Shuimigecangfuchuanzhizaojiyi
01 · Historical Records
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, China's ocean-going wooden sailing ships were highly favored by merchants and envoys from many countries. The important reason was that Chinese sailing ships offered a high degree of safety, and this safety came precisely from the watertight bulkheads inside the ships. China's watertight bulkhead shipbuilding technique was introduced to the West by Marco Polo as early as the late 13th century. Ancient Quanzhou was long known for its thriving shipbuilding industry. According to the Xishan Zazhi (Records of the Western Hills) compiled during the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty, sea vessels built in the Quanzhou region during the Tianbao era (742-756) of the Tang dynasty already had "fifteen compartments" - that is, the hull was divided into 15 bulkhead compartments. Excavated artifacts prove that no later than the Song dynasty, sea vessels built in Quanzhou had already adopted a mature watertight bulkhead structure. The shipbuilding technique of Qihou Village, Zhangwan Town, Jiaocheng District, Ningde City, was introduced from southern Fujian during the Hongwu reign of the Ming dynasty and has been passed down from generation to generation ever since. During the Republic of China period (1912-1949), Zhangwan mostly built "sanweitou" (three-masted) wooden sailing ships of 200 to 300 tons. After the reform and opening-up drive began in the 1980s, the widespread adoption of metal-hulled ships caused the Fuchuan shipbuilding industry in Zhangwan to shrink steadily.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The so-called watertight bulkheads are the mutually independent, watertight compartments separated from one another by transverse partition boards inside the ship's hold. The use of watertight bulkheads not only increases the strength of the hull; even if one compartment strikes a reef and takes on water, the other compartments are not endangered, thus guaranteeing the safety of the vessel in navigation. At the same time, the watertight bulkheads serve as support points against the bending of the hull planking, further increasing the sturdiness of the sailing ship. Thereafter this technique was gradually adopted by the shipbuilding industries of countries around the world and exerted an important influence on the development of human seafaring. The sailing ships built here follow tradition in everything from hull design and selection of materials to construction techniques, exterior painting, and the various rituals observed during the building process: 14 bulkhead boards divide the ship into 15 compartments; below each bulkhead board, near the keel, there are two water-passage openings (guoshuiyan); and the seams between adjacent bulkhead boards are caulked tight with tung-oil putty and hemp rope to ensure that the compartments are sealed off from one another. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Zhangwan shipyard built large numbers of fishing vessels and cargo ships, many of them wooden sailing ships of more than 60 tons built with watertight bulkhead structures. With the development of modern transportation, wooden ships have increasingly lost the conditions in which they can survive, the wooden shipbuilding industry has declined accordingly, and the manufacturing technique has gradually been lost.
Fourteen bulkheads dividing fifteen compartments
Design, timber selection, construction, painting and the building rites all follow tradition, with fourteen bulkheads dividing the hull into fifteen sealed compartments.
The two flood holes below the bulkheads
Each bulkhead carries two flood holes near the keel, so that water from a holed compartment drains away instead of spreading to its neighbours.
Caulking with tung-oil putty and hemp
Every seam between bulkhead and plank is packed with tung-oil putty and hemp cord to keep the compartments isolated, and the caulking also stiffens the whole hull.
Bulkheads as supports for hull planking
Serving as stiffening points for the curved hull planking, the bulkheads add structural strength and keep one breached compartment from threatening the rest of the ship.
Rites observed during construction
The rituals of the building yard, together with design, timber choice, construction and painting, make up the full rule set of fu-ship building.
Designing the junk in the traditional mode
At Shenhu town in Jinjiang the tradition still lives, with junks designed in the old pattern and the number and position of bulkheads fixed by long usage.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The traditional watertight bulkhead wooden sailing ship construction technique still survives today in Shenhu Town, Jinjiang City, Quanzhou, where wooden sailing ships are being designed according to traditional models.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Shuimigecangfuchuanzhizaojiyi · Shuimigecangfuchuanzhizaojiyi.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, although Qihou Village still retains small-scale production, inheritors are growing ever scarcer, and the watertight bulkhead Fuchuan shipbuilding technique is already in an endangered state. Under these circumstances, corresponding rescue and protection measures must be drawn up as quickly as possible so as to ensure the effective transmission of this precious folk handicraft, traditional wooden shipbuilding. Chen Fangcai (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han ethnicity, born in September 1948, from Jinjiang City, Fujian Province. Representative inheritor of the watertight bulkhead Fuchuan shipbuilding technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the third national-level batch. Technician of watertight bulkhead Fuchuan shipbuilding. In 1961 he entered the Shenhu shipyard in Jinjiang County, where he studied and mastered the watertight bulkhead shipbuilding technique. The ships he builds embody rigorous scientific soundness: considered from the standpoint of modern mechanics, the assembly structure he designs can increase the longitudinal strength and rigidity of the hull. His representative works include a 3-meter-long Fuchuan ship model held at the World Expo Garden in Xiamen and, in recent years, antique-style ship models and wooden sailing ships of his own design and manufacture; these are of a certain historical value for research on the watertight bulkhead shipbuilding technique. He actively cultivates successors in the watertight bulkhead shipbuilding technique, and the apprentices he has trained have become outstanding figures in the trade in Shenhu.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chen Fangcai 03-1403
- Liu Xixiu 05-2835
- Huang Zongcai 05-2836
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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