Out of my comfort zone

[abhovi]

For a new photoshop picture by my son I needed to build some Asian vessels. The choice I made was for a Chinese junk and a Javanese jung, both vessels are pictured in Nicolaes Witsen's book of 1671.



The junk was made after draughts by Mr. Asbach in a 'Sonderausgabe' (special publication) of the German magazine Das Logbuch. In accordance to the drawings I rigged the vessel with bat-winged sails, executed in bamboo.



Then an expert told me that bamboo sails only were done in rectangular shapes, due to the problems encountered when folding the sails. So I removed the bat-wings and mounted rectangular ones. Much to my displeasure because I liked the bat-wings. But Witsen is always right, so it had to be done. Here are the results:



The jung, a Javanese vessel, was the other ship pictured on Witsen's plate. I managed to lay my hands on a set of drawings from a friend. The braided bulwarks were a bit of a problem until I found 'worteldoek' (root cloth), a plastic product the gardener uses to prevent weeds to grow on places they are not wanted. These ships are still sailing as can be seen on the picture here.



I hope you like the result:



Building both models brought me far beyond my comfort zone, because I know next to nothing about these ships. I felt more or less blindfolded while building. On top of that, these models are only meant to be a 'prop' for a new plate about the Dutch-Asian encounters in the 17th century. I built a 160-feet long Eastindia Man for this purpose. The only way to show that the vessels sailed in Asian waters was to picture some characteristic Asian vessels in the distance.



It may take a while before the plate will be produced, I will have some surgery on my heart next week first, so I hope to see you all later.

[Erik Zwaan]

Hello Ab, glad you reconsidered your retirement from building ships .

Fascinating subject and certainly the junks are a great asset to the final picture result. Looking forward to that.
I googled on Chinese junks and according to the many pictures I found, junks were certainly equipped with batwing sails as well, but perhaps not the Nanching type sketched by Witsen?

Likely there were many different types of junks sailing from China or other Southeast Asian countries. Chinese traders sailing towards Batavia, Singapore, Melaka and other British or Dutch colonized areas were mainly from southern China though.

Wishing you good luck with your surgery and a full recovery!

Regards,
Erik

[abhovi]

Thank you Erik.
Old soldiers never die…
The point was not that bat-wings did not exist, The point was that such sails were always made of cloth and not of bamboo. Bamboo bat sails don’t furl…

[ccoyle]

Outstanding work as usual, Ab! I hope you have a successful procedure next week and a speedy recovery!

[Vermin_King]

Best wishes on the procedure and recovery!


So glad to see you continuing the ship building

[georgerutherford1861]

Wonderful work as always, I will echo the others and say how great it is to see you building more ships. They certainly invite the observer to take their time looking over all the fine details.

Doug

[Michael Mash]

Good to see you keeping busy Ab.
Excellent work and beautiful photos.
I assume from what you wrote, there is a larger scene (Dutch & Asian) coming our way later. Looking forward to it.
I am confident your recovery from the surgery will be quick.
Mike

[Jim Nunn]

Ab,

Another outstanding model.

[Loui]

Thanks for sharing your build, it's Beautiful model build ..

I'm Indonesian..and I have to google the Jung vessel too LOL.. Geezz, it's time for me and my kids to visit a Museum..
Found some pictures on pinterest.. 'Perahu tradisional jung'












And also Wishing you Goodluck with your surgery.

[abhovi]

Thank you all for your positive comments and wishes. Especially Loui, thanks for all the pictures. As I said, I know nothing about these vessels, but judged by your pictures I was not too far off with my model. They do answer a lot of questions I had about various details. Perhaps I should do another one…
The internet, and this forum especially, is a great invention!