No. 237 Maritime Archaeology in the People's Republic of China ...

Chapter 4. Description of the Quanzhou Ship
Nick Burningham and Jeremy Green
Figure 73.
Photograph of the Quanzhou ship during excavation phase.
The Initial discovery
Hull Form and Structure
The surviving portion of the hull is approximately 24 m in length
and 9 m wide. The midsection of the hull shows considerable
deadrise and there is distinct hollow in the deadrise close to
the keel. The turn of the bilge is gentle: only the lower part
of the turn of the bilge survives and the exact sectional shape
at this point cannot be determined since it is not confirmed
by the remains of any bulkheads, but the appearance as that
the full beam of the hull must have been substantially greater
than the 9 m of the surviving portion. There is only a slight
increase in deadrise, and no increase in the hollow, towards
the stern. Towards the bow, both deadrise and hollow increase
markedly. The hollow is greatest in the vicinity of the junction
of the keel and forward keel extension. This is an unusual
characteristic, it would give the hull greater lateral resistance
forward than aft and suggests that a large and deep rudder was
used to counter the ‘grip’ of the bow.
The sheer plan of the hull shows the bow-buttock lines
with very gentle curves both forward and aft. This is, in part,
because only the lower portion of the hull survives but also
reflects the construction method discussed below. The bow-
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buttock lines in the bow actually rise less steeply than the keel
extension: this is one of the features that suggest the use of a
transom in the bow.
The lines of the extant hull were drawn from offsets
measured to the plank seams of the outer planking at stations
one metre apart. When first plotted the lines showed significant
irregularity, particularly when the run of the plank seams and
clinker steps were plotted. This must have been partly due to
the degraded condition of the timber—the ragged edges of the
planks—and perhaps some distortion and irregular shrinkage
that had occurred during the dismantling, transport, re-assembly
and air-drying of the timber. When the external sections of the
hull were compared with the internal sections (measured with
EDM in 1994) it became apparent that some misaligning of the
outer sheathing planking had occurred during reassembly. This
had resulted in the planking being three layers thick, instead
of two, where unintended overlap had occurred immediately
above the clinker steps of the inner planking (fig ) and had
caused some distortion of the hull form. It was found that in
places the outer planking was not flush with the inner planking,
but hung away by 30 mm or more. (This is hardly surprising
and no discredit to the team who undertook the reassembly