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British postage stamp depicting a Malay pinas, 1955
Career
(Germany) Name: Naga Pelangi
Port of
registry:
Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg
Ordered: 2003
Builder: Traditional Malay
Laid down: 2004
Launched: 2009
Status: Charter vessel
General characteristics
Type: Traditional Malay junk schooner
Displacement: 70 tonnes (77 short tons)
Length: 22 m (72 ft 2 in) LOD
Beam: 6 m (19 ft 8 in)
Draft: 3 m (9 ft 10 in)
Propulsion: Sail; auxiliary engineSail plan: Junk schooner, 300 square metres
(3,200 sq ft) total sail area
Capacity: 8 persons (not including crew)
Crew: 4
the Pinas Naga Pelangi in Langkawi, 2010
Naga PelangiFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ag a Pelan gi (Rainbow Dr agon) is a wooden junk
rigged schooner of the Malay pinas type built from 2004
to 2009 in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. She finished to
be fitted out in 2010 and is oper ated as a charter vessel
in South East Asia by her owner.
Contents
1 Background
2 Name - Etymology
3 History
4 Gallery
5 See also
6 External links
7 R eferences
Background
The
Naga Pelangi was built for Christoph Swoboda of
Germany by the craftsmen of Duyong Island in the
estuary of the Terengganu river in the state of
Terengganu on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.[1]
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the bedar Naga Pelangi, after her
circumnavigation sailing off
Kuala Terenganu, 1998
A carving of a
Naga deity
The Naga
Pelangi gobel
figurehead
She is a Malay-style sailing boat with lines based on the
traditional pinas-design but finished to modern yacht
standards.
In Malaysia, these sailing boats are called “Perahu
Besar”, (Malay: big boat).[2][3] They were built for cargo
and piracy and come in two types, the bedar and the
inas.
[4]
They are made of Chengal wood(Neobalanocarpus heimii), a heavy hardwood of the
Dipterocarpaceae family growing only on the Malay
peninsula,[5] the home of the globes eldest rainforest.
These picturesque junk rigged boats had been plying the
South China Sea for centuries and the last few were still used as sailing freighters in the 1980s.
Swoboda had a bedar built by the same craftsmen in 1981, finished a
circumnavigation with that boat (the original Naga Pelangi) in 1998
and after selling it he ordered a new vessel to be built - the pinas Naga
Pelangi - in order to help keep this ancient boat building traditionalive.[6]
The Malays have developed an indigenous technique 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 (Mala
paperbarks skin)[7] of the Melaleuca species is placed over the dowels
This 1 – 2 mm layer of a natural material has remarkable sealing properties.[8] It is an ancient and unique building technique, the origin
of which might date back to the Proto-Malay migrations that colonised
the archipelago thousands of years ago.
Now the Naga Pelangi is operated by the owner in the eastern Indian Ocean, the Andaman Sea with a base
in Langkawi island and in the South China Sea with a base in Kuala Terengganu.
Name - Etymology
In modern Malay, Naga Pelangi, literally translated, means
Rainbow Dragon.[9]
Nāga is a Sanskrit word and means snake and depicts a mythical
snake like creature in the Mahabharata. For lack of another word,
modern Malay uses this Indian word to denominate the Chinese
symbol of the dragon.
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All over South East Asia, in Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer culture we find the Nagas in various form
half snake, half dragon. For the pre Islamic Malays the Naga was a deity living in the sea and was held in
great esteem by the seafarers. Sacrifices were offered to ask for an auspicious journey and frequently the
bow of their craft was adorned with a figurehead of a carved Naga. This detailed carving was reduced to a
stylised carving in later times due to the strict picture ban of the Islam. The figurehead of a Malay pinas is
called Gobel [4][10] and one may still guess the old Naga shining through.
History
The tradition of building wooden boats in modern Malaysia reaches far back in time: For overseas trade, fo
fishing, for piracy, for travelling up the many rivers, for each purpose they developed a special design.[11]
With Malacca becoming the main trading centre for the spices arriving from the Molucca islands
(Indonesia) the Malay peninsula turned into a melting pot of the seafaring, trading civilisations: Indians an
Cinese, Arabs and Indonesians, Vietnamese and Thai, Burmese, Europeans and others, they all arrived in
their distinctive craft, inspiring the Malay shipbuilding.[11]
The story goes that on the eastern shore of an island in the Terengganu river mouth once a mermaid wassitting, an indo-pacific sea cow (scientific: Dugong Dugon, order: Sireniae). Thus the island was named
Pulau Duyong (pulau = Malay: island).[12] Some say that in former times the Sultan of Terengganu
encouraged the Bugis, a seafaring people from Celebes (Sulawesi, Indonesia), to settle on the island and
establish a trade post. He meant to enhance the trade on the east coast of the peninsula since the Bugis are
well known throughout SE-Asia as traders, boat builders and fierce pirates. They settled and stayed and it
was here that the finest boatbuilding of Malaya should develop.
As far back as in the times of Cheng Ho, the famous Chinese seafarer and explorer the Terengganu
boatbuilders were already famous for their craft. A temple built in honour of this great navigator and
situated up the Terengganu river is testimony of his visit to this place.
In the 19th century a French captain is said to have marvelled at the sight of the fleet of ships from all
corners of the globe, anchored in the estuary: Arab dhows, Indonesian perahus, Portuguese lorchas, Englis
schooners, Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai junks, a great flotilla of trading vessels was assembled here, in
the harbour off Duyong island: the pride of the Sultan of Terengganu, laden with the riches of his country.
The two "perahu besar" of Terengganu, the pinas and the bedar are the result of this cultural interchange. I
its name, the pinas already betrays the French influence (French: pinasse).[13] while the bedar shows
Arab/Indian (dhow) elements. Jib and bowsprit of the two are of western origin, with junks almost never
carrying one.[8] The sails of both of them are that of a classic Chinese junk: The rigging with the elaboratesheet system, the parrels, the snotter and the lazyjack-system, all are documented in Chinese literature for
over 2000 years! The desire for the ever faster and more manoeuvrable vessel, combined the positive
elements and created these junk hybrids.
The boatbuilders of Terengganu were re-“discovered” during the 2nd world war by the Japanese navy who
had wooden minesweepers built there by the carpenters and fishing folks.[11]
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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. [14]
Gallery
Naga Pelangi sailing
butterfly
Naga Pelangi 2010 in
Langkawi
Naga Pelangi beating
at 7 knots
birds-eye view 1
birds-eye view 2
in the Phang Ngah
Bay, Thailand
on the hard in Satun
Thailand 2011
deadeyes & lanyards
of the fore mast shroud
cockpit with
companionway
deck layout
deck layout
spiral staircase to
stateroom
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double berth in
stateroom
single berth in
stateroom
wooden panel doors to
aft cabin
view from cockpit into
aft cabin
view from wheel into
aft cabin
aft cabin toilet
cupboard and drawers
in aft cabin
double berth in port
side state room
single berth in the 1st
mates cabin
skipper at the helm
compass and steering
wheel
Naga Pelangi building
2003 - selecting the
timber
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NP building 2004 -
plank bending 1
NP building 2004 -
plank bending 2
NP building 2004 -
fitting the first plank,
the garboard strake
NP building 2004 -
producing the wooden
dowels
NP building 2004 -
applying the caulking
bark
NP building 2004 - no
frames yet
NP building 2004 -
frames are adjusted to
hull
NP building 2005 - all
frames and stringers
are in place
See alsoList of schooners
Pinas (ship)
Bedar (ship)
Chengal
Junk (ship)
Junk rig
Junk KeyingLorcha (boat)
Tongkang
External links
Naga Pelangi, the Rainbow Dragon Charter Cruises (http://www.naga-pelangi.com)
Junk Rig Association (http://www.junkrigassociation.org/)
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Brian Platt's "The Chinese Sail"
(http://www.thecheappages.com/junk/platt/platt_chinese_sail.html#Top)
The Voyage of the Dragon King, Details of the junk rig, incl. diagrams and photos
(http://www.dragonvoyage.com/ship/rig.shtml)
Magazine "Professional Skipper" article about the boatbuilding in Duyong
(http://www.skipper.co.nz/S56%20Web/S56%20Trad%20Boatbuilding%20p70-72.pdf)
Article published in "50 Years Malaysian-German Relations", Embassy of Germany in Kuala
Lumpur (http://www.kuala-lumpur.diplo.de/contentblob/1817388/Daten/)
Chengal wood (http://woodwizard.my/report.asp?ItemID=22)
References
1. Duyong Dawn of a new ara, Dato' Wan Hisham Wan Salleh, Wan Ramli Wan Muhammad, 2006, p1/96ff
2. http://translate.google.com/translate_t?&text=Perahu%20Besar
3. Duyong Dawn of a new ara, Dato' Wan Hisham Wan Salleh, Wan Ramli Wan Muhammad, 2006, p94
4. Duyong Dawn of a new ara, Dato' Wan Hisham Wan Salleh, Wan Ramli Wan Muhammad, 2006, p95
5. 100 Malaysian Timbers, published by Malaysian Timber Industry Board, 1986, p16/17
6. 50 Years Malaysian-German Relations, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, p132/133
7. http://translate.google.com/translate_t?&text=kulit%20gelam
8. Cargo Boats of the East Coast of Malaya, Gibson-Hill, C.A. (1949), JMBRAS 22(3), p106-125
9. http://translate.google.com/translate_t?&text=naga+pelangi
10. Boats, Boatbuilding and Fishing in Malaysia, The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, p340
11. Keeping the Tradition of Boatbuilding Alive, Keith Ingram, Magazine: Professional Skipper March/April 2007,
p70
12. http://translate.google.com/#ms/en/pulau
13. Cargo Boats of the East Coast of Malaya, Gibson-Hill, C.A. (1949), JMBRAS 22(3), p108-110
14. Boats, Boatbuilding and Fishing in Malaysia, The Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,, MBRAS
2009, p342
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Categories: Schooners Individual sailing vessels Sailing rigs and rigging Ships of China
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