Indigenous Boats

A crooked-stern salt junk of Fowchow, from Worcester, G. (1941) Notes on the Crooked-bow and Crooked-stern Junks of Szechwan, following p.36. Among the most unusual Chinese watercraft are th...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2024/03/download-worcesters-crooked-junks-free.html

Bow typology of Chinese junks, from A Classification of the Principal Chinese Sea-going Junks by Worcester (1948). Continuing our series of free downloads of books about Asian watercraft, we ...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2024/01/classification-of-junks-by-worcester.html

  A river lifeboat, from Junks and Sampans of the Upper Yangtze (1940), by G.R.G. Worcester (Plate 9). Junks and Sampans of the Upper Yangtze by G.R.G. Worcester (1940, published by the Insp...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2024/01/worcesters-upper-yangstze-vessels-free.html

In October, I gave a presentation titled The Warrau Canoe and the Construction of Landscape at the first Early Watercraft Congress in Vila do Conde, Portugal. The presentation was derived from ...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-warrau-canoe-and-construction-of.html

Blocks and pulleys onVietnamese sailboats. From Sailboats of Indochina (Voiliers d'Indochine) by J. B. Piétri.  Thanks to a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous, I'm delighted to ...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/11/blocks-and-pulleys-on-vietnamese.html

Miao-Ch'uan boat, from Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, Vol. 2, G.R.G. Worcester Now available for free download is Volume 2 of G.R.G. Worcester's huge and detailed work, Junks and Sampan...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/09/download-volume-2-of-worcesters-junks.html

A skiff propelled by a yulow, or stern sculling oar. From Worcester, G.R.G., The Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, Vol.1 (1947). Now available for free download is G.R.G.Worcester's monument...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/09/download-grg-worcesters-junks-and.html

"Le Port de Saigon", from Jonques et Sampans, p.28 (of PDF)   Now available for free download is Jonques et Sampans  by Claude Farrère and Charles Fouqueray. The valuable, hand-paint...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/09/download-farrere-and-fouquerays-rare.html

Now available for free download is the Green Book of Coastal Vessels of Thailand , published in 1967 by a joint Thai-U.S. military research group as an identification guide and instruction manual...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/08/coastal-vessels-of-thailand-free-book.html

A Chinese ship shaped like a dragon. From L. Audemard, Les Jonques Chinoises, vol. 1, plate 29.  And the first shall be last. Now available for free download is the first volume of L. Aud...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/08/download-audemards-history-of-junk-free.html

Vietnamese "three plank canoe" (i.e., sampan) of stitched construction, used in shallow and rocky tributaries of the Mekong River. From Audemard, Les Jonques Chinoises, vol. 10, plate 42. No...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/08/boats-of-vietnam-and-chinas-east-coast.html

A duck hatchery boat. From Audemard, L., Les Jonques Chinoises, Vol. 6, Plate 76. See main text for further desription. Three more volumes of the series Les Jonques Chinoises, by L. Audema...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-duck-hatchery-boat.html

Crooked stern junk on the Yangtse River. Plate 30 from Les Jonques Chinoises, Vol. 5, Haut Yang Tse Kiang, by L. Audemard, 1963 Now available for free download are two more volumes of the se...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/07/crooked-stern-junk-on-yangtse-river.html

Decorative motifs on Chinese junks. From Les Jonques Chinoises, Vol. 3: Ornementation et Types by L. Audemard. Plate 60. Now available for free download is Les Jonques Chinoises, Vol. 3: Orn...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/07/decoration-of-chinese-junks-free.html

"Construction d'une jonque, Haute Yang tse", from Les Jonques Chinoises, Vol. 2: Construction de la Jonque  by L. Audemard  Thanks to a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous, I am ha...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2023/06/construction-of-chinese-junks-new.html

The Politics of the Canoe, edited by Bruce Erickson and Sarah Wylie Krotz, is a book of a different sort than that from which I normally obtain content for this blog or choose to review. A co...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2021/07/book-review-politics-of-canoe-bruce.html

There are strong but superficial similarities between The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of Northern Eurasia, a new book by Harri Luukkanen and William W. Fitzhugh, and the 1964 classic The Bark C...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2020/09/book-review-bark-canoes-and-skin-boats.html

Logboats are probably the best-known Amerindian watercraft in Guyana, but another boat type in common use – at least into the first half of the 20th century – is the bark canoe. Although ter...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2020/07/woodskin-canoes-of-guyana.html

This is the second in a series of posts on ancient boat iconography at the British Museum. The first post looked at ancient Egyptian boat models . (Click any image to enlarge.) Dating from ...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2020/04/boat-iconography-at-british-museum-2.html

When it comes to studying the earliest watercraft, direct archaeological evidence, in the form of artefactual boats and ships, is extremely rare and fragmentary. In contrast, the iconography of ...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2020/04/boat-iconography-at-british-museum-1.html

The papyrella built for the Exeter Maritime Museum, now held by the National Maritime Museum of Poland, photographed in Suffolk, England by Bob Holtzman (click any image to enlarge). Rafts...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2020/02/corfus-reed-raft-papyrella.html

(This post is slightly revised from a paper submitted for a class in Materials, Technology and Social Life at University of Southampton, 2018.) Referring to wooden tubs, buckets, flasks, and c...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2019/12/why-oak-material-choice-in-british-and.html

PERSISTENCE OF LOGBOATS IN LATIN AMERICA: A FRAMEWORK TO ASSESS PROSPECTS OF SURVIVAL (This essay is slightly modified from one written for a course in the maritime aspects of culture at Univers...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-survival-of-log-canoe.html

While investigating logboats in the Rio Napo drainage in Ecuador in June, I observed six log rafts within a few kilometers of each other – and no others elsewhere in the same drainage. I do...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2018/09/log-rafts-on-ecuadors-rio-napo.html

In June, I went searching for logboats along a portion of the drainage of the Rio Napo in el Oriente -- that part of Ecuador that lies to the east of the Andes Mountains. The Napo and all other ...

http://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-logboat-under-construction-in.html