VRACHTSCHIP 1800 (cargo vessel)

[aukepalmhof]

Cargo vessel around 1800, the design is also in the book Ship,5,000 years of Maritime Adventure by Brian Lavery on page 64. The depicted cargo vessel is one from Japan.

The first Japanese human settlers arrived in Japan by crossing the seas about 35,000 years ago from the Asian mainland.

The Japanese used boats mainly for coastal navigation but she sailed also to Indonesia. The Chinese writer Mao Yuan gives in 1600 that the Japanese ships were “wretchedly small… and easily sunk. They were caulked with grass called tanbokuso, which was expensive and ineffective.

Mr Yamaguchi Junichi gives; that a Japanese friend could not find this type of ship on a Japanese painting, and most probably the design is after a model brought to Europe by Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (1796-1866) a German employed by the Dutch Government which had taken over the VOC, who arrived at Dejima, Nagasaki, Japan in 1823.
During his stay he studied the flora and fauna and made a large collection of Japanese plants, birds, goods and models, which was send to Europe.

The type depict on the stamp is a SENGOKU-BUNE or a variant the BE(N)ZAISEN of the Edo period (1600-1868)
She is a cumbersome cargo vessel with a displacement of around 100 tons. In use till the 1900, used mainly for inland waters especially the Inland Sea in Japan.
Sharp, elongated stem, high open square stern.
The helmsman was located below deck, which got his directions from two crewmen. The large rudder could be lowered and raised by a winch on the aft deck.
The single heavy mast could set a square sail; the mast could be lowered when needed. In the bow a small rectangular sail.
She was decked but which could be removed, a cabin mostly in the amidships. Sometimes the type was flush-decked.
Could also be rowed.
Dim. 18.5 – 40 metres, beam 5.75m.
Crew 8-14 men.

Source: Aak to Zumbra, a Dictionary of the World’s watercraft. Info from Mr. Yamaguchi Junichi.