Traditional Japanese Fishing Boat Designs

[TonyH]

Does anyone know of a good, preferably even scholarly, reference book on this subject?

Thanks

Tony

[paladin]

Boats?...they dunno need no boats, they use Ukai!

[dmede]

Douglas Brooks has studied traditional boat building in Japan. He has written a few articles on the subject and buiult several traditional Japanese boats. I'm sure he knows the best references for you look up.

http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/

[Bill Perkins]

Harry Sucher devotes a solid chapter to them in his "Simplified Boatbuilding ; the V- bottom boat " .Chapter 20 is titled "Yamato Boats and Sampans ",with numerous plans and offsets .The Sampans are actually Hawaiian . He's pretty scholarly . Howard Chapelle wrote the forward and copies of the original drawings at true scale are available from the Smithsonian if you see something you like .

[Kaa]

That raises an interesting question: Japan is a bunch of islands and the life of the Japanese is intimately connected with the sea. Yet the Japanese boatbuilding seems kinda stunted, undeveloped -- no wide variety of designs, no interesting experiments, barely any oceangoing tradition.

Why is that?

Kaa

[bholderman]

This person at the Museum of underwater archaeology might be able to help you out:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/his/mua/project_journals/aj/aj_intro.shtml

[paladin]

The Japanese were not voyagers and didn't build boats until the portagee came. The polynesian canoes and other such island boats are vietnamese in origin from the delta area. The thai people and indigenous vietnamese are all descended from the chinese and the boatbuilding culture developed due to interactions with the original "polynesians" from the Vung Tao delta...... lotsa history there...and "sampan" translates into "three boards".

[TonyH]

Thanks Folks, some great leads there, which I will follow up. Once again, the Forum brings home the metaphorical bacon.

[TonyH]

Kaa, I think there may be more there than we give them credit for, it's just that we don't know much about it.

There were large Japanese fleets active in the northern waters of Australia in the 1930s, in the pearlshell fishing industry, for example.

[Kaa]

Kaa, I think there may be more there than we give them credit for, it's just that we don't know much about it.

Well, I don't know -- I tried looking online for Japanese boat designs and all I found was simple dory-like smallish boats for sculling or poling. Where are the Japanese sailboats? 30-footers, 40-footers, 60-footers?

Kaa

[ewan]

from the back of the brain cells.... i seem to remember that at the peak of its empire the japanese had as much shipping volume ( individual trips) in the pacific & south east asia alone as the rest of the world had combined. however, i believe all the ships were 'modern' and probably similar to british, dutch, american ships of the time.

[dmede]

Well, I don't know -- I tried looking online for Japanese boat designs and all I found was simple dory-like smallish boats for sculling or poling. Where are the Japanese sailboats? 30-footers, 40-footers, 60-footers?

Kaa

What you think the first people to populate Japan swam there?

And since when are large sailing vessels the only yardstick of a cultures "oceangoing tradition"? They have quite a range of traditional work boats. Most of them small and for near shore work, but I'm pretty sure thier development predates the Portuguese.

BTW, just looking online is not exactly an exhaustive search of the subject. :rolleyes:

[skuthorp]

Found a pic of a half model, providence obscure.
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=211582

[Kaa]

And since when are large sailing vessels the only yardstick of a cultures "oceangoing tradition"? They have quite a range of traditional work boats. Most of them small and for near shore work, but I'm pretty sure thier development predates the Portuguese.

Oh, there's no doubt that the Japanese had boats -- both for inshore fishing and for crossing the straits to China.

My question is -- why no large diversity of designs? Why no variety of sailboats of all sizes and rigs?

Is boatbuilding one of those areas where conscientious following of tradition stunted growth and development?

Kaa

[Wild Wassa]

Sado boats. #12 your time is up return to the shore immediately!


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid61/p2c949d06c92f48a766c0e3ed90b2b674/fc3caace.jpg


I have a few photographs of small boats in Japan. If these types of small boats are of interest to you Tony, I'll sort out what I have got.

Warren.

[Pericles]

Kaa,

" My question is -- why no large diversity of designs? Why no variety of sailboats of all sizes and rigs?

Is boatbuilding one of those areas where conscientious following of tradition stunted growth and development?"

The Japanese are of one race and of one mind set, hence no large diversity of design in boating tradition. However, their carpenters were and still are, world class. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RedSealShip.JPG

The diversity of boats are as a result of the rest of the world contributing over the centuries. Remember, the Vikings only gave us lapstrake construction and square sails. Not much diversity there. :D:D:D Latest news, Vikings have returned to Ireland. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6947453.stm

The modern era (Meiji) started in 1873. By 1895 the Japanese went to war with China and in 1904 they defeated and decimated the Imperial Russian Navy.

Dr John Chipman, director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Japan - China's historic enemy - is also quietly strengthening its navy, which will soon be larger than Britain's Royal Navy. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6937293.stm


If you are interested in Japanese history, Kaa, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

Dmede, the Japanese probably walked there. Seas were much lower.


The first signs of occupation on the Japanese archipelago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_archipelago) appeared with a Paleolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Paleolithic) culture around 30,000 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30th_millennium_BC), followed from around 10,000 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_millennium_BC) by a Mesolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesolithic) to Neolithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic) semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer) culture of pit dwelling and a rudimentary form of agriculture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture). Decorated clay vessels from this period, often with plaited patterns, are some of the oldest surviving examples of pottery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery) in the world.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan#_note-2)

Enjoy,

Pericles

[dmede]

Oh, there's no doubt that the Japanese had boats -- both for inshore fishing and for crossing the straits to China.

My question is -- why no large diversity of designs? Why no variety of sailboats of all sizes and rigs?

Is boatbuilding one of those areas where conscientious following of tradition stunted growth and development?

Kaa

Again, I don't agree with the idea that a small design diversity had anything to do with stunted growth and development. Quite the opposite, I beilve they refined thier designs and construction techniques to a great degree and that is where you see thier development in the field. Read some of what Douglas Brooks has written about the construction techniques and see if your not more impressed with how they build at least.

[dmede]

Pericles,

The people who crossed over the land connection would not have been “Japanese” of course, but whatever culture they came from. Japan likely has had many successive waves of cultural infusion from the nearby continents (from various cultural groups) and many of them would have come after the land connection receded into the ocean, via boat. But your right, the earliest people to settle what is now Japan probably walked (or rode horses) there.

http://inic.utexas.edu/asnic/countries/japan/originsofthejapanese.html
Though the evidence could be considered circumstantial, it is important because it establishes the likelihood that inter-island as well as continental contact reaches back to at least 30,000 B.C. and probably before as well. They surmise that the first inhabitants settled when the archipelago was still "attached" to the continent anywhere from 200,000 to 120,000 B.C., with increasing settlements caused by peoples (and species) fleeing continental glaciation (Pearson 1976a) even after the land was separated by rising seas. Pearson also states in a newly edited volume (1988)--one soon to become the new standard by which Japanese archaeology is measured--that regional and temporal variation in paleolithic technology aged 15,000 years old is well documented, and that from 14,000 years ago, microlithic tools became common. Furthermore, a kokeshi-like human effigy, found in Oita prefecture, has been dated to between 20-l5,000 years. With the northwestern tip of Hokkaido only 150 miles from the Siberian coast, the islands of Iki and Tsushima providing steppingstones between the Korean and Kyushu coasts, and with warm currents from the south seas passing close to the southeastern coast of Japan, it is not difficult to surmise a steady flow of outside cultural influences all through Japan's long prehistoric period.

[TonyH]

Hi Warren

I was actually looking for a broad overview rather than any type in particular. I find I am terribly ignorant about Japanese traditional watercraft design and construction, and my research into pearling lugger history has led me inexorably to the question of whether the Japanese introduced any design or construction features that are uniquely Japanese when they took over the lugger building trade (around the turn of the century in Thursday Island and rather later, after WW1, in Broome) from the western shipwrights in Sydney and Fremantle respectively. Certainly there were some differences that manifested themselves around those times, but I don't know whether they reflect traditional Japanese practices or were just expediencies forced by the extremely remote locations and the conditions of the pearlshelling industry. Hence my question - what were Japanese design and shipwrighting traditions? Bearing in mind that the luggers were substantial craft, 40 to 50 feet long and 10 to 20 tons gross.

Brad

Do you know if Michelle Damian is still at the MUA? I've sent her an email but not received a reply as yet.

Cheers

Tony

[Pericles]

TonyH,

This could be a good place to start.

In Japanese, the traditional boat is known as the wasen. Wa means "traditional Japanese thing" and sen is one suffix meaning boat or ship.

http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/japanese.html

Pericles