Small Boats in Thailand and Bali

Joyce and I just got back from a six week holiday trip to Thailand and Bali. Among my memories are the locally built small wooden boats I saw. There were lots of interesting bigger boats too, but it is the little ones used by ordinary folk not unlike Duckworks’ readers that interested me most.

We spent the first week on the little island of YaoYai just north of Phuket in the simplest of bamboo “resort” accommodation on a pleasant beach. Among the many big long-tails I noticed a very small blue-painted long-tail boat with low freeboard whizzing along with a sharp noise in the distance and landing at the end of the beach about a kilometre (0.6 miles) away. On one of our regular walks in that direction this boat ran in and powered up onto the beach.

Among the many big long-tails I noticed a very small blue-painted long-tail boat with low freeboard. (click images for larger views)

You can see just how heavy the boat is by how much the chine is buried in the sand. It looks as if it is a taped seam boat, which could have been quite light. But it was fully encapsulated in quite heavy matt and polyester resin. No wonder that it rode so low in the water. The photo above tends to foreshorten the boat but the one below gives a good sense of the pleasant lines. I do wish that I could have got a beam-on shot of it in the water for you.

This gives a better impression of the boat’s lines with the typical Thai long bow overhang. The tail shaft of the motor would, of course, be pointing aft when under way. It took four guys to move it up the beach to above the tide line.

The new 4.0 hp Honda is quite a contrast to the huge unmuffled V-8’s on the bigger long-tail boats!

The new 4.0 hp Honda is quite a contrast to the huge unmuffled V-8’s on the bigger long-tail boats! It looked as if the motor was either manufactured by Honda as a long-tail or perhaps professionally converted. It was really clean – unlike many of the larger long-tails. The lack of much language in common precluded a detailed discussion.

We spent the last few weeks of our trip in Bali; most of our time amid the rice fields in the central area near Ubud, the cultural capital of this Indonesian island, enjoying the music, dance, art, scenery and culture. But we did manage a few days in a small fishing village named Padangbai on the northeast coast. There I was fascinated by the outrigger fishing boats called perahus or prahus.

Long before dawn each morning the boats would motor out beyond the bar at the entrance to the bay to fish. About 8:00 am, after Joyce and I had finished our breakfast of fruit, tea and omelette on the deck of our comfortable bamboo hut, the boats would return one by one driving up hard on the beach. The main hulls of these boats are very solid dugout logs so they will take a daily beating like this very well. Other villagers would meet them, undo the lashings from the bamboo outriggers, store them under the trees at the top of the beach, put their shoulders under the curved crossbeams and carry the boats up beyond high water. The fishing nets would be pulled out, the catch removed to bamboo baskets, a few fish kept for family use and the rest passed on to what seemed to be a cooperative to be sold in the market at a nearby town.

A bamboo outrigger float being moved up the beach.

This is a photo of the only boat I saw sailing. It seemed to be moving just as fast toward the beach as those which were motor driven. Sails seem to have been relegated to the ‘auxiliary power’ category.

Carrying the boat up the beach. Later on this morning one of these boats took us out snorkelling but we didn’t get to use the sail.

Later on this morning one of these boats took us out snorkelling but we didn’t get to use the sail.

Padangbai is also the port for numerous big ferries taking cars and trucks and for small passenger ferries operating from the beach. This small ferry in the photo seems to take motor redundancy to the extreme; very practical though from a maintenance and fueling point of view.

We found both Thailand and Bali to be very hospitable and safe. Our governments and the media seem to me to have grossly exaggerated the dangers of travel there subsequent to the bombings last year in the popular Balinese beach resort of Kuta and the sporadic violence in southern Thailand. People who would otherwise go to Bali are, by cancelling or being afraid to travel, actually supporting and encouraging terrorists in their efforts and are contributing to significant damage Bali’s economy. (Bali is dominantly a Hindu/Buddhist society.) One is more likely to get killed or injured in a traffic accident at home than while spending some good time in such a beautiful, peaceful, safe and hospitable place as Bali or southern Thailand.

Padangbai is also the port for numerous big ferries taking cars and trucks and for small passenger ferries operating from the beach.

Patrick Stewart
Quadra Island, British Columbia