An American Builder of Traditional Japanese Boats

Douglas Brooks is an America boatbuilder and scholar of boatbuilding, specializing in traditional Japanese small craft. He has apprenticed himself several times to Japanese builders to learn techniques associated with various types, such as the shimaihagi in the foreground of the photo above, and the tub boat, or taraibune, below.

He does lovely work, and a visit to his website is most worthwhile, both for the lovely pictures of these fascinating boat types and for his descriptions of his building experiences. (He also maintains the site in Japanese, here.) He builds boats for museum exhibits, and is the author of The Tub Boats of Sado Island; A Japanese Craftsman's Methods, which is also available through his website. An article by Douglas on tub boats is available on the Amateur Boat Building site.

Both photos courtesy Douglas Brooks

Lance Lee and Lansing Madura

I had the opportunity to meet Lance Lee twice this month, and to see the Indonesian fishing boat Lansing Madura, the building of which came about as an offshoot of Lance's Tremolino! project. Lance had the boat on display at the Maine Boats Homes & Harbors show in Rockland, Maine, and at a lecture at the new Sail, Power & Steam Museum, which is busy a-birthing, also in Rockland.

Lance has been at the forefront of the movement to merge boats with experiential education for decades. The founder the The Apprenticeshop and Atlantic Challenge, he is now involved in something he calls "The Tremolino! Project." This is actually a related series of projects that Lance chooses not to turn into a formal organization. Drawing inspiration from educator Kurt Hahn and author Joseph Conrad, Lance uses boatbuilding and seamanship as vehicles to teach self-reliance and internationalism, and to crusade against youth's propensity to prefer virtual reality over the real stuff.

Lansing Madura is a Java Sea fishing gole'an. She was built in Indonesia over the course of about six weeks by one of the few remaining native builders of this type of craft and members of his community, assisted and inspired by one of Lance's proteges, Brian McClellan, also associated with Atlantic Challenge. The boat was built entirely with hand tools, with the objective of helping to revive the use of traditional boats to rebuild the local fishing fleets.

She is built entirely of teak in a shell construction method -- i.e., from the outside in. Virtually no metal fastenings were used -- she is pegged together. The most modern technology involved in her construction was the use of a come-along to pull the plank edges tight against each other. She uses a crab-claw rig with a good sized mainmast and a very small foremast -- I suppose you might call her a crab claw schooner?

Did a Sabani Show Up at the Olympics?

A year ago, a 32-year-old marine and sports promoter announced plans to sail a sabani from his home in Okinawa, Japan, to Beijing for the Olympics. Takuji Araki planned to have a crew of eight, including children (!) and to use no modern navigation equipment. (reference) I haven't heard anything about him or his project since -- did he do it?

The sabani is a traditional fishing boat native to the Japanese island of Okinawa. Dating back hundreds of years, the tradition of sabani building and use is still alive, thanks to two developments: newfound interest in racing them, and the adaptation of the form to accommodate an engine.

Sabani have a straight-sided, somewhat Bank-dory-like cross section, although with less flare. The stem is broad, and the stemhead is extraordinarily prominent, but it is the stern that is really distinctive. The hull narrows in aft of amidships in the normal fashion, but then flares again a few feet forward of the transom, making the boat appear fish-like in plan view. The transom is triangular, but not as narrow as a Bank dory's tombstone transom, and the load waterline is double-ended, or nearly so. They are quite narrow: I see a reference (here) to one with a length of 6.8 meters, beam of 1.3 meters, and depth of 47 cm. I'm not sure where the depth is measured, however. This appears to refer to a racing version, though, which might be narrower than the traditional working type. Modern, motorized versions apparently have the same length/beam ratio, but deeper draft. Like the Bank dory, the traditional sabani type has limited initial stability, but substantial secondary stability. (reference)

A motorized sabani

The bottom consists of a single, heavy plank, somewhat hollowed, dugout-fashion, and if a plank of sufficient length is unavailable, two or three sections may be joined end to end. The sides may consist of a single wide plank or two or three narrower ones. These are built up without metal fastenings, using a kind of keyed or dovetailed edge fastening similar to the method employed by the ancient Egyptians. Some appear to be lightly built, and others quite robust. They have the reputation of being fine sea boats.

Sabani are traditionally paddled or sailed with a fully battened lugsail. They are raced under paddle in a popular annual festival at Itoman, Okinawa, and in Hilo, Hawaii, which picked up the practice when it became a "sister city" to the city of Nago in Okinawa. A racing sabani carries single paddlers on the first and sixth thwarts, and two paddlers each on the second, third, fourth, and fifth. There is also a helmsman, presumably in the rear, although I see a reference to the helmsman in the bow (!) and a "standard bearer" in the stern on a seventh thwart. Perhaps the "helmsman" is really a coxswain only calling stroke? Racing sabani are sometimes referred to as "dragon boats," although they are quite different from Chinese dragon boats.

A racing sabani

In their traditional fishing role, they carried swimmers who would free dive to either spear fish or drag nets in shallow waters, and this is still practiced on a limited basis according to the video clip here: http://www.umikoubou.co.jp/bahari/htmls/media_e3.html

The postage stamp shows a traditional sabani, with Iejima or Ie island, off the northwest coast of Okinawa, in the background. Image from here.
The motorized sabani image from here.
The plan view from here.
Woodcut of sabani fishermen from here.