Sampan panjang
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Sampan panjang was a type of
Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...
fast boat from the 19th century. It was used especially by the sampan-men, or "
Orang Laut The Orang Laut are several seafaring ethnic groups and tribes living around Singapore, peninsular Malaysia and the Indonesian Riau Islands. The Orang Laut are commonly identified as the Orang Seletar from the Straits of Johor, but the term ma ...
" (lit. "sea people"). Historically, they can be found in
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
,
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, and
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. This type of boat was used by Malay people as racing boat and as transport boat. The sampan panjang appeared at the first quarter of the 19th century, and disappeared at the turn of that century. These boats proved to be superior than European boats in racing purposes; they were easy winners when racing against the European yachts of that time.


Etymology

The name sampan panjang comes from the Malay words ''sampan'', meaning boat, which in turn derived from Chinese dialectal sam-pan or san-pan, and ''panjang'', meaning long; thus, the name means "long boat". It is also called perahu panjang, since the words ''sampan'' and ''perahu'' in Malay language are synonymous.


History

The first record of sampan panjangs comes from Singapore Chronicle for Thursday, 15 May 1834. It describes a rowing match between 4 Malay sampans and boats from three vessels lying in the roads, which as usual was won easily by the Malays. A book by G. W. Earl from 1837 provides an early description of the sampan panjang. At that time the boat was 30 ft (9 m) long and 4 ft (1.2 m) wide. It had two masts with large
lateen A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same ...
s, loose-footed dipping lugsails. It was steered using a long, diamond-shaped
paddle A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened distal end (i.e. the ''blade''), used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered w ...
, which could also be used to increase speed. It carried five crewmen. Some years later the Sultan of Lingga acquired a fine sailing sampan panjang, ordered from
Trengganu Terengganu (; Terengganu Malay: ''Tranung'', Jawi: ), formerly spelled Trengganu or Tringganu, is a sultanate and constitutive state of federal Malaysia. The state is also known by its Arabic honorific, ''Dāru l- Īmān'' ("Abode of Faith") ...
, which had a long and most successful racing career. In 1839 he challenged the fastest of the European yachts in the settlement to a race for $500 a side. The challenge was accepted by the owner of the ''Maggie Lauder'', a well-known boat in her day. They followed the New Years Day regatta course, which then covered about 14 miles, and the Malay boat came in with the ''Maggie'' still seven miles from the finishing line. Dr. Berncastle in 1850 describes the sampan panjang as very light boats and was elegant in shape. He notes that the sampans were propelled by paddles or lateen sails made of mats. The latter also appear in Gray's engraving of the Singapore water front, and would seem to have been in fairly general use from this period onwards, if not earlier. Development of the sampan panjang continued during the third quarter of the century. The lines became finer, the hull rather longer, and a
bowsprit The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a spar extending forward from the vessel's prow. The bowsprit is typically held down by a bobstay A bobstay is a part of the rigging of a sailing boat or ship. Its purpose is to counteract the upward tensio ...
was added to set a
headsail A sail plan is a description of the specific ways that a sailing craft is rigged. Also, the term "sail plan" is a graphic depiction of the arrangement of the sails for a given sailing craft.> In the English language, ships were usually describe ...
: a light rudder was also introduced in this period, and occasionally passenger boats were built with "counter" type stern or narrow transom. The sampan panjang started to decline after the first wharf of
Tanjong Pagar Tanjong Pagar (New Rumi Spelling, alternatively spelled ''Tanjung Pagar'') is a historic district located within the Central Business District in Singapore, straddling the Outram, Singapore, Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the ...
came into operation in 1866. The opening of the
Suez canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
made many steamers flood the area of the sampan panjang, which resulted in the decrease of their number. Mitman (1923: p. 258) writes rather condescendingly of the maker of sampan panjang: By the last quarter of the century it was being made with hull lengths of 40 ft. (12.2 m) and over, and some example had 3 masts. Such boats were expensive to build and maintain. They required crews, with some experience, of 20-25 men for racing purposes, but the hull and yards were beyond the means of a Malay kampong which alone could have produced the men on an amateur basis. They were, in fact, suitable only for local magnates, and then all that could be done with one was to race against another sampan panjang. The size of the crew required to man them, the ease with which they shipped water and the lack of finish inside the hull, made them useless for cruising purposes. By the middle 1880s there were probably less than ten serviceable racing hulls afloat. In 1885 only two were entered for their class in the annual New Years Day regatta compared to 37 of the previous twenty year. According to Buckley, by 1902, only four were still in commission in Johnston's pier, and even these did not last until the beginning of the first world war. By this time the racing sampan itself had also been outmoded, and its place taken by the lighter kolek Johore, which as the
Johor Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan ...
e racing kolek remains the most prominent feature of all local regattas.Buckley, C. B. (1902''). An anecdotal history of old time in Singapore''. Singapore: Fraser & Neave.


See also

*
Sandeq A Sandeq is a type of outrigger sailboat or trimaran used by the Mandarese people for fishing and as a means of transportation between islands. The size of Sandeq varies, with hulls ranging from long and wide. Its carrying capacity ranges f ...
, fishing and racing boat from Indonesia * Toop, merchant boat used widely in the 19th century Malay archipelago * Lepa * Palari *
Tongkang Tongkang or "Tong'kang" refers to several type of boats used to carry goods along rivers and shoreline in Maritime Southeast Asia. One of the earliest record of tongkang has a background of 14th century, being mentioned in Malay Annals which wa ...
* Sampan


References

{{Indonesian traditional vessels Indonesian inventions Boats of Indonesia Indigenous boats Sailing ships Sailboat types Tall ships