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

Figure 99. The excavated Quanzhou ship, Museum of Overseas
Transport and Communications, Quanzhou (CHI.10).
archaeological record.
Both the Quanzhou (Figure 4) and Shinan ships are
considered to belong to the hybrid South China Sea tradition.
Similarities include the marked (and often hollow) deadrise
in the sectional shape of the hull, the use of bulkheads with
adjacent frames, the positioning and shape of the main mast
step and the use of multi layered planking. Vessels discovered
in the Gulf of Thailand display some similar characteristics
to the Quanzhou ship. For example, the Ko Khram shipwreck
shows evidence for twelve bulkheads with the main mast step
on the forward side of the sixth bulkhead. The Pattaya ship
had three layers of planking, and certainly multiple planking
has been described at other sites and it is often described in
historical literature. Outer planks are simply butt joined, the
scarfs are all positioned under the bulkheads and frames and,
frames are nailed to the bulkheads and to the hull planking
(Burningham & Green, in preparation:16).
Green and Burningham conclude that :
In a number of important respects the South China Sea tradition,
as reflected in the vessels discovered by maritime archaeology in
the Gulf of Thailand, is different from the tradition of the builders
of the Quanzhou and Shinan ships. The South China Sea vessels
are constructed with the (main) plank shell edge-dowelled together
rather than skew nailed. There is no use of iron brackets or
wedge-shaped fasteners to hold the plank shell to the bulkheads. In
general, iron fastenings are used sparingly or are entirely absent.
There is no use of rabbited plank seams or clinker alignment of
planks except in the Quanzhou and Shinan ships. It may be that
the construction principle employed in the construction of these
two vessels is different from that of the other South China Sea
examples (Burningham & Green, in preparation:16).
As noted above, the rise of the anti-maritime party in the
reign of Hongxi (1425) and Xuande (1426–1435) culminated
in the Confucian based ‘Ming Ban’. From this time on the
Chinese navy was drastically reduced. It is possible that these
events were responsible for the disappearance of the traditional
vessels of the South China Sea tradition that is characterised
by the Quanzhou ship and other shipwreck sites.
Further examples of what can be considered end of the
range of design that constitute the South China Sea tradition
are obviously needed before a full definition of the parameters
is possible. It was hoped that in the investigation of the Bai
Jiao 1 shipwreck that some more details on ship construction
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would be revealed. However, only one timber was found and
although it could be interpreted as a section of keel, it offers
little in the further analysis of ship construction techniques.