Sailing a Sinhalese Outrigger Logboat

Abstract

The traditional outrigger logboats of Sri Lanka, many destroyed in the 2004 tsunami, have largely been replaced by fibreglass clones. Among the many traditional variants, the prawn logboats of Negombo, with their unique spritsail rig, are the subject of this study. An account of crew‐drills is offered, based on personal observation, together with a description of its rig, data on its performance under sail and an examination of its stability characteristics.

© 2011 The Author

Key words:

• Sri Lanka
• logboats
• outrigger
• spritsail
• sailing performance
• stability

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Mohamed Husain and his crew for taking us out on their issaň‐oru, to Tuanie Ismail for arranging this with Mohamed and to Dr Ray Wijewardene for his welcome advice by email. I am also grateful to Somasiri Devendra for his continuing advice, support and friendship. Above all to my wife Christine who encouraged me to go to Sri Lanka and who cheerfully endured the capsize.

Notes

1 Pliny writes that ‘the ships have prows at either end, in order that it may not be necessary to tack while navigating the narrow passages of the channel’. The translation of the passage from Strabo which Lewis appears to have in mind, referring to ‘vessels … built with prows at each end’, depends on an emendation of Strabo's text by Meineke in his critical edition; he added the word (prows) to bring Strabo's account into closer accord with Pliny's (1852: 3, 961; Jones, 1917: 7, 22–3). With or without Meineke's emendation the passage is obscure; Jones' translation (without it) ‘they are built without belly bolts on either side’ is even less likely to describe outrigger ships of ‘apparently Indonesian origin’; the fact is that neither Pliny nor Strabo mentions outriggers.

2 Dr Wijewardene competed in the Finn class in the 1968 Olympics (Mexico) and has experience of sailing the sprit‐sailed oru.

3 The process is the same as mackerel spinning, using a hook on a spinner (a shiny piece of metal designed to shimmer as it is pulled through the water), undertaken with rod and line from the shore, or trailing a line behind a moving boat.