Tongkang or "Tong'kang" [1] refers to several type of boats used to carry goods along rivers and shoreline in Maritime Southeast Asia. [2] 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. [3]
Because the majority of tongkangs were built, used, and manned by Chinese people, it is frequently assumed that the name was Chinese word. In fact, "tongkang" is certainly a Malay word, and probably derived from bělongkang (properly përahu bèlongkang, a pěrahu jalur with strakes added to increase the freeboard), a word which was formerly used in Sumatra for a river cargo boat. [2] : 85
The tongkang was an unmotorised open cargo boat, propelled by a variety of methods, including rowing, punt poles and sail.
The early tongkangs were about 20 ton burthen or less; they were propelled by about ten rowers and guided by a steersman. Long punt poles were used to propel them in shallower water. The size of the tongkang increased around 1860. [4]
The tongkang was one of the two traditional Malay ships using junk rig with local hulls instead of the Chinese Junk hull. Its hull design was more reminiscent of the dhow type used in South Asia and Western Asia than to the common Chinese or Far-eastern type. Besides the Junk Rig, the ketch rig was also used on the tongkang. [5] The last tongkangs in Singapore were towed by a motorised launch.
Because the term "tongkang" is applied to several type of boats, the description of each boat is not necessarily the same.
There are references to the activity of these boats in Singapore, where a Chinese document, refers to the Southern bank around Read Bridge area, as cha chun tau (柴船头), meaning "jetty for boats carrying firewood". Small tongkangs carrying firewood from the Indonesian archipelago berthed at this jetty. The firewood trade was primarily a Teochew enterprise.
A tongkang in full sail appeared on the reverse of the 1990 and 1992 Singapore dollar 2 $ currency notes. Tongkang LRT station was named after this boat.
Another boat used on the Singapore River along with the tongkang was the twakow. These traditional vessels began to disappear around the 1930s, following the introduction of motor-powered boats and contemporary-type lighters. [6]
A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture.
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. There are two types of junk in China: northern junk, which developed from Chinese river boats, and southern junk, which developed from Austronesian ships visiting southern Chinese coasts since the 3rd century CE. They continued to evolve in later dynasties and were predominantly used by Chinese traders throughout Southeast Asia. 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 cutter is a name for various types of watercraft. It can apply to the rig of a sailing vessel, to a governmental enforcement agency vessel, to a type of ship's boat which can be used under sail or oars, or, historically, to a type of fast-sailing vessel introduced in the 18th century, some of which were used as small warships.
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.
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.
The term lambo or lamba refer to two types of traditional boats from Indonesia.
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.
The lug sail, or lugsail, is a fore-and-aft, four-cornered sail that is suspended from a spar, called a yard. When raised, the sail area overlaps the mast. For "standing lug" rigs, the sail may remain on the same side of the mast on both the port and starboard tacks. For "dipping lug" rigs, the sail is lowered partially or totally to be brought around to the leeward side of the mast in order to optimize the efficiency of the sail on both tacks.
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.
Perahu Mayang or simply mayang is a type of fishing boat from Java, Indonesia. This type of boat is used mainly for fishing and trading. Historically, this indigenous vessel is also favored by European skippers and private merchants for trading in East Indies: 50% of them were using mayang and pencalang. It is mostly used in northern coast of Java. The major production site is in Rembang, Central Java.
Toop is a type of boat-ship produced in East Indies. Appeared at the end of the 18th century, and built in local shipyards, this type of boat is one of the results of the incorporation of 'Western' and 'Nusantaran' technologies that began in the shipyards of the 17th and 18th European trading companies. This type of boat is commonly used for long-distance shipping. In the first half of the 19th century, this was the most common type of boat used by sailors and traders in Nusantara. Majority of toop is owned by merchants from the western area of Nusantara.
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".
Malangbang or melambang is a type of medieval sailing ship from Indonesia. It is mentioned mainly in the History of Banjar. The name "malangbang" is considered to originate from the Old Javanese language, malabong (malaboṅ) which refers to a particular type of boat. Malangbang is one of Majapahit's main naval vessel types after jong and kelulus. Not much is known about this type of ship, apart from the fact that it also used oar beside the sails to propel it, broad and flat-bottomed, and was a "medium-sized" ship, between the size of jong and kelulus, larger and faster than pilang (pelang).
Sampan panjang was a type of Malay fast boat from the 19th century. It was used especially by the sampan-men, or "Orang Laut". Historically, they can be found in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. This type of boat was used by Malay people as racing boat and as transport boat. The sampan panjang appeared at the first quarter of the 19th century, and disappeared at the turn of that century. These boats proved to be superior than European boats in racing purposes; they were easy winners when racing against the European yachts of that time.
A jongkong is a type of dugout canoe from Maritime Southeast Asia. Jongkong was the simplest boat from Riau-Lingga area, and can be found widely though in small numbers throughout the area. The first record of jongkong comes from the Malay Annals, being used by Majapahit empire during the first Majapahit attack on Singapura (1350) and during the fall of Singapura (1398).
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 Sumatran east coast, but can also be found in the coast of Kalimantan.
This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".
