The pinas, sometimes called "pinis" as well, is a type of schooner of the east coast of the Malay peninsula, built in the Terengganu area. This kind of vessel was built of Chengal wood by the Malays since the 19th century and roamed the South China Sea and adjacent oceans as one of the two types of traditional sailing vessels the late Malay maritime culture has developed: The bedar and the pinas.
The pinas is a sailing vessel built exclusively in the kuala (Malay: rivermouth) [1] of the Terengganu river. It was the largest of the ships built in the area, and was only used for deep sea navigation to distant ports. The pinas carried two masts, one in the bow, called "Topan", slightly raked forward, and the main mast, called "Agung" placed a bit forward of the center of the boat. The pinas had a very long bowsprit, slightly bent downwards by the bobstay.
The original pinas was schooner-rigged with Bermuda topsails. This type was recorded by Herbert Warington Smyth in 1906. [2] : 103
After the 20th century, the masts carried a fully battened lug or "junk"-sail. These sails were not made of cloth but of a matting material called "tikal" that is also used for floor matting and other purposes. Like most junk sails the battens were made of bamboo, usually creating six individual panels to the sail. The halyard was attached almost in the middle of the yard, and since the luff of the sail was nearly straight and only about half the length of the markedly convex leach, the yard, when hoisted, was sitting in an angle of about 15° – 20° with the vertical.
The foresail was set on the port side of the Topan and the mainsail on the starboard side of the Agung. A relatively small jib was set on the very long bowsprit. All pinas, even the big ones of 80 feet and above were steered by a tiller with a pulley block system easing the strain on a conventional rudder hinged on the stern post. This tiller was operated from within a round cabin (cup) placed on the stern of the boat. This cabin was housing the accommodation of the crew as well. The hold was reserved for the cargo.
These boats sailed best with the wind on the quarter or just aft of the beam. Since the sails are fully battened and may be set almost at a right angle to the boat, they were able to set the Topan sail to windward, sailing wing to wing as soon as the wind was well aft of the beam. Going to windward was not the strong point of those junk rigged vessels, since the junk rig performs not as efficiently to windward as the modern Bermuda sail or the Gaff sail and the hulls of the cargo freighters were well rounded and offered not much lateral resistance.
The clipper type bow of the pinas often carried a carved figurehead called "Gobel" and the transom stern was raked aft and reached pretty high up above the waterline. The pinas had a well defined sheer and was a seaworthy vessel.
The hull of the pinas is influenced by European boats of the early nineteenth century or later, and might well be a copy of the East Indiamen of the middle of the 19th century. The locals say that a Frenchman whose boat was wrecked on the shore of Terengganu in the 19th century settled there and his knowledge is said to have influenced the boatbuilding of the shipwrights.
The word pinas, locally pronounced almost sounds like penis, is obviously derived from the French word pinasse, which describes a small, usually two-masted sailing vessel. The English word pinnace, a man-of-war's tender, is a deduction from the French word.
These boats are also called Perahu (Malay: boat) [3] pinas Golok, to distinguish them from other types built with a straight stem and without a beak (figurehead) the pinas Dogar. Golok, (Malay: cleaver/machete) [4] or sword with a convex cutting edge, refers to the curved, clipper like bow. [5]
The pinas boats of Terengganu are built using the indigenous technique the Malays have developed to build wooden boats. They build without plans, hull first, frames later. The planks are fire bent and joined edge on edge (carvel) using "basok" (wooden dowels) made from Penaga-ironwood (Mesua ferrea). There is no European style caulking hammered into a groove between the planks: Before the new plank is hammered home, a strip of kulit gelam (Malay: paperbarks skin) [6] of the Melaleuca species is placed over the dowels. This 1–2 mm layer of a natural material has remarkable sealing properties. [5]
The tradition of building wooden boats in modern Malaysia reaches far back in time: For overseas trade, for fishing, for piracy, for travelling up the many rivers, for each purpose they developed a special design. [7]
A conceivable anecdote of the origin of both the name and type of ship is based on a report by R.S. Ross, then master of the British East India Company's steamer Phlegeton, who on the occasion a visit to Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, in 1846 witnessed a schooner built locally by "some of the natives [who] had learnt the art of shipbuilding at Singapore, and [were] assisted by Chinese carpenters", [8] that is speculated to have become the archetype for the Terengganu perahu pinas or pinis. [9] Malay traditions allege that this schooner was built on behalf of Baginda Omar, the Sultan of Terengganu (reigned 1839–1876), possibly either under direction or with considerable help by a German or French beachcomber who had "reached Terengganu, by way of Malacca and Singapore, in search of "opium cum dignitate", [10] to become the archetype of the 'Malay schooner': The Terengganu pinas/pinis, today carrying batten-lug sails, until the turn to the 20th century was commonly rigged as a gaff-ketch. [11]
The two perahu besar (Malay: big boat) [12] of Terengganu, the pinas and the bedar are the result of this cultural interchange. Jib and bowsprit of the two are of western origin, with junks almost never carrying one. [5]
The desire for the ever-faster and more manoeuvrable vessel combined the positive elements and created these junk hybrids.
 British postage stamp depicting a Malay pinas, 1955 |
The boatbuilders of Terengganu were re-“discovered” during the World War II by the Japanese navy who had wooden minesweepers built there by the carpenters and fishing folks. [7]
Since that time the Malays have stopped building sailing boats for their own use, but they kept manufacturing fishtrawlers and ferries, built using the old techniques. Rising timber prices and lack of demand forced one after the other yard out of business, so today this tradition is on the brink of extinction, with very few able craftsmen still practicing this rare old building technique.
After the 2nd world war was over, the boat building of the island of Duyong in Kuala Terengganu was again discovered by traditional boat enthusiasts from western countries. Amongst those boats that were built, there were eight pinas including one big enough to qualify as a "Perahu Besar", the pinas Naga Pelangi .
The pinas built for westerners are:
| Name of boat | Builders (shipyard) | LOD | Year built | Original owner | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun Bathera, now June Bathra | Abdullah bin Muda | 52 ft (16 m) | 1976 | Christine, Rohani Longuet | France |
| Sri Duyong | Abdullah bin Muda | 52 ft (16 m) | 1976 | William Harburn | Australia |
| Unnamed | Che Ali bin Ngah | 45 ft (14 m) | 1982 – project abandoned | Claude Besnar | France |
| Bilbo – bedar/pinis mix | Che Ali bin Ngah | 60 ft (18 m) | 1985 | Francis Clement | Belgium/Italy |
| June Bathra 2 | Abdullah bin Muda | 52 ft (16 m) | 1976, launched 1986 | Larry Smooky | USA |
| Unknown | Haji Rashid (Seberang Takir) | 60 ft (18 m) | 1986, launched 2003 | Olivier | Switzerland |
| Yok Yor | assembled craftsmen of Duyong | 60 ft (18 m) | 1997 | Philippe Poggi | France |
| Naga Pelangi | Hasni bin Ali | 72 ft (22 m) | 2004, launched 2009 | Christoph Swoboda | Germany |
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schooner also has a square topsail on the foremast, to which may be added a topgallant. Differing definitions leave uncertain whether the addition of a fore course would make such a vessel a brigantine. Many schooners are gaff-rigged, but other examples include Bermuda rig and the staysail schooner.
A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as "fore-and-aft", "square", or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.
A junk is a type of Chinese sailing ship with fully battened sails. Similar junk sails were also adopted by other East Asian countries, most notably Japan, where junks were used as merchant ships to trade goods with China and Southeast Asia. They were found – and in lesser numbers, are still found – throughout Southeast Asia and India, but primarily in China. Historically, a Chinese junk could be one of many types of small coastal or river ships, usually serving as a cargo ship, pleasure boat, or houseboat, but also ranging in size up to large ocean-going vessel. Found more broadly today is a growing number of modern recreational junk-rigged sailboats. There can be significant regional variations in the type of rig or the layout of the vessel; however, they all employ fully battened sails.
A scow is a smaller type of barge. Some scows are rigged as sailing scows. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, scows carried cargo in coastal waters and inland waterways, having an advantage for navigating shallow water or small harbours. Scows were in common use in the American Great Lakes and other parts of the U.S., Canada, southern England, and New Zealand. In modern times their main purpose is for recreation and racing; there are also garbage scows for aquatic transport of refuse.
A Bermuda rig, Bermudian rig, or Marconi rig is a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats. This configuration was developed in Bermuda in the 17th century; the term Marconi, a reference to the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, became associated with this configuration in the early 20th century, because the wires that stabilize the mast of a Bermuda rig reminded observers of the wires on early radio masts.
The junk rig, also known as the Chinese lugsail, Chinese balanced lug sail, or sampan rig, is a type of sail rig in which rigid members, called battens, span the full width of the sail and extend the sail forward of the mast.
The lorcha is a type of sailing vessel having a junk rig with a Cantonese or other Chinese-style batten sails on a Portuguese or other European-style hull. The hull structure made the lorcha faster and able to carry more cargo than the normal junk. The advantage of the junk rig was in its ease of handling and resulting reduced crewing requirement, together with its relatively low cost of construction. Owing to its simplicity, it was also easier to repair. Lorchas were made locally of camphor or teak and generally were of 30 to 150 tons burthen.
Literally, the word pinisi refers to a type of rigging of Indonesian sailing vessels. A pinisi carries seven to eight sails on two masts, arranged like a gaff-ketch with what is called 'standing gaffs' — i.e., unlike most Western ships using such a rig, the two main sails are not opened by raising the spars they are attached to, but the sails are 'pulled out' like curtains along the gaffs which are fixed at around the centre of the masts.
Tongkang or "Tong'kang" refers to several type of boats used to carry goods along rivers and shoreline in Maritime Southeast Asia. One of the earliest record of tongkang has a background of 14th century, being mentioned in Malay Annals which was composed no earlier than 17th century. One passage mentioned it as being used by Majapahit empire during the 1350 attack on Singapura.
Naga Pelangi is a wooden junk rigged schooner of the Malay pinas type built using traditional lashed-lug techniques from 2004 to 2009 in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. Finished in 2010, it is operated as a charter vessel in South East Asia.
The term bedar is applied to a wide variety of boats of the east coast of Malaysia that carry one or two junk sails and lack the typical transom stern of the perahu pinas. These junk rigged boats are usually built in the Terengganu area. The stern of the bedar is a classical "canu" or "pinky stern," being a typical "double ender", a bit like a modern ship's lifeboat, with a very full turn of the bilge and with markedly raked stem and stern. They came in small versions as small one-masted fishing vessels — anak bedar and were built as big as 90 feet over deck (LOD). The majority of the bedars were usually 45 to 60 feet over deck. The bedar, like all Terengganu boats, was built of Chengal wood by the Malays since the 19th century and roamed the South China Sea and adjacent oceans as a highly seaworthy traditional sailing vessel.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sailing:
Padewakangs were traditional boats used by the Bugis, Mandar, and Makassar people of South Sulawesi. Padewakangs were used for long-distance voyages serving the south Sulawesi kingdoms.
Palari is a type of Indonesian sailing vessel from South Sulawesi. It was mainly used by the people of Ara and Lemo Lemo, for transporting goods and people. This vessel is rigged with pinisi rig, which often makes it better known as "Pinisi" instead of its name. In Singapore, palari is known as "Makassartrader".
Pajala is a type of traditional perahu from western South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is used mainly for fishing, but in the present it's a Bugis/Makassar name for small to medium-sized boat hull.
A kakap is a narrow river or coastal boat used for fishing in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. They are also sometimes used as auxiliary vessels to larger warships for piracy and coastal raids.
Perahu payang or simply payang is a traditional Malay open fishing boat. They are usually found in Terengganu, and to a lesser extent, Kelantan, Pahang, and Johor coasts. A few examples normally come down to Singapore to operate during the period of the north-east monsoon in the South China Sea.
A lancang is a type of sailing ship from Maritime Southeast Asia. It is used as warship, lighter, and as royal ship, particularly used by the people of Malay Peninsula, Sumatran east coast, but can also be found in the coast of Kalimantan.
Austronesian vessels are the traditional seafaring vessels of the Austronesian peoples of Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands.
