Home Sketches from Admiral Paris Expedition Please find below a selection of drawings from a digitization of a book of Admiral Paris' voyage of exploration. I have shown about 15 diagrams however the digitized book contains fifty to sixty diagrams. To view the digital version of the book, please select the following LINK The first five sketches here look like Arab trading Dhows. Dhows were traditionally stitched together as opposed to using nails. This allowed the vessel to be more flexible so that it would be less likely to break apart on beaching. Once Dhows encountered the sturdier European vessels with cannon of course it was no match, the Dhows were not strong enough to take the recoil forces of large cannon Here we have three Sri Lankan (Ceylon) craft. The first seems to be a tacking Outrigger. The second looks like a Yatra Dhoni and the third is definately an Orouwa. The Orouwa is still used today as a beach fishing craft and is a shunting vessel. It was first described in Roman times and is still going strong today. The Yatra Dhoni looks like a monohull with a small outrigger I cannot say if the outrigger is moved to the other side when wanting to make a voyage on the other tack, or alternatively if the bow and stern are reversable. Probably the outrigger is more efficient to windward, but for short periods of time it could act as a float. Note how the deck is all enclosed, the outrigger makes the boat more stable, and thus faster, the downside is that being stable it does not tip away from waves as much, thus more waves can break into the hull, this possibly accounts for the unusual turtle like deck (this is all speculation of course) Here we have some craft from India. The first looks like a catamaran houseboat, probably a very comfortable and stable liveaboard vessel. Then we have what look like some coastal trading craft. Here we have a tender long and narrow monohull which seems stabilised by trapeze. It seems that when the wind picks up the unfortunate crew go out on a spar to keep the boat stable as human ballast I was aware of this system on Polynesian flying proas, I was not aware that it was used in South East Asia on single hull vessels. Both sketches are of the same vessel. Here we have what looks like a Jukung (double outrigger) from Indonesia, and what appear to be Chinese Junks. Only problem is that the junks are clearly labelled as Filipino, are thus we to assume that Chinese Junks were trading in the Phillipines? The last sketch are the lines from a Chinese Junk. Home