The
rebirth of a legend: a new ship
On
the east coast of the Malay peninsula, in the estuary of the river Terengganu
dwell the most highly skilled shipwrights of Malaysia under the palm trees
of the small island Pulau Duyong.
For centuries these seafaring boat builders manufactured magnificent wooden craft here. Amongst other vessels they built two types of junk-schooners, legendary far beyond the borders of Malaysia: the PINIS and the BEDAR:
model of a BEDAR
model
of a PINIS
The
ancestors of the Malays once settled the whole of the SE-Asian archipelago,
ventured far to the east, to the furthest Polynesian islands and to the
west until Africa (Madagascar). These are areas where their descendants
live up till today.
With modern ways spreading, the unequalled boatbuilding techniques still practised today in Duyong are endangered. With this archaic art of building wooden boats vanishing, doom seems spelled for this great nautical tradition of the Malay nation.
In 1980 I had a Bedar constructed in Pulau Duyong (pulau = Malay: island), the Naga Pelangi, (Malay: Rainbow Dragon), which was a seaworthy home for my family and me during our travels.
Junk
sailing:
Naga Pelangi,
in the South China Sea, 1998
Naga Pelangi came to be the first indigenous Malay junk to finish a circumnavigation when we returned to her birthplace in 1997, dropping anchor off Pulau Duyong in Kuala Terengganu. I sold this boat in the year 2000 and in April 2003 I started a new project, one that has not been undertaken in over half of a century:
The
building of a "perahu besar" (Malay: big boat),
a PINIS of about 70 feet (21 m) over deck.
This website (see: CONSTRUCTION PHOTOS) is the place, where the latest pictures of the works progress will be published. We will be happy to have you accompany us.
The
construction team in May 2003 with the provisional model of Naga Pelangi
II. Note the planks of the hull, stacked for drying. In the
picture you see on the left side Hasni bin Ali,
the master shipwright who built the Naga Pelangi
in 1980, son of Hadschi Ali bin
Ngah, who supervised the works.
Che Ali bin Ngah
working the keel of Naga Pelangi, 1980
