wooden boats of vietnam

[RonW]

http://www.vietnamboats.org/

Lots of interesting wooden boat pictures, some unique designs to say the least. Even a demonstration of a sewn plank boat.

[imported_Steven Bauer]

That sewn boat is so cool! Check out the bottom scarph:

http://www.vietnamboats.org/bb5.jpg http://www.vietnamboats.org/bbb15.jpg

[mmd]

It sure would be nice if part of their mission was to measure & document representative boats of each major type, as Chapelle did for American saling craft. The Norwegians did a similar project in the 'seventies and produced a book on the various types of indiginous craft that was very interesting.

[nedL]

Some wonderful documentation! Amazing the way they stitch a boat together the way it was done a thousand or more years ago. :cool:

[DerekW]

Michael,

Is that 'Norwegian traditional sailing craft' book available still? at moderate cost?

yeah, I have these occasional tendencies towards irrational optimism....

cheers
Derek

[mmd]

Derek, it was on one of my professor's bookshelves in university twenty-five years ago. Haven't seen one since, and don't even recall the title. I'd probably recognize the cover if I saw one, though.

[RonW]

The inland river boats of countries like vietnam- thailand-india-africa-south america, have very high beam to length ratios. You can see documentaries of the amazon, with these guys having boats with approx. 5 foot beams and maybe 25 to 30 feet long with a 25 or 30 horse outboard moving right along. And that is with 4 or 6 people and a half ton of equipment. Yet here we classify a river boat as a john boat or garvey that is 8 feet wide and 16 feet long. Big difference.

http://www.vietnamboats.org/Photos/PGameTraSuLotus.jpg

[Stiletto]

Nice looking planks too.

[johnw]

There's a kit boat I'd like to see.

[ahp]

There is a brief description of South East Asian boats in "The Ship", by Bjorn Landstrom,Doubleday and Co., Garden City NY, 1961, p 216. It has some beautiful renderings.

I recall that some of these boats were built with plank sides but basket weave bottoms, covered with tar. The reason was that they had to cross a bar, and they would ground and pound a few times each time they crossed. The basket weave flexed and stayed tight.

[Lucky Luke]

The method described on this site, comparable to the modern "stich and glue" is no more used nowadays. It is very nice that a group of people have had one build, since there are very few left...and decaying.

The same construction technique was used in Southern India, and was common in Pondichery, unlike what is said on this site that it is found exclusively in Vietnam.

Concerning the documentation available about traditional boatbuilding in Vietnam, extensive studies have been carried during the French colonial period. Mr. Pietri, in particular, wrote a big book, with a lot of detail drawings, which is still the reference about boat building in Vietnam. There are no photos, alas.

Traditional construction continues nowadays, excepted for a few techniques like the one cited hereabove. The woven bamboo bottom is still used, and has many advantages, not only for going over a bar: it is very cheap and resistant to worms.

There are still some sailing boats around the famous "Ha-Long bay", but they hardly ever move, so....

Steel and - of course - GRP are more and more favoured by fishermen and transporters alike, but wooden boats remain the vast majority. 50 tons cargo capacity barges (wrongly called "junks"), 100 years old or more are seen everywhere, as well as a lot of crafts of all sizes and purposes. I have never seen any place with such a concentration of (wooden) boats as the Mekong delta. Fishing harbors receive fleets of hundreds of craft, and that along the 2000 miles long coast of VN.

Besides that, some replicas of traditional junks have been build. The beautiful 30m. junk "Song Saigon" sank - alas - in the mediterranean while cruising to France: certainely the only junk that ever sailed there..! An other one reached La Rochelle a few years ago.

Mr. Visser builds cute (European - traditionnal looking) launches (one will be showed at next "Hishwa"), with stainless steel bottom and frames, and mahogany planked topsides, and all that's visible.

Wooden boat construction in Vietnam is going strong!

[ 02-01-2005, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Lucky Luke ]

[diggergilks]

Boy, do these pictures bring back memories. We saw every kind of Vietnamese boat when we were partroling on the Mekong River. The people who lived in the "delta" were truely a boat culture and their boats were an intergral part of their daily lives. I will never forget watching the husbands and wives fishing along the shores just at sunrise. He would stand on the bow of a 14 - 16 foot boat throwing the cast net and she would be standing at the stern leaning into the oars. The oarlocks stuck up from the gunwales and I think the oars had some kind of "T" handles at the grips. I also believe they rowed cross handed. She would row facing forward, pushing their boat along while he would launch the white cast net out over the water and retrieve it...again and again. Kind of a timeless ballet. Two people working together to eak out their living from the Mother Mekong, and their litte boat was the key. The women wore white and we would see them through our starlite scopes just before sunup silently gliding along the banks and picking small fish out of the net.

[Lucky Luke]

You are all right in your memories: most of the time, it is the woman who manoeuvers the boat, while the man throws the net.They row standing up, facing forward, crossed oars. There are small "T" handles on the oars: these are for two purposes: since they don't take up the oars out of the water, they do a kind of "skulling", for which they use the handles. The other way to use them is with their feet: they seat down, facing forward, leaning comfortably back, and "paddle" with the oars. Very efficient.
I tell you: rowing "backwards" is a real incongruity for them....and, after trying their way: for me too tongue.gif
Yes, I too love the Mekong delta: such a lively place, so many cute childen that say "hello" all the time, bathing naked in thet murcky water, the beautiful ladies in their "Ao dai" walking across the "monkey passerelles" when coming back from school (...after what they change for "Britney Spears" like modern girl fashion and go around on their Honda... identical looking cute youngsters all round the world, it seems... smile.gif )
Your memories seem to have kept you fond of Vietnam: they are right.
Come on here again, they will revive in full for what you have kept in yourself of beauty about this country.

[ 02-01-2005, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: Lucky Luke ]

[diggergilks]

Hello Lucky Luke,
Nice to hear from you and to know that my memories of boats on the Mekong are still clear. You're right, the Mekong Delta is a beautiful part of the world and so are it's boat people. We have nothing here in the USA to compare with the boating villages and markets so common in Vietnam. I remember how whole families lived aboard their boats and the laundry would be drapped on the deck drying in the sun. I also remember the children. Even though they seemed so small and so young they would be busy steering or rowing. The US Coast Guard would be appaled at how the Vietnamse would overload their small boats with passengers or cargo. I've seen them put up sideboards and fill a small boat to overflowing with rice and then head for the market. Everywhere you went on the river and in the canals there were hundreds of small wooden boats. They were so common they just blended into the landscape and we didn't give them a second thought. Now years later maybe we can appreciate their technology and tradition which has been passed through generations and has resulted in so many different craft uniquely suited to the environment and the needs of the people.

Randy