 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Launched | 2006 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement | 150 tons |
| Length | 31 m (102 ft) |
| Beam | 7.2 m (24 ft) |
| Installed power | Yanmar 300 hp (220 kW) |
| Sail plan | Gaff rig schooner |
| Speed |
|
Raja Laut is a two masted gaff rigged wooden schooner. Built in 2006, her hull and rigging are based on the designs of traditional European yachts and small trading ships of the 19th century.
The hull design is typical of traditional wooden schooners from Europe and America. The hull of Raja Laut was built of hard and resistant timber, a type of ironwood known as Belian or Ulin, forming a strong and watertight hull, with all fastening in '304' stainless steel. Emphasis on timber quality and symmetry of construction mean the hull lines provide for a smooth flow of water and excellent stability. [1]
The Malay name Raja Laut, translates to "King of the Sea", is a reference to the history and maritime adventure stories of Joseph Conrad and the Malay Archipelago, South East Asia.
Raja Laut is part of a number of sail charters that operates around the Asia-Pacific region. The vessel has only six cabins, with a maximum of 12 passengers. [2] In January 2011, Raja Laut was involved in a more unusual charter when she was hired as one of the sets for the making of a feature film about 50 German World War One marines left stranded by the light cruiser SMS Emden during the Battle of Cocos. [3] The Schooner Ayesha owned by Clunies-Ross of Cocos Keeling Islands was the vessel which Mücke had used to sail with his men to return to Germany.
The 2012 feature film, The Men of Emden , the Ayesha is portrayed by the schooner Raja Laut. The film was being made by the veteran filmmaker Berengar Pfahl. [3]
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands, officially the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, are an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago approximately midway between Australia and Sri Lanka and relatively close to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The territory's dual name reflects that the islands have historically been known as either the Cocos Islands or the Keeling Islands.
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.
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.
A sampan is a relatively flat-bottomed wooden boat found in East, Southeast, and South Asia. It is possibly of Chinese or Austronesian origin. Some sampans include a small shelter on board and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. The design closely resembles Western hard chine boats like the scow or punt. Sampans are generally used for transportation in coastal areas or rivers and are often used as traditional fishing boats. It is unusual for a sampan to sail far from land, as they do not have the means to survive rough weather.
The Battle of Cocos was a single-ship action that occurred on 9 November 1914, after the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, under the command of John Glossop, responded to an attack on a communications station at Direction Island by the German light cruiser SMS Emden, commanded by Karl von Müller.
The Dresden class was a pair of light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy in the early part of the 20th century. The class comprised SMS Dresden, the lead ship, and SMS Emden. Both ships were laid down in 1906; Dresden was launched in 1907, and Emden followed in 1908. They entered service in 1908 and 1909, respectively. The design for the ships was an incremental improvement over the preceding Königsberg class, being slightly larger and slightly faster, but with the same primary armament of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns. Dresden and Emden were powered by steam turbines and triple expansion engines, respectively, as part of continued experiments with the new turbine technology.
Hellmuth von Mücke was an Officer of the Kaiserliche Marine, the navy of the German Empire, in the early 20th century and World War I.
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.
Jewel of Muscat is a ship based on the design of the Belitung shipwreck, an Arabian dhow that was found off the coast of Belitung Island, Indonesia, in 1998 and subsequently salvaged. It was built in a joint effort by the governments of Oman and Singapore and Mike Flecker, one of the people employed by the salvage company Seabed Explorations at the time of the original recovery.
A Borobudur ship is the 8th to 9th-century wooden double outrigger sailing vessel of Maritime Southeast Asia depicted in some bas reliefs of the Borobudur Buddhist monument in Central Java, Indonesia. It is a ship of Javanese people, derivative vessels of similar size still survived in East Java coastal trade at least until the 1940s.
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 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 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.
SMS Emden was the second and final member of the Dresden class of light cruisers built for the German Kaiserliche Marine. Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig in 1906. The hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, Dresden. Like the preceding Königsberg-class cruisers, Emden was armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and two torpedo tubes.
Die Männer der Emden is a 2012 German war adventure film directed and co-written by Berengar Pfahl that is an account of members of the crew of SMS Emden making their way back to Germany after the Battle of Cocos (1914). The film was shot in Greece, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Malta and Germany and appeared as both a miniseries and a feature film.
The Ayesha owned by Clunies-Ross of Cocos Keeling Islands was a wooden topsail schooner, which was commandeered by a landing party of the German light cruiser SMS Emden. This landing party was able to escape being taken as prisoners of war, in November 1914, after their ship was destroyed in a battle with the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney.
Oy Laivateollisuus Ab (LaTe) was a Finnish shipbuilding company located in Pansio, Turku. The company was founded in 1945 to serve Finnish war reparation industry and focused on wooden ships. The first vessels were a series of schooners, which were followed by other wooden vessels. The last wooden hulls were produced in 1958. The company continued producing wooden gluelam structures in parallel with shipbuilding.
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.
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.
