|
"Sitting beneath the Mango tree" So starts the famous song and here I am sitting beneath the mango tree. High in the tree above me nestling amid verdant green leaves and solid boughs lay the sweet fruit. A few feet either side of me the coconut palm trunks curve out over the coral sand beach, reaching out till their leaves hang down, languid over the Pacific Ocean. A eucalyptus, with its delicate looking, yet leathery leaves sagged next to me for want of water.  It
was a hot lazy afternoon with the cooling offshore wind offering only slight
relief from the heat. I will lay here and fester a little longer, my mind
informed my limbs, though they had no interest in moving. My eyes were closed,
only the sound of multihulled fishing boats screaming up and down at 15
knots interrupted this utopian idyll. what do you call a trimaran with five hulls? There must have been 50 of these vessels strung out along the length of the beach. A few conveyed Pilipino day-trippers along the curved shoreline. Whooping cries, laughter and screams of delight carried ashore. An eye opens, interesting! What do you call a trimaran with five hulls? I'll leave that one for the reader to answer. Actually there is one central hull with two outriggers constructed from bamboo. The other two outriggers were located slightly inboard of the main outriggers to give additional buoyancy and righting moment to the vessel carrying its human cargo. A single concession to safety I think not? I had learned safety was not an issue in the Philippines on land or water. The roads are navigated at suicidal speed and a form of telepathy takes place between drivers intent upon collision but I digress. I am on vacation I really am not interested in multihulls. I have a good book to read called "Soul Mountain"Ì by Gao Xingjian, winner of the Nobel prize for literature. But the noise from the 16hp un-silenced Briggs engine simply would not go away. Neither would the questions. I wonder what the power to weight ratio is? What's the beam to length ratio? I wonder what the righting moment of the ama might be?  we
are talking about boats that are tied together by fishing lineA few more vessels skitter up and down the beach like water beetles on a pond. The rest of the vessels were up on the beach, standing on bamboo seats, with the water rippling to a standstill beneath them before receding. A lot of industry was taking place. The fisherman along the beach were preparing their vessels for the night. Oil lamps had to be filled, bait boxes prepared, long lines coiled, nets prepared or pots serviced depending on the mode of fishing. 15 knots is considered a cruising speed for these multihulled vessels with top speeds reaching 24 knots. I was informed the racing versions can achieve speeds of 45 knots. Remember we are talking about boats that are tied together by fishing line, Bamboo and building brick-a-brack. Only a few carry sails. I surrendered to my curiosity and walked the beach. After all, these guys had been sailing and building trimarans long before the Greeks had even invented the word. I stopped and talked to one of the skippers. He was wearing shorts, a concession to the 21st century. The machete he held was from another age. With perfect English he told me there are two main designs of vessel. All but two of the boats on the beach are identical; only the paint job differs, he continued. Two engines are used. A 13.5hp Robin or the far more popular 16 hp Briggs. Ingenuity is not the mother of invention. Ingenuity is the resourcefulness of the Pilipino fisherman. Bamboo and 150 pound nylon fishing line is patented into 1000 different uses. On one vessel it's a throttle, on another a tiller, another a seat, another an ama, another securing pegs for bamboo lobster pots, another... well, you get my drift. a keel outlives more then three hulls I break my beach-combing to strike off inland. Our captain and guide has an uncle who builds these boats. We come to his house. Traditional boat building skills are evident without a sign of a power tool. I am mesmerised by the dexterity of the shipwrights. A young man, a boy really, is holding and turning a piece of wood with his feet while his hands use a hammer and chisel. He is the shipwrightÌs son and he is fashioning a knee to support a helmsmen's seat. There is not a design drawing in sight. Tied to a roof beam above my head, a hardwood keel is secured, salvaged from a sick boat. The boatbuilder is called Elmer. He tells me the keel wood is from a Madre de Cacao tree, a local hardwood. The keel will last 25 years but the marine ply resin coated chine hull and decks will only last seven. So a keel outlives more then three hulls.  Time, practicality and environment has optimised this design. Length overall 7.5 metres Beam main hull 0.5 metre Cross- beam 2.75 metres Displacement 350 kiloÌs fully loaded Displacement net 100 to a max. 150 kiloÌs Float length and width varies with the size of bamboo pole selected but a good approximation would be 4 to 5 metres by 18 centimetres in diameter for the average float. Nature has provided the ama with many watertight compartments. Its structural integrity, resistance to impact, durability and lightness would be hard to match using the latest FRP compounds at perhaps thirty times the cost. The cross-beams are constructed from three lengths of hardwood, and yes youÌve guessed it, joined by aforementioned fishing line. £770 for a vessel! A vessel takes approximately six weeks to complete. It costs 27 000 pesos with a further 27 000 pesos for the Briggs engine and installation. At the current rate of exchange that comes to about £770.. It could be a good place to build a Wharram cat! A removable two bladed propeller is used on a direct shaft drive to the engine. So you pull the cord to go, and to stop you stop the engine. It is as simple as that. So far we have only discussed belting up and down the beach or fishing and lobster potting a couple of miles off shore. these intrepid trimariners complete 160 mile excursions almost every night Only a few of the trimarans are used in this employment. The bulk go out to sea in their search for Tuna fish or the odd Marlin. While I was there a Marlin was caught by one fisherman using, yes! 150 pound line. The Marlin weighed more than the man; nearly as much as the boat. As for the fisherman he earned months pay from his one nights catch. Now I come to the most extraordinary part of my tale. These vessels leave at four in the afternoon. They follow the setting sun and then the stars. Some carry a compass. They are heading west at 12 to 15 knots out into the Pacific. Not for one hour or two or three or four but for five or six hours 70 to 80 miles offshore. Remember these vessels have the freeboard of a Spatula. They go out further than a cross channel passage from Weymouth to Cherbourg. Beyond the fishing grounds, uninterrupted open ocean lay before them. The next port of call is China, 600 miles to the west. They fish for about four to six hours before heading east, seeking the dawn and the rising sun, their astral compass that will lead them home, back to a beach no more then a few miles wide. I thanked our skipper and asked him what improvement could be made to his vessel. "None," he replied "But a hand held GPS would be nice. It can be difficult finding the same point to fish from each day with no chart and only mental dead reckoning to go by." I thought that must be the under statement of the decade. So much for RYA courses. These intrepid Trimariners complete this 160 mile excursion almost every night on vessels held together by 150 pound nylon fishing line and approximately 3000 years of experience. A W G Toone © |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
© MY Publications 2002-6 All rights reserved. Telephone +34 950 467709/+34 686 929855 email webmaster Columns: Useful Tips | Latest Events | Gallery | Requests | Featured Sites | Book reviews | Obituaries | News Archive | Features Archive |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
