The Rice Field Boat

Rice field boats are usually called tabune, ta meaning rice field and bune meaning boat. In most of Japan tabune are not much more than small sleds for pulling through the mud.  In keeping with the rice field environment, a local name here for these boats was zuta tenma, zuta meaning crawling and tenma the generic name throughout Japan for a small work boat.  In Himi, however, huge areas of rice fields were cultivated and these were connected by a large network of canals and rivers.  A number of boat types developed to serve the farmers.  I am building what was the smallest of these boats. The largest were about 25-feet long.

Here's the boat I am replicating, on display in the Himi Museum.  It was built sometime between 1960 and 1975.

The museum published a set of drawings of it.

The really strange thing is the transom overlaps the end of the planking, so the fastening go through the transom and into the end grain of the planks.

A view from astern.  The side plank is basically notched to receive the transom.  That's the side to the left and transom to the right.

A look at the pram-type bow, which is peaked.

A large carving, or house name, on the transom.

A look astern shows the bottom is not flat but slightly curved.

A local sawyer was able to skin about an 1/8" off my planking stock to get it the right thickness.

Bandsaw as thickness planer.

Bansho san, the local boatbuilder, has helped supply materials.  When I met him two years ago he insisted local boatbuilders either made sea boats or rice field boats but not both.  The transom arrangement was one piece of evidence he pointed to.  He said sea boatbuilders were superior, which may explain why he wasn't interested in building this boat.  I was completely surprised when Himming asked me to come, given Bansho san's presence, but he's been an enthusiastic supporter and I like forward to getting to know him better while we are here.  At seventy, he may be Japan's youngest boatbuilder.  I suspect some of the details of this boat will be a bit tricky, such as fitting and edge-nailing the peaked bow.

And here is a stark image from the Himi Museum, giving pause to the phrase "the good old days."  Next time I am there I will ask the curator the date of this photo.  Readers of this blog are welcome to take a guess but I am willing to bet this was taken within many of our lifetimes.

Himming NPO

We are in Himi, Toyama Prefecture now, where I will be building a small boat for Himming, an NPO.  Over the years they have had several boats built for their programs, and two years ago I blogged here about an event they invited me too.  In that posting I mention an interesting little rice field boat on display at the local museum.  Well, two years later I am back building a replica of that very boat.  I'll be here a month and look forward to spending time in what is a gorgeous corner of rural Japan.

But Himming has moved into a gorgeous new home since I was last here (though their last home was an old soy sauce warehouse, very cozy and interesting).  The new Totoza Center is a community center and museum.  In this post I will share some images of the building and what's going on.

The stage and building frame where I will be working.

Totoza seen from across the harbor.

Inside are various exhibits.  The most famous fish in this region is buri, or yellowtail tuna.

These hand-painted flags are the type flown be fishermen from their boat on special events to wish for a good catch.

One of the boats Himming had built by their local boatbuilder, Bansho san.

One of Bansho san's smaller boats.

The Center has an open museum with lots of artifacts people can touch.

Himming has hands-on activities of all sorts, and sponsors art events (and boatbuilding).

The information desk is completely furnished with antique tansu.

Bansho san told me a professional carver did this stylized wave for the stern of one of his boats.  Normally he carves a simple geometric shape here.

On an old beach windlass I saw something I'd never seen before: a triangular through tenon.

Japan-The Last Cormorant Fishing Boat Builder

We are back to Japan, having arrived late last week for a 3-1/2 month stay.  I will be building two boats for two different institutions, plus we will be taking a research trip to Taiwan to look at indigenous boats of the Yami people of Lanyu Island.  I plan to blog extensively throughout this period so stay tuned.

Our first weekend, however, we went to Gifu City to meet with the last builder of the iconic cormorant fishing boat.  The meeting was to discuss my apprenticing with him sometime in the coming year.  He has commissions right now for two boats, having delivered a boat last year.  There are nine cormorant fishermen in Gifu City and the boats last about 10-15 years.  Right now there is a cycle of fishermen getting new boats.

This work is crucial, because Tajiri san works entirely from memory, aided by various patterns only he understands.  He has never had an apprentice and so its crucial that his design and techniques be documented if this craft is to survive.  I first met Tajiri's master Nasu san back in the 1990s and I tried to apprentice with him, but he became too ill to work.  Tajiri had apprenticed with Nasu right out of high school but then gone off and become a bathtub and bucket maker like his father.  With Nasu san's retirement decades later Tajiri san came back to build boats.

A showcase outside his bathtub workshop, showing buckets and a bailer.

The bathtub workshop

Tajiri showing us his lumber storage.  He has four garage bays like this one packed full of wood, mostly maki, a local type of pine used for boats here.

To my knowledge cormorant boats are the only ones in Japan that use the kasakugi, or umbrella nail.  The head is angled and the shank is a tapered square.  When I saw the rust on these nails I assumed Tajiri san pulled them out of an old boat.  Years ago Nasu san told me he was forced to start recycling nails from derelict boats after his blacksmith retired.  But Tajiri san soaks his nails in brine because he feels a coating of rust gives them better holding power.  He's the second boatbuilder in Japan to tell me this.

Tajiri san's patterns for building boats.

A close-up of the scarf joints in the side planking and the closely spaced edge nails joining the planking.

Tajiri san's most recent boat.  I will soon get word on a research grant to work with Tajiri and then it will depend on meeting his building schedule.  The work would take two months, he says.  Like all my teachers he insists one must study for years to master building these boats.   I sincerely appreciate the value of the apprentice system but there's no way we can afford to replicate the old ways of learning; documenting the craft as completely as we can is what we have to do.  Tajiri san spent three years studying with Nasu san, then two more years working for him as his unpaid assistant.

2016 Middlebury College Winter Term - Building the Japanese Boat

Yesterday we wrapped up our one-month Winter Term class, in which sixteen students built a traditional river boat from the Agano River of Niigata Prefecture, Japan.    I taught this class last year and we built two river boats, from the Hozugawa and Kesengawa.  This boat was 27-feet long and both larger and a bit more complex than the previous boats.  Our material was local white pine and a blacksmith made our traditional boat nails.  Our drawings were provided by Mr. Hideto Hatano, a documentarian who has long worked to preserve the culture of the Agano River.  He measured a typical river boat of this region.  There are no longer any working boatbuilders on the Agano.

Students began by fitting planks using a method called suriawase, running a series of saw cuts between boards, propped in place overhead.

The ends of our bottom were fastened with double-pointed nails and a basic butt joint.  This was by far the most problematic part of construction and I have to admit there must be still be something to making this connection that I don't yet understand.  I am applying for a grant to work with an 72-year old builder of these types of boats and this will be high on my list as a technique to understand.

Students chiseling nail holes for our edge-nailed planking.

Planing planks by hand.

Using the Japanese adze to shape the paddle.

A close-up of an edge-nail, showing the mortise.

Our longest planks were sixteen feet, so we used a traditional style scarf joint, fastening them with edge nails.

An example of the students saw fitting, rendering a perfectly fitting joint using handsaws.

Edge-nailing the bottom boards together.

Beveling the edge of the bottom to receive our side planking.

The backbone assembly set up with the side planks glued and clamped.  In Japan boatbuilders use glue between the planks, not for actual assembly - so they say - but as a filler and to keep the seams tightly closed and free from dirt.  In the old days most boatbuilders used raw lacquer, urushi, for this purpose, but then adopted modern glues a generation or two ago, primarily because it was so much cheaper than lacquer.

The two planks forming our sides were fastened with dovetail keys, called chigiri in the Agano River region.  They penetrate half the thickness of the planking and alternate on the inside and outside of the boat.

Before attaching the side we had a keel-laying ceremony.

Saw fitting the seam between the sides and bottom is by far the most difficult technique.  In retrospect I wish I had devoted one more day to this, but the one-month time frame brings with it other terrors, like worrying whether the boat will get done on time!

I gave students the challenge of fitting the beams and thwart, a challenge which they enjoyed.  The course was an attempt to emulate Japanese apprentice learning. Again, this goal is problematic given the tight time frame but putting students under pressure is part of the point.

I like incorporating copper where I can in these boats.  In Japan copper plate was used to cover nail heads.

Carrying the boat to launch past Old Chapel, the school's original building.  Middlebury College was founded in 1800.

Winter weather forces us to use the pool.

Our class was the subject of an article in the Niigata Nippou, the largest newspaper in the region where this boat design originates.