Junk (ship)
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A junk from the 13th Century, Song
Dynasty
A junk
is a Chinese sailing
vessel. The English name comes from Javanese
djong (Malay: adjong), meaning 'ship' or 'large
vessel'.[1] Junks were
originally developed during the Han Dynasty
(220 BCE–200 CE) and further evolved to represent one of the most successful
ship types in history. This article is about the history of Junks. For modern
developments and sailing technique see Junk Rig.
[edit] Design
Junks
are efficient and sturdy ships that were traveling across oceans as early as
the 2nd
century CE.[citation needed] They
incorporated numerous technical advances in sail plan and hull designs that were later adopted in Western shipbuilding.
The
historian H. Warington Smyth
considered the junk one of the most efficient ship designs:
"As an engine for carrying man and
his commerce upon the high and stormy seas as well as on the vast inland
waterways, it is doubtful if any class of vessel is more suited or better
adapted to its purpose than the Chinese or Indian junk, and it is certain that
for flatness of sail and handiness, the Chinese rig is unsurpassed." (H. Warington Smith) [3]
[edit] Sail plan
A two-masted Chinese junk ship, from the Tiangong Kaiwu of Song
Yingxing, published in 1637.
The
structure and flexibility of junk sails make the junk easy to sail, and fast. Unlike a
traditional square
rigged ship the sails of a junk can be moved inward, toward the long axis
of the ship, allowing the junk to sail into the wind.
The sails include several
horizontal members ("battens") which provide shape and strength. Junk sails
are controlled at their trailing edge by lines much in the same way as the
mainsail on a typical sailboat, however in the junk sail each batten has a line
attached to its trailing edge where on a typical sailboat this line (the sheet)
is attached only to the boom. The sails can also be easily reefed and adjusted
for fullness, to accommodate various wind strengths. The battens also make the
sails more resistant than traditional sails to large tears, as a tear is
typically limited to a single "panel" between battens. Junk sails
have much in common with the most aerodynamically efficient sails used today in
windsurfers
or catamarans,
although their design can be traced back as early the 3rd century CE.
The
standing rigging
is simple or absent.
The sail-plan is
also spread out between multiple masts, allowing for a powerful sail surface,
and a good repartition of efforts. The rig allows for good sailing into the
wind.
Flags
were also hung from the masts to bring good luck to the sailors on board. A
legend among the Chinese during the junk's heyday regarded a dragon which lived
in the clouds. It was said that when the dragon became angry, it created
typhoons and storms. Bright flags, with Chinese writing on them, were said to
please the dragon. Red was the best color, as it would make the dragon likely
to help the sailors.
[edit] Hull design
Classic
junks were built of softwoods (though in Guangdong in teak) with multiple
compartments accessed by separate hatches and ladders: similar in structure to
the interior stem of bamboo. The largest junks were built for world exploration
in the 1400s, and
were around 120 (400+ feet) meters in length. (See Zheng He)
[edit] Rudders
The world's oldest depiction of a rudder. Pottery model of
a junk, 1st
Century of the Common Era. Guangzhou
National Museum (drawing).
Junks
employed stern-mounted rudders centuries before their adoption in the West. Though
the rudder, origin, form and construction was completely different. It was an
innovation which permitted the steering of large, high-freeboard
ships, and its well-balanced design allowed adjustment according to the depth
of the water. A sizable junk can have a rudder that needs up to three members
of the crew to control in strong weather. The world's oldest known depiction of
a stern-mounted rudder can be seen on a pottery model of a junk dating from the
100s CE, though some scholars think this may be a steering oar - a possible
interpretation given that the model is of a river boat that was probably towed
or poled. By contrast, the West's oldest known stern-mounted rudder can be
found on church carvings dating to around 1180 CE. [citation needed]
Also,
from sometime in the 13th-15th centuries many junks incorporated
"fenestrated rudders" (rudders with holes in them), an innovation
adopted in the West in 1901
to decrease the vulnerability of torpedo
boat's rudders when manoeuvering at high speed. Likewise, the Chinese
discovery was probably adopted to lessen the force needed to direct the
steering of the rudder.
The
rudder is reported to be the strongest part of the junk. In the Tiangong
Kaiwu "Exploitation of the Works of Nature" (1637), Song
Yingxing wrote, "The rudder-post is made of elm, or else of langmu
or of zhumu." The Ming author also applauds the strength of the langmu
wood as "if one could use a single silk thread to hoist a thousand jun
or sustain the weight of a mountain landslide."
[edit] Separate compartments
Another
characteristic of junks, interior compartments, allowed reinforced ship
structure and reduced the rapidity of flooding
in case of holing. Ships built in this manner were written of in Zhu
Yu's book Pingzhou Table Talks, published by 1119 AD during the Song Dynasty.[2] Again, this
type of construction for Chinese ship hulls was attested to by the Moroccan Muslim Berber
traveler Ibn
Batutta (1304-1377 AD), who described
it in great detail (refer to Technology of the Song Dynasty).[3] Although some
historians have questioned whether the compartments were watertight, most
believe that watertight compartments did exist in Chinese
junks. All wrecks discovered so far have limber holes; these are located only
in the foremost and aftermost compartments.
Benjamin
Franklin wrote in a 1787
letter on the project of mail packets between the United
States and France:
"As these vessels are not to be laden with
goods, their holds may without inconvenience be divided into separate
apartments, after the Chinese manner, and each of these apartments caulked
tight so as to keep out water" (Benjamin Franklin, 1787).
In 1795, Sir Samuel
Bentham, inspector of dockyards of the Royal Navy,
and designer of six new sailing ships, argued for the adoption of
"partitions contributing to strength, and securing the ship against
foundering, as practiced by the Chinese of the present day". His idea was
not adopted. Bentham had been in China in 1782, and he acknowledged that he had
got the idea of watertight compartments by looking at Chinese junks there.
Bentham was a friend of Isambard Brunel, so it is possible that he
had some influence on Brunel's adoption of longitudinal, strengthening
bulkheads in the lower deck of the SS
Great Britain.
Due to
the numerous foreign primary sources that hint to the existence of true
watertight compartments in junks, historians such as Joseph
Needham proposed that the limber holes were stopped up during leakage. He
addresses this issue in pg 422 of Science and Civilisation in Ancient China:
Less well known is the interesting fact that in some types of Chinese craft the foremost(and less frequently also the aftermost) compartments is made free-flooding. Holes are purposely contrived in the planking. This is the case with the salt-boats which shoot the rapids down from Tzuliuching in Szechuan, the gondola-shaped boats of the Poyang Lake, and many sea going junks. The Szechuanese boatmen say that this reduces resistance to the water to a minimum, and the device must certainly cushion the shocks of pounding when the boat pitches heavily in the rapids, for she acquires and discharges water ballast rapidly just at the time when it is most desirable to counteract buffeting at stem and stern. The sailors say that it stops junks flying up into the wind. It may be the reality at the bottom of the following story, related by Liu Ching-Shu of the +5th century, in his book I Yuan (Garden of Strange Things):
In Fu-Nan (Cambodia) gold is always used in transactions. Once there were (some people who) having hired a boat to go from east to west near and far, had not reached their destination when the time came for the payment of the pound (of gold) which had been agreed upon. They therefore wished to reduce the quantity (to be paid). The master of the ship then played a trick upon them. He made (as it were) a way for the water to enter the bottom of the boat, which seemed to be about to sink, and remained stationary, moving neither forward nor backward. All the passengers were very frightened and came to make offerings. The boat (afterwards) returned to its original state.
This, however, would seem to have involved openings which could be controlled, and the water pumped out afterwards. This was easily effected in China (still seen in Kuangtung and Hong Kong), but the practice was also known in England, where the compartment was called the 'wet-well', and the boat in which it was built, a 'well-smack'. If the tradition is right that such boats date in Europe from +1712 then it may well be that the Chinese bulkhead principle was introduced twice, first for small coastal fishing boats at the end of the seventeenth century, and then for large ships a century later.
[edit] Leeboards &
centerboards
Leeboards and centerboards,
used to stabilize the junk and to improve its capability to sail upwind are
documented from a 759 AD book by Li Chuan, an innovation adopted by Portuguese and Dutch
ships around 1570. [citation needed]
Other
innovations included the square-pallet bilge pump, which
were adopted by the West during the 16th
century. Junks also relied on the compass for
navigational purposes.
[edit] History
The
first records of junks can be found in references dating to Han Dynasty
(220 BCE-200 CE).
[edit] 2nd century junks
(Han Dynasty)
The
3rd century book "Strange Things of the South" (南啞異物志)
by Wan Chen (萬震) describes junks capable of carrying 700
people together with 260 tons of cargo ("more than 10,000 "斛").
He explains the ship's design as follows:
"The four sails do not face directly
forward, but are set obliquely, and so arranged that they can all be fixed in
the same direction, to receive the wind and to spill it. Those sails which are
behind the most windward one receiving the pressure of the wind, throw it from
one to the other, so that they all profit from its force. If it is violent,
(the sailors) diminish or augment the surface of the sails according to the
conditions. This oblique rig, which permits the sails to receive from one
another the breath of the wind, obviates the anxiety attendant upon having high
masts. Thus these ships sail without avoiding strong winds and dashing waves,
by the aid of which they can make great speed" ("Strange
Things of the South", Wan Chen, from Robert Temple).
A 260 CE book by Kang Tai (底泰) also described ships with seven masts,
traveling as far as Syria.
[edit] 10th-13th century
junks (Song Dynasty)
The
great trading dynasty of the Song employed junks extensively. The naval
strength of the Song, both mercantile and military, became the backbone of the
naval power of the following Yuan dynasty. In particular the Mongol invasions of Japan (1274-1284), as
well as the Mongol invasion of Java essentially relied on recently acquired
Song naval capabilities. The ship to the right's dimensions are 360'x 110'x
120'.
[edit] 14th century
junks (Yuan Dynasty)
The
enormous dimensions of the Chinese ships of the Medieval period are described
in Chinese sources, and are confirmed by Western travelers to the East, such as
Marco Polo,
Ibn
Battuta and Niccolò da Conti. According to Ibn Battuta, who
visited China in 1347:
A 15th century Ming Dynasty junk, Fengzhou.
... We stopped in the port of Calicut, in which
there were at the time thirteen Chinese vessels, and disembarked. On the China Sea
traveling is done in Chinese ships only, so we shall describe their
arrangements. The Chinese vessels are of three kinds; large ships called chunks (junks), middle sized ones called zaws
(dhows) and the
small ones kakams. The large ships have anything from twelve down to three
sails, which are made of bamboo rods plaited into mats. They are never lowered, but
turned according to the direction of the wind; at anchor they are left floating
in the wind.
A ship carries a complement of a thousand
men, six hundred of whom are sailors and four hundred men-at-arms, including
archers, men with shields and crossbows, who throw naphtha. Three
smaller ones, the "half", the "third" and the
"quarter", accompany each large vessel. These vessels are built in
the towns of Zaytun
(a.k.a Zaitun; today's Quanzhou; 刺桐) and Sin-Kalan. The vessel has four
decks and contains rooms, cabins, and saloons for merchants; a cabin has chambers
and a lavatory, and can be locked by its occupants.
This is the manner after which they are
made; two (parallel) walls
of very thick wooden (planking) are raised and across the space between
them are placed very thick planks (the bulkheads) secured longitudinally
and transversely by means of large nails, each three ells in length. When these
walls have thus been built the lower deck is fitted in and the ship is launched
before the upper works are finished. (Ibn Battuta).
[edit] 15th-17th century
junks (Ming Dynasty)
[edit] Expedition of
Zheng He
The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are
disputed. |
Early 17th century Chinese woodblock
print, thought to represent Zheng He's ships.
The
largest junks ever built were probably those of Admiral Zheng He, for
his expeditions in the Indian Ocean. According to Chinese sources, the fleet
comprised 30,000 men and over 300 ships at its height. [citation needed]
The 1405 expedition
consisted of 27,000 men and 317 ships. The dimensions of the Zheng He's ships
according to ancient Chinese chronicles and disputed by modern scholars (see
below):
- "Treasure
ships",
used by the commander of the fleet and his deputies (Nine-masted junks,
about 400 feet long and 160 feet wide).
- "Horse ships", carrying tribute goods and repair
material for the fleet (Eight-masted junks, about 339 feet long and 138
feet wide)
- "Supply ships", containing food-staple for the crew
(Seven-masted junks, about 257 feet long and 115 feet wide).
- "Troop transports" (Six-masted junks, about 220 feet
long and 83 feet wide).
- "Fuchuan warships" (Five-masted junks, about 165 feet
long).
- "Patrol boats" (Eight-oared, about 120 feet long).
- "Water tankers", with 1 month supply of fresh water
and sustainability.
Recent
research, however, suggests that the actual length of the biggest treasure
ships may have rather lain between 59 m and 84 m.[4]
[edit] Accounts of
medieval travellers
Niccolò da Conti in his relations of his travels
in Asia between 1419
and 1444,
matter-of-factly describes huge junks of about 2,000 tons:
They make ships larger than ours, about
2,000 tons in size, with five sails and as many masts. The lower part is made
of three decks, so as to better resist storms, which occur frequently. These
ships are separated into several compartments, so that if one is touched during
a storm, the others remain intact." (Niccolò da Conti)[5]
Also,
in 1456, the Fra Mauro map described the presence of junks in the
Indian Ocean as well as their construction:
"The ships called junks (lit.
"Zonchi") that navigate these seas carry four masts or more, some of
which can be raised or lowered, and have 40 to 60 cabins for the merchants and
only one tiller. They can navigate without a compass, because
they have an astrologer, who stands on the side and, with an astrolabe in
hand, gives orders to the navigator." (Text from the Fra Mauro map,
09-P25.)[6]
Fra
Mauro further explains that one of these junks rounded the Cape
of Good Hope and travelled far into the Atlantic
Ocean, in 1420:
Detail of the Fra Mauro Map relating the travels of a junk
into the Atlantic Ocean in 1420. The ship also is illustrated above the text.
"About the year of Our Lord 1420 a ship, what
is called an Asian junk (lit. "Zoncho de India"), on a
crossing of the Sea of India towards the "Isle of Men and Women", was
diverted beyond the "Cape of Diab" (Shown as the Cape
of Good Hope on the map), through the "Green Isles" (lit.
"isole uerde", Cabo Verde Islands), out into the "Sea of
Darkness" (Atlantic Ocean) on a way west and southwest. Nothing
but air and water was seen for 40 days and by their reckoning they ran 2,000
miles and fortune deserted them. When the stress of the weather had subsided
they made the return to the said "Cape of Diab" in 70 days and
drawing near to the shore to supply their wants the sailors saw the egg of a
bird called roc, which
egg is as big as an amphora." (Text from Fra Mauro map, 10-A13.)[7]
[edit] Asian trade
Chinese
junks were used extensively in Asian trade during the 16th and 17th century,
especially to Japan, where they competed with Japanese Red
Seal Ships, Portuguese carracks and Dutch galleons, and
to Southeast Asia. Richard Cocks, the head of the English trading
factory in Hirado,
Japan, recorded
that 50 to 60 Chinese junks visited Nagasaki in 1612 alone.
These
junks were usually three masted, and averaging between 200 and 800 tons in
size, the largest ones having around 130 sailors, 130 traders and sometimes
hundreds of passengers.
[edit] 19th century
junks (Qing Dynasty)
Junk Keying travelled from China to the United States
and England between 1846 to 1848.
Junks
remained considerable in size and played a key role in Asian trade until the
19th century. One of these junks, Keying,
sailed from China
around the Cape of Good Hope to the United
States and England
between 1846 and 1848.
[edit] 20th century junks
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help is available.
This section has been tagged since December 2006.
In
1955, six young men sailed an old Chinese junk from Taiwan to San Francisco.
The four month journey aboard the "Free China" was captured on film
and their arrival into San Francisco made international front-page news. The
five Chinese-born friends saw an advertisement for an international
trans-Atlantic yacht race, and jumped at the opportunity for adventure. They
were joined by the then US Vice-Consul to Taiwan, who was credited with
capturing the courageous journey on film.
In
1968, Bill King sailed a junk schooner in the controversial Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ The word came into English from both Portuguese junco and Dutch
jonk. The Chinese name for a junk is either 中国帆船 (pinyin:
Zhōngguó fānchuán, lit. 'Chinese clipper') or 戎克船 (róngkè chuán, lit.
'battleship'). The character 船 (chuán) may be the
origin of the word 'junk', from the Min Nan
(Hokkien) pronunciation, chun5.
- Oxford English Dictionary junk,
n.³ (restricted)
- Dictionary.com
junk
- Wiktionary
junk
and 船
- Chinese Character
Dictionary: 船
- ^ Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 463.
- ^ Needham, Volume 4, Part 3, 469.
- ^ Sally K. Church: The
Colossal Ships of Zheng He: Image or Reality ? (p.155-176) Zheng He;
Images & Perceptions In: South China and Maritime Asia , Volume 15,
Hrsg: Ptak, Roderich /Höllmann Thomas, O. Harrasowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden,
(2005)
- ^ Niccolò da Conti, "Le
Voyage aux Indes"
- ^ Fra Mauro map, 09-P25 original
Italian: "Le naue ouer çonchi che nauegano questo mar portano quatro
albori e, oltra de questi, do' che se può meter e leuar et ha da 40 in 60
camerele per i marchadanti e portano uno solo timon; le qual nauega sença
bossolo, perché i portano uno astrologo el qual sta in alto e separato e
con l'astrolabio in man d ordene al nauegar" [1])
- ^ Text from Fra Mauro map,
10-A13 , original Italian: "Circa hi ani del Signor 1420 una naue
ouer çoncho de india discorse per una trauersa per el mar de india a la
uia de le isole de hi homeni e de le done de fuora dal cauo de diab e tra
le isole uerde e le oscuritade a la uia de ponente e de garbin per 40
çornade, non trouando mai altro che aiere e aqua, e per suo arbitrio
iscorse 2000 mia e declinata la fortuna i fece suo retorno in çorni 70
fina al sopradito cauo de diab. E acostandose la naue a le riue per suo
bisogno, i marinari uedeno uno ouo de uno oselo nominato chrocho, el qual
ouo era de la grandeça de una bota d'anfora." [2])
[edit] References
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science
and Civilization in China, Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part
3, Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
[edit] External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
- World of
Boats at Eyemouth ~ Keying II Hong Kong Junk
- "The
Chinese Sail" by Brian Platt, an article on the history and
design of junks.
- Gavin Menzies' discredited book and website -
1421, the year China discovered the world
- China Seas Voyaging Society
- Junk Sail
Tutorial, how to design and build your own junk sail (includes historical
photos and contemporary commercial yacht designs).
[edit] References
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