Traditional fishing boat
Traditionally, many different kinds of boats have been used as fishing boats to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Even today, many traditional fishing boats are still in use. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), at the end of 2004, the world fishing fleet consisted of about 4 million vessels, of which 2.7 million were undecked (open) boats. While nearly all decked vessels were mechanised, only one-third of the undecked fishing boats were powered, usually with outboard engines. The remaining 1.8 million boats were traditional craft of various types, operated by sail and oars.[1]
This article is about the boats used for fishing that are or were built from designs that existed before engines became available.
Early fishing vessels included rafts, dugout canoes, reed boats, and boats constructed from a frame covered with hide or tree bark, such as coracles.[2] The oldest boats found by archaeological excavation are dugout canoes dating back to the Neolithic Period around 7,000-9,000 years ago. These canoes were often cut from coniferous tree logs, using simple stone tools.[2][3] A 7000-year-old sea going boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait.[4] These early vessels had limited capability; they could float and move on water, but were not suitable for use any great distance from the shoreline. They were used mainly for fishing and hunting.
The development of fishing boats took place in parallel with the development of boats built for trade and war. Early navigators began to use animal skins or woven fabrics for sails. Affixed to a pole set upright in the boat, these sails gave early boats more range, allowing voyages of exploration
According to the FAO, at the end of 2004, the world fishing fleet included 1.8 million traditional craft of various types which were operated by sail and oars.[5] These figures for small fishing vessels are probably under reported. The FAO compiles these figures largely from national registers. These records often omit smaller boats where registration is not required or where fishing licences are granted by provincial or municipal authorities.[5] Indonesia reportedly has about 700,000 current fishing boats, 25 percent of which are dugout canoes, and half of which are without motors.[6] The Philippines have reported a similar number of small fishing boats.
Traditional fishing boats are usually characteristic of the stretch of coast along which they operate. They evolve over time to meet the local conditions, such as the materials available locally for boat building, the type of sea conditions the boats will encounter, and the demands of the local fisheries.
Artisan fishing is small-scale commercial or subsistence fishing, particularly practices involving coastal or island ethnic groups using traditional fishing techniques and traditional boats. This may also include heritage groups involved in customary fishing practices. Artisan fishers usually use small traditional fishing boats that are open (undecked) and have sails; these boats use little to no mechanised or electronic gear. Large numbers of artisan fishing boats are still in use, particularly in developing countries with long productive marine coastlines.
Coracles are light boats shaped like a bowl, typically with a frame of woven grass or reeds, or strong saplings covered with animal hides.[14] The keel-less, flat bottom evenly spreads the weight across the structure reducing the required depth of water often to only a few inches. Coracles have been used, and to a degree are still used, in India, Vietnam, Iraq, Tibet, North America and Britain.[15]
Coracles in Iraq are called "quffa." Their history goes back to antiquity where they appear on Assyrian-era reliefs sculpted between 600 and 900 BC. These reliefs are now in the British Museum. Herodotus visited Babylon in the 5th century BC, and wrote a long description of the coracles he encountered there. Traditionally, quffa were framed with willow or juniper and covered with hides or reeds. The outside was then coated with hot bitumen for waterproofing, although the inside could also be coated for larger vessels. These coracles have been in continuous use on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, particularly around Baghdad, through the 1970s. Some of the Iraqi coracles are very large, with the largest reaching up to 5.5 metres (18 ft) in diameter and being able to carry up to 5 tons.[16]
Coracles are known to have been in use in Britain in 49 BC when Julius Caesar encountered them.[17] They are still used in Wales, where they were traditionally framed with split and interwoven willow rods, tied with willow bark. The outer layer was an animal skin, such as horse or bullock hide, with a thin layer of tar for waterproofing. Today tarred calico or canvas, or simply fiberglass can be used.[18][19] Different Welsh rivers have their own designs, tailored to the flow of the river. The Teifi coracle, for instance, is flat-bottomed, as it is designed to negotiate shallow rapids, common on the river in the summer, while the Carmarthen coracle is rounder and deeper, because it is used in tidal waters on the Tywi, where there are no rapids.[20]
Coracles can be effective fishing vessels. When operated skilfully, they hardly disturb the water or the fish. Welsh coracle fishing is performed by two men, each seated in his coracle and with one hand holding the net while with the other he plies his paddle. When a fish is caught, each hauls up his end of the net until the two coracles touch and the fish are secured. Many coracles are so light and portable that they can easily be carried on the fisherman's shoulders.
In North America, American Indians and frontiersmen made coracles, called bull boats, by covering a willow frame with buffalo hide. The buffalo hair was left on the hide because it inhibited the craft from spinning, and the tails were also left intact and used to tie bull boats together.[21]
Indian coracles commonly operate on the rivers Kaveri and Tungabhadra in Southern India.[22] The smaller ones are about 6.2 feet (1.9 metres) in diameter, and are used primarily for fishing. Indian coracles have been used since prehistoric times.[14]
In Tibet, coracles, used for fishing and ferrying people, are made by stretching yak hide over juniper frames, and fastened with leather thongs. They are shaped like the Iraq coracles. Yack butter is used for waterproofing. Again, different rivers have their own designs. Sometimes two coracles are strapped together for added stability.[23][24]
In Vietnam, elegant coracles constructed with bamboo, are still used from many beaches, such as at Nha Trang, Phan Thiết and Mui Ne. The coracles are towed in a line behind a motor boat, like beads on a string, to their fishing ground. There the fisherman lay fishing nets in the sea. Later, another tow returns the coracle fishermen to the beach with their catch.
Ancient British dugout canoe
North American birch-bark canoe
Split log fishing canoe in India
A canoe is a small narrow boat, usually pointed at both bow and stern and normally open on top, though they can be covered. A dugout is a canoe hollowed from a tree trunk. The oldest known canoe is the dugout Pesse canoe found in the Netherlands.[25] According to C14 dating analysis it was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 BC.[25] This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands. Another dugout, almost as old, has been found at Noyen-sur-Seine.[26] The oldest known canoe found in Africa is the Dufuna canoe, constructed about 6000 BC. It was discovered by Fulani herdsman in Nigeria in 1987.[27]
During the Iron Age residents of Great Britain used dugouts for fishing and transport. Two ancient dugouts discovered in Newport, Shropshire are on display at Harper Adams University in Newport. In 1964, a dugout was uncovered in Poole Harbour, Dorset. The Poole Logboat, dated to 300 BC, was large enough to accommodate 18 people and was constructed from a large oak tree.
Best known are the canoes of the Eastern North American Indians. These, often elegant canoes, were not dugouts, but were made of a wooden frame covered with bark of a birch tree, pitched to make it waterproof.[28]
Typically canoes are propelled with paddles, often by two people. Paddlers face in the direction of travel, either seated on supports in the hull, or kneeling directly upon the hull. Paddles can be single-bladed or double-bladed.
A pirogue is a small, flat-bottomed boat of a design associated particularly with West African fishermen[29] and the Cajuns of the Louisiana marsh. These are usually dugouts, and are light and small enough to be easily taken onto land. The design allows the pirogue to move through the very shallow water of marshes and be easily turned over to drain any water that may get into the boat. The pirogue is usually propelled by paddles with one blade. It can also be punted with a push pole in shallow water. Small sails can also be used. Outboard motors are increasingly being used in many regions.
The log canoe of Chesapeake Bay is in the modern sense not a canoe at all, though it evolved through the enlargement of dugout canoes.
For stability in rougher waters, canoes can be fitted with outriggers. One or two small logs are mounted parallel to the main hull by long poles. In the case of two outriggers, one is mounted to either side of the hull. These are called outrigger canoes.
Many of the fishing boats in Indonesia and the Philippines are double-outrigger craft, consisting of a narrow main hull with two attached outriggers, commonly known as jukung in Indonesia and banca in the Philippines.[30]
The jukung is of Balinese origin, one of many genre of Pacific/Asian outrigger canoes. The considerable stability provided by the outriggers means that the jukung copes well with a lateen (triangular) sail. While the lateen sail presents some difficulties in tacking into the wind, requiring a jibe, the jukung is superb in its reaching ability and jybe-safe running. They are usually highly decorated and bear a marlin-like prow.
A traditional catamaran consists of two canoes, or vakas, joined by a frame, formed of akas. Catamarans were used by the ancient Tamil Chola dynasty as early as the 5th century AD for moving their invasion fleets. Since then, they have been widely used for fishing in South East Asia and Polynesia.
Kayaks are generally differentiated from canoes by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. In a kayak the paddler faces forward, legs in front, using a double bladed paddle. In a canoe the paddler faces forward and sits or kneels in the boat, using a single bladed paddle. In some parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, kayaks are considered a subtype of canoe. Continental European and British canoeing clubs and associations of the 19th Century used craft similar to kayaks, but referred to them as canoes.
Before engines became available, boats could be propelled manually or by the wind. Boats could be propelled by the wind by attaching sails to masts set upright in the boat. Manual propulsion could be done in shallow water by punting with a push pole, and in deeper water by paddling with a paddle or rowing with oars. The difference between paddling and rowing is that when rowing the oars have a mechanical connection with the boat, while when paddling the paddles are hand-held with no mechanical connection. Canoes were traditionally paddled, with the paddler facing the bow of the boat. Small boats that use oars are called rowboats, and the rower typically faces the stern.
Around 4000 BC, Egyptians were building long narrow boats powered by many oarsmen. Over the next 1,000 years, they made a series of remarkable advances in boat design. They developed cotton-made sails to help their boats go faster with less work. Then they built boats large enough to cross the oceans. These boats had sails and oarsmen, and were used for war and trade. Some ancient vessels were propelled by either oars or sail, depending on the speed and direction of the wind (see trireme and bireme). The Chinese were using sails around 3000 BC, of a type that can still be seen on traditional fishing boats sailing off the coast of Vietnam in Ha Long Bay.
A jangada is an elegant planked fishing boat used in northern Brazil. It has been claimed the jangada dates back to ancient Greek times.[32] It uses a triangular (lateen) sail, which allows it to sail against the wind.
A felucca is a traditional wood-planked sailing boat used in protected waters of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean including Malta, and particularly along the Nile in Egypt. Its rig consists of one or two lateen sails.
Building boats from planks meant boats could be more precisely constructed along the line of large canoes than hollowing tree trunks allowed. It is possible that planked canoes were developed as early as 8,500 years ago in Southern California.[33]
By 3000 BC, the Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull.[34] They used woven straps to lash planks together,[34] and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks to seal the seams.[34] An example of their skill is the Khufu ship, a vessel 143 feet (44 m) in length entombed at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC and found intact in 1954.
A further development was the use of timber frames, to which the planks could be lashed, stitched or nailed. With the use of frames, it is possible to develop carvel-style and clinker-style planking (in the USA the term lapstrake is used instead of clinker). Scandinavians were using clinker construction by at least 350 BC.[35]
Carvel construction dates back even earlier. A luzzu is a double-ended carvel-built fishing boat from the Maltese islands. Traditionally, they are brightly painted in shades of yellow, red, green and blue, and the bow is normally painted with a pair of eyes. These eyes may be the modern survival of an ancient Phoenician custom (also practiced by the ancient Greeks); they are sometimes (and probably inaccurately) referred to as the Eye of Horus or of Osiris. The luzzu has survived because it tends to be a sturdy and stable boat even in bad weather. Originally, the luzzu was equipped with sails although nowadays almost all are motorised, with onboard diesel engines being the most common.