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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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