IN no region of Art and Crafts
have the Chinese shown greater independence of thought
than in ship and boat building. The striking originality
which pervades their architecture, their painting, and
their life on shore, is even more characteristically
displayed by them afloat.
At the hands of Western travellers the
Chinese junk has received little but mockery and thinly
veiled contempt; the writer treats it with his smartest
ridicule, the artist in glaring caricature. Yet, examined
fairly, the only excuse for such treatment seems to lie
in the wide gulf which separates the thoughts and ideas
of the white and the yellow races, and makes it
apparently almost impossible for the one to come to any
true understanding of the other. As an engine for
carrying man and his commerce upon the high and stormy
seas, it is doubtful if any class of vessel is more
suited or better adapted to its purpose; and it is
certain that for flatness of sail and for handiness the
Chinese rig is unsurpassed.
WEST RIVER JUNK (FROM A CHINESE
OIL-DRAWING)
A most capable authority gives it as
his unhesitating opinion that the smaller South China
junks are 'the handiest vessels in the world.'
1
1 Captain C. C. P. FitzGerald R.N, in Boat Sailing
and Racing.
Until the America visited this
country, when modern flat-sail setting first asserted its
superiority, the Chinese were undeniably far ahead of all
other nations in their comprehension of the principles of
scientific fore-and-aft sailing.
The centreboard and leeboard have been
used in China, whether in the big Hainan junk or in the
humble sampan, from times antedating the visits of the
old Norse 'keeles' to these islands. When our forefathers
paddled along shore in open boats, the Chinaman sailed to
East Africa in five-masters.
HONG KONG
JUNK
We have seen the nineteenth-century
yachtsmen develop the overhang, which has culminated in a
Columbia : the Chinese have built fishing-boats on
this principle for a thousand years. In windlasses and
labour-saving appliances the Chinese appear to have been
always far ahead of the standard reached by European
nations until the last century.
Yet, curiously enough, while we have
worked out a whole history of naval architecture, ranging
from the coracle to the Celtic and the
Shamrock, the hardy Chinese sailors, true to the
conservatism of their race, have continued to weather the
typhoons of the stormiest of Eastern seas in craft which,
while they yield nothing in the matter of handiness or
weatherly qualities to the finest modern sailing-craft
developed by Western nations, have in all probability
scarcely altered in a single detail during that period,
or been improved by a single knot of speed.
AT
WUSUNG
In
things nautical the Chinese are the Dutchmen of the East.
Both peoples have a curious and distinctive love of bluff
lines, of bright varnish, of deck-houses, and of
pole-masts with long vanes above the truck. Both have an
enormous percentage of their populations directly
interested in water transport and trained to the handling
of sailing-craft. Both know better than their neighbours
the value of leeboards. If we were to continue the
parallel, we might say that both races wear wide
trousers, are expert gardeners, and are possessed of the
most unlimited supplies of perseverance and industry
known in their respective continents.
However fanciful the parallel may be,
the yachting visitor in Holland who has had experience of
the playfulness of his Chinese brother, may be most
forcibly, if not pleasantly, reminded of old times in the
East by the mud and stone-throwing propensities of the
young Hollander sportsmen among the genial waterside
population, this form of greeting being, as far as my
experience goes, strictly limited to Holland and
China.
AFTER A TYPHOON, OFF
SWATAU
It
would require years of careful observation and study to
give anything like a complete account of the infinite
varieties of craft which arc used by the Chinese to meet
the varying requirements of the vast floating population
dwelling along their widespread coasts and enormous
inland waterways. A few remarks may, however, suffice to
show that the Chinese junk, instead of being, as seems to
be commonly supposed, the most lubberly and cumbersome of
craft, is in reality, like the line-of-battle ship of
Nelson's later years, as perfect in its own way as it can
well be.
LEEBOARD BOAT, YANGTZE --
REEFED
The
observer must not be carried away by the peculiarities of
the superstructures usual in all the larger junks. They
are embellishments which add very greatly to the comfort
of life on board, but in no way affect the under-water
lines of the ship. A little observation will show that
the under-water body of the junk, especially in the
south, is generally very 'sweet,' and by no means far
removed from that of a corvette of eighty years ago. The
frequent absence of keel in the junk is, however, against
good work to windward. The deep rudder, which at sea is
lowered down the trunk by windlasses, and extends well
beneath the ship, and the forefoot or gripe,'which is
often extended under the bows, help considerably to hold
the vessel up to windward. A few hours spent watching the
daily crowd of junks beating through the Lymun Pass out
of Hong Kong harbour during the north-east monsoon, will
persuade the greatest unbeliever that for speed and set
of her sails the junk is not easily beaten; and a finer
sea picture not the Thames in Sea Reach can
show.
IN THE LYMUN PASS
The
Chinese sail is a balance-lug extended and stiffened by
battens, generally of bamboo, with a more or less rounded
leech. It is hoisted on a pole-mast often a very fine
spar, the halyard passing through a large double block on
the yard, and a treble block at the masthead. There is a
hauling parrel to the yard, which keeps it to the mast,
and helps to peak the sail when reefed. Each batten has
its own parrel round the mast, and its own single part
leading to the main sheet. There are various ways of
leading these sheets, one or two of which are here
illustrated, and they constitute the secret of the
flatness of set of the China sail. Double topping-lifts
on both sides of the sail form lazy lines, into which the
sail falls on being lowered for stowing or for reefing.
Reefing is thus simplicity itself; the halyard is let go,
and the weight of the sail and battens brings the sail
down into the topping-lifts; two or more battens are thus
bunched together along the boom, and nothing further is
necessary but to gather in the sheets. There is a
gathering line from the masthead to the boom abreast the
mast.
CHINA LUGSAIL, WITH
SHEET,
TOPPING LIFTS, AND PARRELS
BELOW:
SKIFF'S SHEETS
The luff of the sail is cut in various
ways. In the big single masted boats of the inland
waterways of the south and the neighbourhood of Canton,
the luff is cut so as to stand out a long way before the
mast as in the case of our Western dipping lugsail, thus
making a true balance-lug, and bringing the centre of
effort farther forward.
WINTER
QUARTERS
The moment the Chinaman goes to sea,
however, in common with all other blue-water sailors, he
appreciates the advantage of splitting up his sail area
into component parts which are more easily handled, and
are more convenient for bringing a vessel into stays and
paying her off in tacking.
The mainsail is reduced, and then
instead of the modern bowsprit and jib-headed staysails
of the West, he plants a foremast right up in the eyes,
with in most cases a considerable rake forward, reminding
one of the old Mediterranean trinchetto, *1* and sets a
large foresail upon it in the shape of another lug. The
mainsail in this case is cut with its luff straight up
and down the mast, while the foresail is generally so cut
that quite a third of its area, and even more than a
third of its length of boom, is before the
mast. >>Next
Part
*1* The <-> of the log of St. Paul's shipwreck, and
the artemon of the elder Seneca and others, which from
coins of the second, third, and fourth centuries appears
to have been raked over the bows, and to have been
generally adopted for running, wearing, and increasing
the general handiness of the old one-masted
ships.
In
things nautical the Chinese are the Dutchmen of the East.
Both peoples have a curious and distinctive love of bluff
lines, of bright varnish, of deck-houses, and of
pole-masts with long vanes above the truck. Both have an
enormous percentage of their populations directly
interested in water transport and trained to the handling
of sailing-craft. Both know better than their neighbours
the value of leeboards. If we were to continue the
parallel, we might say that both races wear wide
trousers, are expert gardeners, and are possessed of the
most unlimited supplies of perseverance and industry
known in their respective continents. 
It
would require years of careful observation and study to
give anything like a complete account of the infinite
varieties of craft which arc used by the Chinese to meet
the varying requirements of the vast floating population
dwelling along their widespread coasts and enormous
inland waterways. A few remarks may, however, suffice to
show that the Chinese junk, instead of being, as seems to
be commonly supposed, the most lubberly and cumbersome of
craft, is in reality, like the line-of-battle ship of
Nelson's later years, as perfect in its own way as it can
well be.
The
observer must not be carried away by the peculiarities of
the superstructures usual in all the larger junks. They
are embellishments which add very greatly to the comfort
of life on board, but in no way affect the under-water
lines of the ship. A little observation will show that
the under-water body of the junk, especially in the
south, is generally very 'sweet,' and by no means far
removed from that of a corvette of eighty years ago. The
frequent absence of keel in the junk is, however, against
good work to windward. The deep rudder, which at sea is
lowered down the trunk by windlasses, and extends well
beneath the ship, and the forefoot or gripe,'which is
often extended under the bows, help considerably to hold
the vessel up to windward. A few hours spent watching the
daily crowd of junks beating through the Lymun Pass out
of Hong Kong harbour during the north-east monsoon, will
persuade the greatest unbeliever that for speed and set
of her sails the junk is not easily beaten; and a finer
sea picture not the Thames in Sea Reach can
show.
The
Chinese sail is a balance-lug extended and stiffened by
battens, generally of bamboo, with a more or less rounded
leech. It is hoisted on a pole-mast often a very fine
spar, the halyard passing through a large double block on
the yard, and a treble block at the masthead. There is a
hauling parrel to the yard, which keeps it to the mast,
and helps to peak the sail when reefed. Each batten has
its own parrel round the mast, and its own single part
leading to the main sheet. There are various ways of
leading these sheets, one or two of which are here
illustrated, and they constitute the secret of the
flatness of set of the China sail. Double topping-lifts
on both sides of the sail form lazy lines, into which the
sail falls on being lowered for stowing or for reefing.
Reefing is thus simplicity itself; the halyard is let go,
and the weight of the sail and battens brings the sail
down into the topping-lifts; two or more battens are thus
bunched together along the boom, and nothing further is
necessary but to gather in the sheets. There is a
gathering line from the masthead to the boom abreast the
mast.
