

2011-02-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

Once again, friend and fellow jangada fan Silvio Antunha has steered me to some great material about jangadas, the Brazilian sailing raft which evolved into a plank-built hull of similar form.

Non-Portuguese speakers will only be able to appreciate the images in this first video, "The Last Jangada Man," but Silvio tells me that Master Eremilson, the eponymous jangadeiro, travelled 4,000 km. along the coast of Brazil on a jangada in 1972. There are extended segments where he speaks to the camera, but in between are a few segments showing the boat in its modern form, and several old black and white clips showing the earlier raft form. At about 7:30, there's a great clip of a bunch of the sailors taking one over the surf like a big sailboard.

While you're there on YouTube, search for "jangada" -- there's a surprising number of videos about them.

Then for good measure, look what you get when you search the term for images in in the Portuguese version of Google. Dozens of lovely shots!

This one cracks me up: a putative jangada made of empty pop bottles.

The photo was taken by a Peace Corps worker in Brazil. Source is here.

Jangada Fisherman's Song

2011-02-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

Here's a video (a slide show, really) with lots of good images of the Brazilian fishing craft known as a jangada. The soundtrack is a jangada fisherman's song. Most of the jangadas shown are of the more modern plank-built buoyancy-hull type, but there appear to be a couple of the log-raft variety. I find the mast, with its adjustable foot and severe curve, to be among the more interesting features of this type.

We've looked at jangadas in several previous posts. For more, see here.

Thanks to Brazilian friend/reader Silvio Antunha for this one.

German Dugouts Built by Afrika Korps in Canada

2011-02-03T17:36:00.000-08:00

During the Second World War, some soldiers of Germany's Afrika Korps captured by the Allies were held at the Whitewater Prisoner of War Camp on Whitewater Lake in Manitoba. According to a recent post by marine archaeologist Timothy Dodson on the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association forum:

while interned at the camp the PoWs built several Dugout canoes. They would use them to paddle around Whitewater Lake. The canoes ranged in both size (1 & 2 men) and propulsion method ( Paddle and Sail).

A team of achaeologists is investigating the site, and they've recovered at least two of the canoes which, as shown above, seem to have been quite nicely made. More photos here.

It seems odd that prisoners of war were allowed both the tools to construct canoes, and the freedom to use them. It would be interesting to know more about the security considerations under which this was possible.

More Bark Canoe Resources

2011-01-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

Rob Stevens has posted a new list of bark canoe resources on the website of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association. It includes lists of canoe builders, books, videos/other media, and relevant organizations and museums, and it seems pretty comprehensive. Rob told me earlier today that a couple of the links are broken and he's working to fix them, so if you follow a link in the next hour or so and it doesn't work, try again in a few days.

The canoe shown here was built at Penobscot Marine Museum last summer by a team of apprentices working Steve Cayard, one of the finest practioners of the art. It's for sale by the museum, proceeds going to repeat the program and help perpetuate this rare skill among Native American people.

A Chinese Mud-Skipper

2011-01-23T12:22:00.000-08:00

This unusual little craft -- and I emphasize the "little" -- may be among the oldest plank-built boats still in recent use. According to G.R.G. Worcester in The Junks & Sampans of the Yangtze (1971), a Chinese history written in 90 B.C. attributes its invention to the Emperor Yü, (2205 B.C.). So it's clearly more than 2,100 years old, and possibly more than 4,200 years old if the ancient text is to be believed.

ni-mo-ch'uan from The Junks & Sampans of the Yangtze, G.R.G. Worcester. Click to enlarge.

The boat is known as the ni-mo-ch'uan, literally "mud-touching boat." It is used on mud flats when they are exposed at low water to collect a highly prized edible snail.

The ni-mo-ch'uan is a tiny form of sampan, being built of three 1/2-inch planks and subdivided by bulkheads. The one shown is 6' LOA and a mere 9-1/2" beam, with sides only 3-1/2" high. At just 1-1/3 cubic feet, this may be the smallest hull, by volume, of any known boat.

The transom features a semicircular cutout that is key to the method of propulsion. The shellfisherman kneels in the stern, with one knee on the bottom board and his shin resting in the cutout. The other leg he extends over the side of the boat, and uses it to propel the boat by pushing with his foot against the mud. He supports his upper body by holding onto the crossbar, which is raised about 18" above the boat's bottom. Worcester days that "progress is achieved quite rapidly" over the mud in this manner. Captured snails are kept in a basket in the bow.

The hull is rockered at the bow, to assist the boat in moving over the mud, and flat astern, to maximize buoyancy beneath the operator. Worcester notes the limber beneath the transom notch, to drain water, but it's unclear how this would not permit more water to enter than it allows to drain out. Perhaps it was stopped with a wood plug or a twist of grass and mud when the boat was afloat.

When observed by Worcester, the boat was "indigenous to the Shanghai area," and similar craft were "used in most of the shallow lakes and in the Tungting Lake, being diverted from their ordinary purpose and used for duck shooting."

Worcester relates a tale in which this most diminutive of boats was used successfully as a ship of war during the Ch'ing dynasty (which lasted from 1644 to 1911; I wish he'd been a little more specific):

"It is recorded that a town on Hangchow Bay was once attacked by pirates whose boats had grounded on the mud flats by the falling tide. A certain enterprising and warlike villager called together all the owners of the mud-touching boats and at night proceeded out to the stranded pirates, who, being taken completely by surprise, were all either killed or captured."

Brad Rice Dugout Project

2011-01-18T16:14:00.000-08:00

This photo was posted today on WoodenBoat's Facebook page. The only information given is that it is being built by someone named Brad Rice. Wish I knew more. Nice work, Brad!

Chinese Excavate 15th-Century Ship off Kenya

2011-01-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

Several months ago, I noted a museum exhibit about Zheng He, the Chinese diplomat and mariner who led a number of expeditions throughout the Indian Ocean in the 15th century. (Wikipedia article here.) At the time, I wasn't aware that Chinese archaeologists were in the process of excavating a wreck that has been identified as one of his ships in the Lamu Islands, off the coast of Kenya. Interestingly, genetic analysis has shown the presence of Chinese ancestors in some of the local populace. Article here.

A set of models comparing the sizes of the treasure ships of Zheng He and Columbus's Santa Maria in the foreground. The Chinese ship's huge scale seems underpowered, even though each mast seems to carry about the same sail area as Columbus's flagship did in total. (Image source: Wikipedia Commons. Click to enlarge.)

Zheng He's expeditions were enormous, starting with the ships themselves. The treasure ships, the largest of the fleets, were over 400 feet LOA and 170 feet beam, and had a nine-masted rig. These appear to have been the largest wooden ships ever built by a long shot, and they put the lie to the tale that the most masts ever mounted on a ship was seven (on a Maine-built schooner). His fleets contained a small number of treasure ships and literally hundreds of smaller vessels carrying tens of thousands of sailors and warriors, water, horses, and all manner of supplies.

The Yamana Bark Canoe

2011-01-03T18:53:00.000-08:00

An experimental replica built by Carlos Pedro Vairo and described in The Yamana Canoe: The Marine Tradition of the Aborigines of Tierra del Fuego. (Click this or any image to enlarge)

Bark canoes were the central item of the physical culture of the Yamana people of Tierra del Fuego. These nomadic hunters – also known as Yaghans – occupied the islands south of the Beagle Channel and a narrow strip of land on its northern shore, making them the southernmost permanent population in the world when they were first described by early European explorers. As they subsisted mainly on a diet of sea lion meat and shellfish, the canoe was essential to their survival.

(Might was well get this out of the way here: living in a climate where the average temperature is just 40 degrees Fahrenheit and winter temperatures go far below freezing, the Yamanas wore no clothing – none at all, until early missionaries got them to don loincloths. Given the fact that they were capable users of a basic stone-age toolkit, with ready access to large mammal hides, this is a tremendous enigma. They adapted to their climate through a number of behavioral measures, such as smearing their bodies with animal grease or oil, resting in heat-conserving postures, cuddling, constantly having fire available, and relying on a diet rich in animal fat. It is also speculated that they may have adapted physiologically over the centuries to maintain a high body metabolism.)

Unfortunately, though, and in spite of a number of descriptions of the Yamanas by European observers, not much is known for certain about their canoes. This is not because those canoes were not observed, described, or even illustrated. But the extant descriptions and drawings disagree with one another so frequently and in so many fundamentals that it is difficult to sort the facts. Even photographs taken during an exploring expedition in the 1880s, when the Yamana culture was tottering toward extinction and the boats may or may not have remained unaltered from their pre-contact forms, are often too dark and blurry to clarify some of the issues.

Some illustrations show a bow that divides into two prows, or possibly even a twin-hulled form, while others show a simpler shape coming to single points at each end.

Above: one European interpretation of the Yamana canoe had a horizontally bifurcated prow, or possibly twin hulls.
Below: another interpretation had a slightly more conventional single-prow, monohull form. Were there two very different types, or are the differences the result of some very poor observations?

Likewise, some of the boats were reportedly 25 or even 30 feet long, capable of carrying five or six people, while other reports limit the length and crews to maybe half those figures. No observer seems to have mentioned two different types of canoes, but it seems unlikely that descriptions and illustrations could vary so greatly for a single type.

Above and below: Yamana canoes photographed by a French expedition, 1883.

Only as the culture reached its end did any samples of the canoes come into European hands for close examination, and these were all of the smaller, single-pointed variety, about which, naturally, more information exists. Even so, I have not seen any lines drawings, offsets or anything of the sort, and much about the true shape and construction is somewhat speculative.

Compared to the North American bark canoe, the Yamana canoe was a rather crude affair – though more sophisticated than bark canoes found in Australia and Africa. The hull was formed of three main pieces: a bottom section, curved up at the ends, and two side panels, cut in profile to match the rockered shape of the bottom. On longer examples, triangular sections of bark were added to the fore and aft ends of the bottom to lengthen it. Where the sides met the bottom, it is possible that the edges were beveled to fit flush against one another.

Amidships, the half-breadths were somewhat like a Banks dory, with flat floors and flared sides, although the bottom was wider than on a dory relative to the maximum beam, and the sides somewhat more vertical, and sporting some tumblehome due to natural warpage of the bark. Toward the ends, though, the topsides tumble home to meet the fore and aft "transoms," which narrow to a point. The waterlines were somewhat like a sampan, though narrower.

Light poles lashed to the upper edges of the side panels served as gunwales, and a small number of widely-spaced frames and thwarts stiffened the sides and bottom. All of these structural members were left round in section. Short, narrow lengths of bark were creased in thirds and laid between the frames to serve as ceiling, protecting the inner surfaces of the hull bark from damage. Loose bark floorboards were laid atop the ceiling for further protection, and probably to elevate cargo and passengers above the bilge water that would inevitably accumulate.

This photo by the 1883 French expedition shows details of the framework, lashings, and bark panels. The boy looks obviously embarrassed, probably because the missionaries made him overdress for the occasion.

Interior of the Vairo replica shows bark floorboards, bark ceiling, and frames between sections of ceiling.

Lashings between frames and hull and between bottom and side hull panels were made with strips of sea lion skin or, occasionally, from fibers from the inside surface of stripped bark. A mixture of vegetable and earthen matter was used for caulking between the side and bottom panels. Various reports name moss, hay, seaweed, and wild celery as the fiber, and clay or mud as the binder.

Fiber caulking and lashings between side and bottom panels in the Vairo replica.

Several inches of sand and/or mud or clay were laid in the bottom. This served both as ballast, and as a fireproof surface upon which a small fire was typically kept burning. By keeping a fire burning in the boat, the nomadic Yamana were saved the trouble of kindling a fire anew when they arrived at their next temporary home. It also may have served to keep the occupants warm, and perhaps they cooked while under way. It was the presence of dozens of canoes carrying smoky fires when under way that may have led to the name Tierra del Fuego (land of fire).

In The Yamana Canoe: The Marine Tradition of the Aborigines of Tierra del Fuego, Carlos Pedro Vairo is undecided whether the canoes were built frame-first or shell-first. But his team's experience attempting to recreate a Yamana canoe of this sort argues strongly against the notion of frame-first building. Even proceeding shell-first and thus allowing the bark to bend more or less naturally, they found it nearly impossible to avoid cracking the bark into uselessly small pieces. This being the case, attempts to bend the bark to the shape of a pre-made framework would certainly have failed. Perhaps more to the point, the frame clearly appears to be a stiffening structure, as in a lapstrake hull, and not a structural skeleton as in a carvel one.

There is, I'm sure, much value in The Yamana Canoe, but it is unfortunate that its English translation is just plain awful. Much of it is difficult or impossible to make sense of, and it's possible that what sense can be made of some passages is just wrong.

Some elements of Vairo's research project itself also seem dubious. The extreme difficulties his team experienced with the bark of evergreen beeches that they used for the canoe's construction seems to indicate that something was amiss with the project nearly from the start. Even after weeks of attempts during which apparently dozens of trees were stripped of their bark, the team was unable to obtain pieces large enough for a canoe more than 10 feet long -- probably at or below the minimum length of the canoes actually built by the Yamana. They experienced further difficulties transporting bark sections, curing, bending, and sewing them, and with the boat finally, if tenuously assembled, they found that it suffered cracks during every single usage, necessitating major repairs.

The Vairo replica was at the extreme small end of the scale for authentic Yamana canoes. A few replicas of Yamana hunting tools extend above the bow. Although Vairo reported good paddling performance, his text makes one skeptical of his canoeing experience, his understanding of canoe performance, and of his ability to accurately comment on the matter.

The photo below shows the poor quality of lashing at a thwart and numerous cracks in the bark hull side panel. Although it's impossible to know just how difficult the evergreen beech bark was to work, this photo makes one seriously question the boatbuilding aptitude of Vairo's team and their choice of materials.

Gunwale and thwart lashing on the Vairo replica. Note the badly cracked bark.

Early European observers described the process of stripping the bark from the tree. Hanging from an upper branch by a rope, a man would use an unhafted stone blade to make a long vertical incision and two circumferential cuts at its top and bottom. After prying the edges of the bark free of the trunk with a pry bar made of wood or whalebone, he would then force himself under the bark and use his whole body to push the bark entirely away from the trunk. One can excuse Vairo for not attempting to duplicate this unpleasant task, but it appears that he may have selected the wrong species of tree, attempted to harvest it during the wrong season, or was unaware of some method of treating the bark either while still on the tree or after its removal, to make it easier to work and less prone to breakage.

The Yamana maintained a distinctive division of canoe-related labor between the sexes. Men stripped the bark and did most of the construction work, although women may have done the sewing or lashing. Once the canoe was complete, women were solely responsible for its maintenance. Women were also the primary paddlers, calling upon a man for assistance only when a paddling task demanded it. All paddling appears to have been done to starboard, with the canoe heeled far over to that side. There is no evidence for the use of sails prior to European contact, although simple square sails were adopted soon after contact was made.

1883 French photo showing the heeled-to-starboard paddling position.

Women gathered shellfish from the canoes, often diving into the frigid waters to collect them by hand. Spears with multiple prongs were used to collect crabs and some other resources. With the woman paddling, men hunted sea lions with harpoons (and possibly with clubs when on land).

Seeing daily use, and being constructed of bark that – even if Vairo had it wrong – was clearly not as durable or flexible as the paper birch bark used by North American Indians, Yamana canoes were short-lived, typically lasting only three to six months, and a year at the most. Steps were taken, however to maximize their life where possible. Rather than landing on hard rocky shores, it was common to tie the canoe up to beds of kelp growing nearby and then swim ashore. Kelp was also torn up and placed on the rocky shore as padding when the canoe did need to be landed. And in established portage locations where canoes were repeatedly dragged long distances, semi-permanent skidways of poles were constructed, similar to the canoe ladders used by Hawaiians. But given the canoe's short lifespan, the culture placed a high value on the ability to build them. A man who could not build or did not own a canoe was considered to be incomplete – not fully human in the sense that the culture understood itself to be.

The climate of Tierra del Fuego has ensured that no pre-contact canoe artifacts remain for study, so it is unknown how long the bark canoe in the form described may have been in use. Vairo cites indirect but convincing evidence for the probable existence of a maritime culture in the region going back about 6,000 years, but it is impossible to know what kinds of boats might have preceded the Yamana canoe or if, conceivably, the Yamana design goes back to the earliest days of seafaring in the region.

(All images from Vairo, except image #2, from Paul Johnstone, The Sea-Craft of Prehistory. Content derived from Vairo and the following sources:http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter54/text-Fuego/Yamana/text-Yamana.htm
http://www.victory-cruises.com/yagancanoes.html
http://pages.interlog.com/~erhard/patcanoe.htm
http://www.museomaritimo.com/index1-I.php?param=Maritimo/mm-I.php&icon=1&page=Canoa/Canoa02-I.php)

World's Oldest Birchbark Canoe Discovered

2010-12-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

I don't often steal true news items from other blogs, figuring that they do a good job speaking for themselves -- Gavin Atkins' In the Boatshed blog in particular. But Gav has posted news so interesting that I feel compelled to make sure my readers see it, on the off chance that they don't subscribe to his blog (which they should). It's about the discovery in England of what is probably the world's oldest birchbark canoe -- an American Indian canoe from Canada, thought to be about 250 years old.
http://intheboatshed.net/2010/12/09/250-year-old-birch-bark-canoe-in-cornish-barn-to-be-returned-to-canada/

There's more about it in the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association Forum:
http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=6917

The Angyapik of St. Lawrence Island, Alaska

2010-12-13T18:20:00.000-08:00

Just south of the Bering Strait, in the Bering Sea, 100-mile-long St. Lawrence Island is midway between the Alaska mainland and Siberia. The open skin boats used there -- called angyapiks locally, and more commonly known by the more general term umiaks -- present an interesting story of nonlineal evolution.

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The earliest known type of skinboats here had flat bottoms, straight, slanted sides, and a hard chine. Although good descriptions were not made until the early 20th century, evidence seems to point to the existence of this boat type as early as the first Euro-American explorers, in the late 18th century. Frames were made entirely of driftwood, as there are literally no trees on St. Lawrence Island. Frame members were tied together with baleen, and the frame was covered with walrus hide. Typically, two large walrus would cover the length of a boat, with pieces of a third used to bring the skin up to gunwales at the point of maximum beam.

Note the keel, chines, risers, and the headboards that sit atop the stem and sternposts. Click any image to enlarge.

Starting around 1860, whaleboats of New England design became available to the natives of St. Lawrence Island. At the end of a long whaling voyage, ships' captains would sell the islanders their worn-out whaleboats, or trade them for walrus that the islanders had captured. These, of course, were double-ended, round-bottomed, lapstrake boats firmly in Euro-American plank-on-frame tradition. Although considered not quite so handy for local needs, the whaleboat nevertheless replaced many skinboats for whale-and walrus-hunting because of its perceived durability.

But as the whaling industry petered out in the early 20th century, St. Lawrence Islanders had to find a replacement for the whaleboats as they wore out. Still without a local source of milled lumber, it was natural enough for the islanders to revert to the skinboat. But with their recent experience with the advantages of the round-hulled whaleboat fresh in their minds, the new angyapiks they began building were unlike the older flat-bottomed models.

The new skinboats featured very round bilges -- perfectly round, in fact, because the frames were shaped by boiling them and then bending them around oil drums. The keel remained, but the chines disappeared, replaced by several stringers and a heavy gunwale. The floors remained quite flat. Although some were rigged for sail, it was more common for an outboard engine to be placed in a well.

Gunwales are set up on diagonal braces against the keel and held at the proper width with temporary thwarts. The first ribs have been installed, pre-bent by boiling then shaping against an oil barrel.

Lacing the skin onto the frame. Note the mast partner and the headboards at the top of the stem and sternpost.

A completed round-bottom angyapik frame.

Profile and plan of a round-bottom angyapik.

In addition to some of the well-known advantages of seaworthiness of a round versus a flat hull, the new design was easier to handle on land and over ice -- important considerations, as the boats were beached daily, and often had to be manhandled long distances over ice to reach open water. On the earlier, flat hull, the walrus skin passed over the bottom of the keel. To drag the boat on its own bottom would very quickly wear through the skin, so instead, the boat was placed on a small sled with bone runners whenever it had to be hauled over land or ice.

Sled (top) for transporting a flat-bottomed angyapik over land or ice.

The new, round-bottomed version simplified this process by sandwiching the skin between the keel and a false keel, and then nailing a bone shoe to the bottom of the false keel. The boat thus gained a built-in sled.

Left: early, flat-bottom angyapik. Right: more recent, round-bottom version.

Further north in the Bering Sea, on King Island, the flat-bottom skinboat remained in use later. As the last photo shows, this was very similar to the St. Lawrence design, but significantly larger.

All photos and input from The Skin Boats of Saint Lawrence Island, Alaska, by Stephen R. Braund.

The Trinidadian Pirogue

2010-11-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

Let's discuss one final boat from Doulgas C. Pyle's Clean, Sweet Wind: Sailing with the Last Boatmakers of the Caribbean before it goes back to the small but stellar Rockport Public Library. It's the pirogue of Trinidad, the southernmost of the Antilles.

All images from Pyle. Click to enlarge.

Looking, as she does, quite like a big modern outboard skiff, it's still fair to say that the pirogue has clear indigenous roots, for she is indeed yet another extended dugout -- extended in the sense that she has dugout base, to which strakes are added. She is not, however, also expanded, as in the gommier, canot, or Granadian sailing canoe discussed recently -- that is, the pirogue's dugout base is not forced apart in the middle to widen it.

Pyle discusses the construction method at length, which I'll telescope here. The dugout base, which really forms only the boat's keel, is sharp and deep on the outside (see lines drawings below), and hollowed inside. To it are added a long, straight stem and a broad, nearly vertical transom -- wider since the introduction of outboard engines, to provide greater buoyancy aft. The lowest, or garboard, strake is first nailed to the stem, then to the top of the keel, and finally to the transom. But it's not a typical edge-to-edge or lapped joint between the plank and the keel. Rather, the outboard surface of the garboard rests horizontally atop the keel and is through-nailed to it with galvanized nails. Subsequent strakes are lapped without bevels, and fastened with clenched nails.

When Pyle observed the process in 1975, there was only one builder on Trinidad, named Taitt, and his methods (which is not to say his workmanship) were so refined that joggled half-frames were cut to patterns before being trimmed for installation. What is impressive is that no patterns or plans were used for any of the steps prior to cutting the frames, so the work that was all done by eye had admirable accuracy and consistency. The boat is finished with the installation of stringers, thwarts, wales, and a small foredeck.

To quote Pyle:

The lines of a Taitt pirogue seem to confirm its hybrid ancestry. The waterlines forward showed much greater hollow than I found in any small craft [in the Caribbean] other than the dugout gommiers and their derivatives, the yoles. Use of the shell as a keel points to a dugout origin here. The odd thing was that raising strakes should be lapped instead of fastened on edge as was done elsewhere with dugouts.

One of Pyle's informants suggested that the pirogue "was of Amerindian origin, that raising strakes had been a development connected to the diminishing availability of large tree trunks for dugout canoes. He surmised that the notion of lapping had been learned from the Royal Navy, whose launches and tenders were always clinker-built."

Although Pyle took the lines himself, and they are presumably accurate, these were from an outboard-powered boat, while the strangely low and long sailplan was based on a sketch from a native informant and seems less reliable. No sailing pirogues were in existence in 1975, engines having completely taken over.

Sailing Canoes of Granada

2010-11-23T01:54:00.000-08:00

Still further south from the gommiers of Dominica and Martinique and the canot of St. Lucia is another expanded and extended dugout, the sailing canoe of Granada. When Douglas C. Pyle visited the island in 1975, "a handful" were still in use. It would be a surprise, though a pleasant one, if any still exist 35 years later.

The Granada sailing canoe had something in the looks of a whaleboat.
(This and all other images from Pyle, Clean Sweet Wind. Click any image to enlarge.)

The dugout origins are just discernible in the small hollowed keel, to which three wide strakes have been added, followed by rough, widely-spaced frames and partial frames.

The waterlines and buttocks are very nice, but the sections look scary. The sailplan looks fairly powerful for such an unstable hull, but it's wisely kept low.

Pyle writes in Clean Sweet Wind:

The lines show very clearly that no effort was made to give the hull any shape other than that assumed by a hollowed log wedged slightly open at midsection. They were propelled by sailing and rowing simultaneously, a practical mix in the flat water and fluky breezes that prevail in the lee of all high islands such as Granada.

In spite of Pyle's criticism of their unsophisticated lines, he says the canoes were "versatile...capable also of operating in the open sea," and he describes a regatta in nearby Carriacou where the boats seemed to perform adequately, though hampered by their blue denim sails.

In any case, I find the buttocks, waterlines, and sheer profile pleasing. The sections, however, are another matter. Where the bottom of the canot was just slightly flattened, and the gommier almost perfectly round amidships, the Granada canoe's bottom is nearly a rounded V. Lightly laden, this boat would have little initial stability, though I think she would firm up when heeled down onto her wide flared sides.

The Canot of St. Lucia

2010-11-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

An interesting contrast to the gommiers of Dominica and Martinique is the closely-related canot of St. Lucia -- the next large island south in the chain of the Windward Islands. In Clean, Sweet Wind: Sailing with the Last Boatmakers of the Caribbean, Douglas C. Pyle writes of his first encounter with this boat while aboard a modern Western-style sailboat:

We were nearing midchannel when something in the animated monotony of the waves caught my attention -- a flash that was not a whitecap, a motion not part of the heaving sea. A few minutes later, there was another visual disturbance, this time from a different quarter altogether. As the disturbances became more frequent, they also drew closer, slowly revealing themselves as human figures clad in yellow oilskins and topped by straw hats with fantastic high peaks. The figures seems (sic) to skim the surface of the water at high speed, darting this way and that like disembodied spirits.

When the full reality was finally disclosed, the figures were seated by threes, one behind another in a canoe so narrow and so low in the water as to be invisible at a very short distance. The figure in the stern was steering with the outboard motor; the one in the middle was bailing. In the bow, lifted completely clear of the water by the thrust of the motor, the third figure peered forward and gestured from time to time, sending the whole rig swerving this way and that.

(Drawing by Pyle)

Like the gommier, the canot is primarily a fishing boat that, at the time of the Pyle's observation, was well in the process of conversion from sail to outboard power. The basics of the two types are certainly similar: an expanded and extended dugout with a single strake added to increase freeboard. But as Pyle notes, the canot is "easily distinguishable from the gommier by the striking extension of the dugout forward into a sort of cutwater." Some of the examples of gommiers in the previous post showed a small extension, but nothing like the imposing "ram bow" of the canot.

As Pyle also notes, the canot's midsection is quite a bit flatter, with a slack, but perceptible bilge, as opposed to the almost perfectly round sections of the gommier. In addition, he notes the length-to-beam ratio is much longer in the canot; and "there is less freeboard in the bow, and the waterlines show less hollow and are less streamlined."

In the late 1990s, the Gli Gli Project built a big (35') Carib canoe with the intention of sailing it from its home in Dominica to South America. The project's rather sketchy website doesn't tell the complete story, though, and it may be that the voyage was not completed. It's not clear from the photos on the site if the canoe was more like the gommiers of Dominica or the canots of St. Lucia.