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About catopower

Ship modeling since 1993.

Higakikaisen/Tarukaisen Book（ 菱垣廻船／樽廻船）- Tokyo Maritime Science Museum Download (Japanese)

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In past posts, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this illustrated small format booklet, printed in Japanese, on these Japanese coastal transports.

The ships, generically known by sailors as bezaisen, had specific terms based on their function. The Higakikaisen (菱垣廻船 were cargo transports belonging to a trade guild, and provided regular transport of cargo from Osaka to Edo in the 17th and 18th centuries. Tarukaisen (樽廻船) were barrel carrying transports that carried sake and soy sauce around the same time.

The book explains about these ships, their history, and design. I bought a copy last time I was in Japan, I think I was in the Toba Seafolk Museum gift shop where I found this and several other books I had to have. The price isn’t on the cover, but as I recall, it’s very inexpensive. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to get unless you actually travel to Japan. And, even then, you have to know where to find it.

Recently, I received some information that the book is actually available as a free download from the Maritime Science Museum’s website. I checked it out and, sure enough, you can get this booklet for free in pdf form.

Here’s the link to the download: http://fields.canpan.info/report/download?id=3233

Again, the booklet is in Japanese. But, if you don’t read the language, you can print it out for yourself, look over the photos and diagrams, and use Google Translate to help you with small sections of the text – it’s hard to select large sections of text when it’s published in column format.

[EDIT]: The download is from the Nippon Foundation website. So, before you think I might be providing a link to an illegal copy, here’s the link to the Foundation’s download page for this book: http://fields.canpan.info/report/detail/4963. Just so everyone knows!

 

 

 

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Identifying a Japanese Boat from an Historical Photo

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When studying wasen, particularly when you don’t live in Japan, about the only research you can do is either by studying books or using the Internet. In Japan, you can visit museums to find old boats, models, and photos, where some specialist has identified all the artfacts; You can travel out into the rural areas and maybe spot some old boats abandoned by a river; You might even be able to meet an old boat builder that can tell you a thing or two about the boats he worked with, though as time goes by, that option is quickly disappearing. But, outside Japan, you basically have books and the Internet.

I recently ran across this interesting photo on Flickr. There were a couple comments on it, but they were pretty old and didn’t really offer any information, just a couple observations.

The first thing noticeable in this photos is the cargo. Those are tawara, or rice bales, and they are pretty standard size at this point in time, anyway. Of course the exact time of the photo is hard to say for sure, but it’s a good quality hand-tinted photo, which was popular in Japan between the 1860 and 1900. And, there are some telegraph poles in the background.

In any case a rice bale is generally around 2.5 feet long. You can see two bales fitting end-to-end across the width of the boat in the foreground, giving us a width of 5 feet. Allowing for the hull planking and rail, say maybe 6 feet across.

The most important clue is the shape of the bow, and the run of the planks there. If you zoom in, you can just make out that the seams of the planks appear to be roughly parallel with the stem, or miyoshi. This is a style of bow planking that is unique to Lake Biwa.

Fortunately, I have a copy of the english language version of a book on marukobune, which is a well known boat type that sailed on Lake Biwa. Besides the marukobune, it has some small drawings and descriptions of many other types of boats in the Lake Biwa region.

I actually happened to already have an idea of what the boat in the photo was based on what it was carrying and the narrow canal it was on, so I knew what to look up. Sure enough, I found a boat type called a sosuibune, or canal boat.

Model in the Lake Biwa Museum.

The sosuibune were developed in the late 1800s, specifically to navigate the newly built canals that were constructed to carry fresh water and to provide a transportation link from Lake Biwa to the city of Kyōto. Sosuibune carried rice and firewook to Kyōto and apparently returned with finished good and material for kimonos.

The details on their size is a little bit limited in the marukobune book, but it does tell us that the boats were about 6-shaku wide, which is almost exactly 6 feet, and a depth of 2-shaku. From a very small drawing in the book, I was able to work out that the boats must have been about 35-shaku long. Again, that’s about 35 feet. The boats are described as having a carrying capacity of 30 koku, which apparently works out to 75 bales of rice.

As a model subject, it seems like a fairly simple boat, with the most interesting feature being the planked bow, which is called Heita style. This creates a more rounded bow, rather than the sharp pointed bow that is common to so many Japanese boats, and creates more interior capacity.

The only drawings are pretty fuzzy, and I’ve contacted the Lake Biwa Museum about finding other drawings, but they weren’t much help. However, the drawings in the book, with some careful image analysis and enhancement, should be able to result in a decent model. So, I may just make the attempt. Ω

A Blog Site on Illustration of Historical Japanese Ships (和船図譜)

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I was digging around on Youtube a few weeks ago and discovered an interesting 3D walk-around video of a traditional Japanese boat. In the description, I found a link to a Japanese website called Wasen Zufu (和船図譜) or Illustration of Historical Japanese Ships. This is apparently a blog site of someone in Japan who has created some virtual 3D models of a few wasen. Some of these are shown as a textured image, with a couple shown in walk-around video clips of them.

Many people might not take much notice, but I saw that a couple of these reminded me of boats I had seen in a book on boats of Toyama prefecture. Looking more closely, sure enough, three of the boats from Toyama are included.

3D digital models are interesting, as you should then be able to view then from any angle, and thus get a better sense of what they look like. I suppose they’re really no different from physical models, though these digital models lack some details, such as planking and fastening. But, on a small enough scale, my own wooden models may lack some of these features. So, that does cause me to rethink those smaller models of mine.

But in any case, the site, as I say, is interesting. One of the most interesting things to me, was to discover a link to the text of a talk given by Mr. Naoki Hirose, the curator of the Himi City Museum, and someone I actually know. I already wrote about the details about this in a previous post here: Funabashi – Boat Bridges in the Edo Period (船橋).

Anyway, you can check out the site here: https://blog.canpan.info/wasenn-zufu/

I’ve written to the owner of the site and he indicated he was going to keep making illustrations. So, while the site doesn’t seem to have been updated in a while, perhaps we’ll seem some new information there in the future. Ω

 

 

Funabashi – Boat Bridges in the Edo Period (船橋)

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The term Funabashi, is probably most recognized as a city immediately east of Tōkyō, in Chiba prefecture. But the name literally translates to boat bridge. This is a totally unknown subject to me – I never knew they even existed until a few days ago.

Photo of the funabashi near the mouth of the Jinzu river in Toyama prefecture.

While following Internet leads, as I often find myself doing, I ran across the text of a Japanese lecture that turned out to be by Mr. Naoki Hirose, who I know from his connection with Douglas Brooks’ work in Himi City, Toyama prefecture, and more recently from the Wasen Kenkyu Kai meetings that I’ve been attending recently via Zoom. He is the curator of the Himi City Museum. As I already know and communicate with Hirose san now and then, what a coincidence and discovery! The lecture was actually part of some kind of event focused on railroads, but this was an article that talked about how things and people traveled on the “boat highway”.

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Site Updates, Tarukaisen (樽廻船)

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Today, I just added a couple new items to my Downloads page, including the full pdf files of the Higaki Kaisen article that I wrote for Seaways’ Ships in Scale. The magazine, now defunct, included my article as a 3-part series on the building of Woody Joe’s 1/72-scale Higaki Kaisen kit.

I wish the magazine were still around, as I would most certainly still be writing articles for them. They were very easy to work with and I thought they compensated authors pretty well.

The three files are actually the proofs that I got from the publisher prior to print, but that’s all I have. There were very few corrections that needed to made, and they were pretty minor, so anyone following these articles shouldn’t run into any issues.

At the same time, I went ahead and added a link to the Japanese text on the building of the cormorant fishing boat, which was written by Douglas Brooks and company. Again, it’s all in Japanese, but hey, it’s a free download.

Website Organization

Meanwhile, I’m thinking I need to better organize my blog material, so I can write more often. I do a lot from day to day, and I need to be writing about it more. Meanwhile, I want to keep specific topics easily accessible and uncluttered. So, that’s something to work on. Please feel free to email me if you have any ideas.

Taru Kaisen (樽廻船)

And, as long as I’m just doing some general blogging, I thought I’d put out a request for any information that you all may have found on Taru Kaisen. For those that don’t know, these are coastal transports specifically used for transporting barrels of sake. They actually started off transporting other high value foods from the locations that were best known for them. However, by the late Edo period, they were carrying only sake, and lots of it.

I found a website showing the making of this beautiful 1/35-scale model of a Tarukaisen. You can click on the image to link to the site.

There’s a great article in a past issue of the Sake World Newsletter from January of 2007 that has some interesting information about Tarukaisen and sake in pre-modern Japan.

http://www.esake.com/Knowledge/Newsletter/SW/SW2007/sw2007_0.html

This doesn’t answer the big question for a wasen modeler, which is if there is any visible characteristics that identify a bezaisen (Japanese coastal transport) as a Tarukaisen. I’m reviewing the Tokyo Museum of Maritime Science publication about Higakikaisen and Tarukaisen now. But, if you know of any good information on the subject, please let me know. You can comment on the blog or just send an email to info@wasenmodeler.com. Ω

Cormorant Fishing Boats Book by Douglas Brooks (Japanese) – Free Download

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A couple days ago, a new publication by the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties was posted on their Tobuken website.

船大工那須誠一と長良川の鵜舟をつくる

Building the Naragara River Ubune with Boatbuilder Nasu Seiichi

The publication is compilation of the work by boatbuilder Douglas Brooks in Gifu, Japan, in 2017, working with 85-year old boat builder Mr. Seiichi Nasu, on the construction of a cormorant fishing boat. The boats are called Ukaibune or Ubune, the latter being a the local term and simply meaning cormorant boat.

Photo courtesy of Douglas Brooks.

The book is in Japanese, but contains Mr. Brooks’s writings about the project, as well as a section by Mr. Masashi Kutsuwa on riverboat culture. For those interested in the tools used in the boatbuilding process, there is a huge section in the back with photos and scale line drawings of each of the tools used.

Photo courtesy of Douglas Brooks.

Only 500 copies of the book are being printed and provided to libraries and research institutions, and none are available for sale to the general public. However, a pdf version is available for download, free of charge, and was recently posted on the Tobunken website:

https://www.tobunken.go.jp/…/wp-con…/uploads/ubune2020-1.pdf

Also, Douglas Brooks has also completed a manuscript for his own english language book, which will be printed and available for purchase. This will be available, hopefully, in early 2021. Ω

Simple Cargo for a Wasen Model

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I’ve been thinking about making a diorama to include my recently completed tenma-zukuri  chabune. One of the uses of such a boat was for transporting cargo. So, a diorama is going to need something for the boat to carry. An empty boat is fine for displaying the boat itself, but it’s not going to look right in a diorama.

Possibilities include barrels of sake or miso, or bales of rice. But, I’ve found that these are can be just bit complicated due to their shape and the way that are wrapped. Sake barrels, called taru, have a somewhat fat, squat shape and, at least in modern times, are wrapped with colorful logos and writing. They would be interesting to include, but a bit complex for what I want to do here, especially with the unique rope wrapping.

One of the simpler examples of a sake barrel I’ve found on the Internet.

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Wasen Mokei Website in The Rope Newsletter

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My wasen modeler / wasen mokei website got a nice little blurb in the most recent issue of The Rope Newsletter. This issue, due to the coronavirus, is an expanded issue based on member reports, and not just based on members attending a meeting, as they usually are, so it’s a big issue, 36 pages!

In a half-page section of their Overseas Report, my Himi Tenma model got some mention. But, probably more importantly, the website got some attention. The writeup even goes so far as to suggest that “It may be a great help even for Japanese modelers…”. So, it’s nice to see that there is enough content here to gain a little recognition. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep building up the content for some time to come. Below, is a link to the full newsletter, so you can see what’s going on with some of the ship modelers in Japan:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7WJHFhxjbRJQF3UCweo2dfGQgDWTT3N/view

Ω

 

Building a Tenma-Zukuri Chabune (伝間造茶船) – Part 5 – Final

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First off, my apologies for taking so long to post an update on this project. The Tenma-zukuri Chabune is actually done. It sat for a long time with all the construction work done, needing only the coppering detail. I finally got the nerve to get back to it and it is now finished. But, when I last posted, there was still work to do, so let me take a step back to go over what was done.

Last we left off, the nail mortises had been cut and I was ready to add the decks at the bow and stern, or the omote and the tomo.

I don’t know if the boards that make up these decks were removable. Underneath, I left the ends open, so things could be tucked in there for storage, but only for smaller things, as the support posts of the beams cut the openings in half. If the deck beams were removable, there should be finger holes in at least some of the deck boards, so they could be easily lifted up. Sometimes, there was also a V-shaped pattern inscribed across the boards to make it easier to identify which boards go where. This is less important at the bow, where the boards lengths vary greatly, making them more easily identifiable as to which one goes where.

At 1/20 scale, I decided to keep things simple and didn’t add either finger holes or the alignment inscription. This would be more important on a larger scale model, like 1/10 or 1/15. So, adding the deck boards was just a matter of laying them down.

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The Tonegawa Takasebune (高瀬船) – a Model in 1/72 Scale

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After finishing the Himi tenmasen model, I was at somewhat of a crossroads. Though the Woody Joe kitamaebune kit is close to being completed and waiting for me to make a set of sails for it, I felt that I needed to start some kind of scratch project.

I considered some other boats from Toyama prefecture, now that I have access to drawings of many examples, but there’s always been one type of boat that has intrigued me for quite some time. The boat is a large cargo transport that operated on the larger rivers in and out of old Edo. There were various kinds of transports on the rivers around Edo, but these stood out to me.

These boats were called takasebune (tah-kah-say-boo-nay), and the term can be a little confusing, as the same term would refer to any boats on the Takase river. But, the term was more commonly applied to various types of cargo boats used on rivers through Japan. My interest here is specifically for those that plied the waters of the Tone (toh-nay) river system.

Illustration of a large Takasebune from the Funakagami

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