Talk:Junk (ship)

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[edit] Unit conversion

... junks capable of carrying 700 people together with 260 tons of cargo

The original Chinese text reads:

大者二十餘丈，
- The larger ones are over 20 "丈" long,
高去水三二丈，
- and above the water for 3 to 2 "丈",
望之如閣道，
- they are like houses,
载六、七百人，
- and are carrying 6-700 people,
物出萬斛。
- and are carrying more than 10,000 "斛" of cargo.

The Chinese characters are ancient units. We know very little about these units. Even if we could find a definition somewhere, the ship owner could had lied. Let's say you were a business man who wanted to hire a ship, what would the ship owner tell you? Lies, bloody lies. Yes, this ship could carry 10,000 "斛" of cargo, ... it could sink if there's any wind. Do not believe in these dead people's words. -- Toytoy 15:04, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

I agree for the units, although the numbers are based on estimates made by specialists. At least the "units" for counting people have not changed through time: 600 to 700 people on a boat does indicate quite a big-sized ship. Of course even historians could lie, but Chinese historians later than the 2nd century BCE do have a record for precision, and there is indeed a pattern of large Chinese ships throughout 2 millenia. Thanks for the feedback PHG 12:16, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Place names

... ships with seven masts, travelling as far as Syria.

I don't know if the original text was "大秦" (Daqin) and its translator was Friedrich Hirth of 19th century. Anyway, some place names are still in debate as of today. Please be careful. -- Toytoy 03:30, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Does the original text indeed say Daqin? Do you have the quote? I am very interested, especially for the article Sino-Roman relations. Regards PHG 12:16, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology

The English name comes from Malay dgong or jong.

I checked the OED, it did not say anything about its origin but it includes some quotes:

1. a. Naut. An old or inferior cable or rope; usually old junk. Obs.

1485 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 49 Hausers grete and small..iij, Jonkes..iiij. Ibid. 55 Olde Jonkes..iiij.
1600 HAKLUYT Voy. (1810) III, We only roade by an old iunke.
1622 SIR R. HAWKINS Voy. S. Sea (1847) 155 Peeces of a Junke or rope chopped very small.
1626 CAPT. SMITH Accid. Yng. Seamen 16 Cables, hawsers or streame cables when that way vnseruiceable, they serue for Iunkes, fendors and braded plackets for brests of defence.
1627 Seaman's Gram. vii. 30 Fenders are peeces of old Hawsers called Iunkes.
1769 NEWLAND in Phil. Trans. LXII. 86 You may make your ship fast with any old junk.

b. A piece of old cable used in making a fender, etc. Obs.

[1626-7: see 1.] a

1642 SIR W. MONSON Naval Tracts (1704) III. 374/1, I advise, that..the uppermost part of the Ship be arm'd with Junks of Cables.
1716 Glossogr. Nova, Bongrace, to Mariners is a Frame of old Ropes or Juncks of Cables, laid out at the Bows, Stems, and Sides of Ships..to preserve them from Damage of great Flakes of Ice.

junk, n.2

A name for the common type of native sailing vessel in the Chinese seas. It is flat-bottomed, has a square prow, prominent stem, full stern, the rudder suspended, and carries lug-sails.

The name is now applied to Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Thai, and other vessels of this type; early writers applied it still more widely to Malay, Javan, and even South Indian native vessels.

[1555 EDEN Decades 215 [from It. of Pigafetta] From the whiche Ilandes [Moluccas] they are brought [to India] in shyps or barkes made withowt any iren tooles... These barkes they caule Giunche.
1588 PARKE tr. Mendoza's Hist. China I. III. xxi. 115 Such ships as they haue to saile long voiages be called Iuncos.]
1613 PURCHAS Pilgrimage, Descr. India (1864) 54 The viceroy having two ships sent him for supply, two Iunkes, eight or ten boates.
1634 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. 184 We espied a Malabar Juncke of seventie Tunnes, bound for Acheen in Sumatra.
1697 W. DAMPIER Voy. (1729) I. 396 The Chinese..have always hideous Idols on board their Jonks or Ships.
1720 DE FOE Capt. Singleton xiv. (1840) 237 A Dutch junk, or vessel, going to Amboyna.
1773 Gentl. Mag. XLIII. 332 The Chinese junks and boats..were most of them sunk.
1813 J. BURNEY Discov. S. Sea III. x. 255 The unwieldiness of the Chinese jonks.
1853 HAWTHORNE Eng. Note-Bks. (1883) I. 442 All manner of odd-looking craft, but none so odd as the Chinese junk.

attrib.

1634 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. 27 A Junck-man of Warre full of desperate Malabars.
1880 I. L. BIRD Japan II. 320 The total junk navy is 468,750 tons.

BTW the word for 舟 is pronounced "zung" (sounds like joong) in the dioziu dialect, and I can assume that it's very similar if not the same in hokkien and other southern min dialects. I have always thought that the word came from that. But that was without knowing there were malay words that are similar. ~anonymous

I'm curious about the etymology as well; since Junk / Jonk meaning an old piece of rope was a nautical term since 1353 per this link. While I'll admit that its my own OR, I'd believe that the boat term was created when western sailors saw how much rope was used in the junk rig (and due to the quantity required, it was probably lots of old pieces).

[edit] Rudders

Fascinating article, but I have one small problem:

Junk employed rudders centuries before their adoption in the West. The world's oldest known depiction of a rudder can be seen on a pottery model of a junk dating from the 1st century CE. By contrast, the West's oldest known rudder can be found on church carvings dating to around 1180.

This is basically not true; to make it true we have to use the word "rudder" to refer to two different steering mechanisms whilst excluding all other steering devices:

Rudders in general are at least thousands of years older than this, in the West and elsewhere. We have clear examples of quarter-rudders—rudders mounted on the quarters of a ship—from c. 2500 BC in Egypt, in the form of artwork, wooden models, and even remains of actual boats. (Some older references call these "steering oars", implying that they were attached at only one point like a sculling oar, but the evidence is that they were attached at multiple points and hence a true rudder.)
Even stern mounted rudders are known from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (1986 BC to 1633 BC). Those rudders, however, were not the pintle-and-gudgeon sternpost rudders we mean today — but then, neither are the rudders of early junks.
The evidence is that the modern re-introduction of stern-mounted rudders was indepdently invented three times, because the Chinese, North European and Arabic systems actually work in three quite different ways, and are similar only in the position of the rudder at the stern of the ship. The thing we usually mean by "rudder" today, the sternpost pintle and gudgeon rudder, was invented in Northern Europe in the twelfth century. It is not at all similar to those used on junks.
Because these rudders are universal on large modern vessels, it is often assumed that they are significantly superior to quarter rudders; this is not the case. All else being equal, quarter-rudders generate significantly more turning moment for a given blade chord, are easier to maintain and repair, less likely to be damaged, and provide finer control. The real reasons for the eventual triumph of the pintle and gudgeon rudder are complex, and detailed in an excellent reference on this subject, the thesis of Lawrence V. Mott, The development of the rudder, AD 100-1600: A technological tale, Texas A&M, May 1991.

-- Securiger 10:17, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

http://nautarch.tamu.edu/anth/abstracts/mott.html

Abstract and full text in PDF. -- Toytoy 15:44, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

So, to be precise, should we be talking of this innovation as the "pintle-and-gudgeon rudder" or "stern-post rudder", "which supplanted the quarter rudder in Europe in the 14th century, and permitted the steering of ships of bigger size"? The "independant invention" thesis seems rather questionable since there were so many exchanges between Europe, the Arab World and China during the 12th-14th centuries (Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo, who describe Chinese ships in details, and many others). My source for the Chinese influence on rudder design is the book "The Genius of China, 3000 years of science, discovery and invention" by Robert Temple, although it does not go into technical details. PHG 21:48, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To be precise, the "pintle-and-gudgeon rudder" is the thing that was invented in Europe in twelfth century and supplanted quarter rudders in Northern Europe in the 14th, and much later in the Mediterranean. "Stern-post rudder" is a much vaguer term, which includes P&G rudders but is not restricted to them. The rudder on junks is not a "pintle-and-gudgeon rudder". It would be a stern-post rudder, except that junks don't have a stern-post!

I think you misunderstand the argument for independent invention. Yes, it is true there was cultural exchange between these regions, and they could have copied each others' designs. But they didn't! The European stern-post rudder, the Arabic stern-post rudder, and the Chinese stern-post, erm, stern rudder, are very different designs, which show no sign of being derived from one another. The only similarities are that they are mounted at the stern, and incorporate a movable blade (which of course is pretty well essential for a rudder). The mechanisms of mounting, rotating, controlling, construction and shipping and unshipping for maintenance are all about as far apart as you can get within the design parameters.

BTW, the PDF file of that thesis is 24 MB, but it is well worth the download if you are interested in this sort of thing. Mott has pretty well canvassed, and then surpassed, all other research on the subject IMHO. Absolutely fascinating. -- Securiger 20:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the thesis, it is indeed very interesting. What is clear from it is that actual stern-mounted rudders (pintle-and-gudgeon system) appeared in the West in the 11th century (the Egyptian example is only an oar thrown over the aft). In contrast, stern-mounted rudders (hung system) are recorded in China from the 1st century (detailed in Junk (sailing), source: Robert Temple), which is 1000 years earlier. So maybe the phrase in the text should be:

"Junks employed stern-mounted rudders centuries before their adoption in the West. The world's oldest known depiction of a stern-mounted rudder can be seen on a pottery model of a junk dating from the 1st century CE. By contrast, the West's oldest known stern-mounted rudder can be found on church carvings dating to around 1180.

I will make that change if everybody is OK with it.

Regarding the transmission, clearly nothing is proven, and the author of the thesis explains that maybe the idea of the stern-mounted rudder was transmitted from China, but probably not the actual mechanism. That's fair enough. Thanks for the feedback. PHG 12:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to add an interesting technical note about junk rudders. I'm also a Wikipedia newbie, so please excuse if I'm going about this wrong. I once read a technical analysis of junks done or sponsored by the Navy in about 1960-62 (I will try to track down the original source). The following is from my recollection of the article; I have no expertise in this area myself. The paper noted among other things that junk rudders have holes in them. This was considered odd until some experiments showed that this effectively reduced the tendency of the rudder to 'stall', so the rudder was more effective at high angles of attack. This ancient technological feature is still not regularly used in "Western" design craft to my knowledge. This was one of several empirically-designed characteristics that turned out to have valid rationales from modern physics and fluid dynamics. Gar37bic 02:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redundancy

I wouldn't dream of meddling with such apparently expert articles, but a reduction of material that also appears in the articles Zheng He and Junk Keying articles would probably be appropriate. --Ahruman 00:14, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Don't want to meddle either, but perhaps it is worth noting that centerboards were also known to the Indins in the Americas. And thus, diffsuion to the "Dutch and Portuguese" could have come from their example.

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/fall%202003/Guara.html

[edit] Watertight Holds

Seems to me the discussion under design, that watertight holds were a myth, is contradicted under history, 14th century, by the quote from Niccolo Da Conti. Is this a conflict, or is da Conti's comment merely out of context to his intent? 'Intact' certainly suggests 'not water damaged'. Is there a good source for the watertight idea being a myth?ThuranX 05:15, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Why is there edits on the lack of watertight compartments in junks? Limber holes and watertight compartments can coexist easily, although the usefulness of limber holes would be minimized. By discarding foreign outlooks on the existence of watertight compartments just by assuming that they looked "not too closely" is way from enough.

Here's a quote from Marco Polo to prove my point: : ‘so that if by accident the ship is staved in one place, namely that whether it strikes a rock, or a whale-fish striking against it in search of food staves it in … the water cannot pass from one hold to another.'

" It was an innovation which permitted the steering of large, high-freeboard ships, though the system of mounting was chronically weak and required large numbers of crew to control in strong weather."

According to Needleham, a reasonably large cargo ship of the Yangtze have a rudder that needs "as many as 3 men to handle in a difficult rapid". That would not be considered "large numbers of the crew", so I'll delete it. Also the fact that rudders were never said to be "weak" but was in fact the exact opposite. Primary sources say that it was indeed the strongest part of the junk, not the weakest part. I'll change that too.

I took out the "(obviously not too closely)" in the sentence " and he acknowledged that he had got the idea of watertight compartments by looking (obviously not too closely) at Chinese junks there. ".

It is not neccessary since only some historians debate whether the junks had water tight compartments. Most historians do believe they did have water tight compartments due to blueprints from the Ming dynasty so I will stick to the general consensus.

-intranetusa

[edit] Size of Zheng He's ships

The article treats the sizes as given facts and does not reflect at all the fact that all these numbers are just speculation. In fact, by any measure we have, the size of the ships, particularly of the Treasures ships, must be blown out of proportion. See Largest wooden ships. Gun Powder Ma 01:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The article reflects uncritically the dimensions given by ancient sources and fails to take into consideration modern scholarship which favours far smaller sizes. See zheng he. Regards Gun Powder Ma 23:58, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Counter. Modern scholarship by Louise Levanthes,et al, points towards a ship size of the treasure junks at 400-440 feet ("When China Ruled the Seas" pg. 80). Others, particularly Prof. Edward Dreyer of the University of Miami have approved of the ship sizes as being factual range probabilities, not technical impossibilities ("Journal of Asian Studies" - Vol. 54, No. 1, pp 198-199). Joseph Needham, as well, had pointed towards treasure ships in the 400-500 ft range. Therefore, based on their research and modern translations into modern units as well as the rudder posts unearthed at Longjiang, the treasure ship sizes of 400 ft or longer are both plausible and, in all likelihood, probable. Kairn012 02:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright query re 14th century junks (Yuan Dynasty)

Are the Ibn Battutah quotations free of copyright? Parts of them match word for word The Travels of Ibn Battutah edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (ISBN 0 330 49113X). He claims copyright for his foreward (not quoted in this Wikipedia article), not for the text which he abridged from the translation by Professors Hamilton Gibb and C.F. Beckingham and for that The Hakluyt Society holds copyright.--SilasW 20:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese name

The article needs the Chinese name of this type of ship. Chinese Wikipedia gives 中国帆船. Badagnani (talk) 23:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Text contradicts illustration

The text states that the medieval Chinese junk could sail against the wind, but the illustration shows that it is primarily propelled by rowers. Why are they rowing if the ship could beat against the wind? Ibn Battuta (Travels of Ibn Battuta) writes that the medieval Chinese junk only used its sails when the winds were favourable, and rowers when the winds were unfavourable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.42.21.62 (talk) 11:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sail Diagram

I need a diagram of a junk sail that labels all the differant parts and stuff.

-Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.136.214.34 (talk) 13:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)