Traditional fishing boat
[2] The oldest boats found by archaeological excavation are dugout canoes dating back to the Neolithic Period around 7,000-9,000 years ago.
[4] These early vessels had limited capability; they could float and move on water, but were not suitable for use any great distance from the shoreline.
Affixed to a pole set upright in the boat, these sails gave early boats more range, allowing voyages of exploration According to the FAO, at the end of 2004, the world fishing fleet included 1.8 million traditional craft of various types which were operated by sail and oars.
These records often omit smaller boats where registration is not required or where fishing licences are granted by provincial or municipal authorities.
[5] Indonesia reportedly has about 700,000 current fishing boats, 25 percent of which are dugout canoes, and half of which are without motors.
Large numbers of artisan fishing boats are still in use, particularly in developing countries with long productive marine coastlines.
[13] Coracles are light boats shaped like a bowl, typically with a frame of woven grass or reeds, or strong saplings covered with animal hides.
[14] The keel-less, flat bottom evenly spreads the weight across the structure reducing the required depth of water often to only a few inches.
In North America, American Indians and frontiersmen made coracles, called bull boats, by covering a willow frame with buffalo hide.
[14] In Tibet, coracles, used for fishing and ferrying people, are made by stretching yak hide over juniper frames, and fastened with leather thongs.
[23][24] In Vietnam, elegant coracles constructed with bamboo, are still used from many beaches, such as at Nha Trang, Phan Thiết and Mui Ne.
These, often elegant canoes, were not dugouts, but were made of a wooden frame covered with bark of a birch tree, pitched to make it waterproof.
A pirogue is a small, flat-bottomed boat of a design associated particularly with West African fishermen[29] and the Cajuns of the Louisiana marsh.
While the lateen sail presents some difficulties in tacking into the wind, requiring a jibe, the jukung is superb in its reaching ability and jybe-safe running.
Catamarans were used by the ancient Tamil Chola dynasty as early as the 5th century AD for moving their invasion fleets.
The availability of reliable and durable ropes and lines has had many consequences for the development and utility of traditional fishing boats.
Fossilised fragments of "probably two-ply laid rope of about 7 mm diameter" have been found in one of the caves at Lascaux, dated about 15,000 BC.
Other rope in antiquity was made from the fibers of date palms, flax, grass, papyrus, leather, or animal hair.
Some ancient vessels were propelled by either oars or sail, depending on the speed and direction of the wind (see trireme and bireme).
A felucca is a traditional wood-planked sailing boat used in protected waters of the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean including Malta, and particularly along the Nile in Egypt.
[34] An example of their skill is the Khufu ship, a vessel 143 feet (44 m) in length entombed at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza around 2500 BC and found intact in 1954.
For example, yoles from the Orkney Island of Stroma were built in the same way as the Norse boats, as were the Shetland yoals and the sgoths of the Outer Hebrides.
In the 15th century, the Dutch developed a type of sea-going herring drifter that became a blueprint for subsequent European fishing boats.
The nets would be retrieved at night and the crews of eighteen to thirty men[38] would set to gibbing, salting and barrelling the catch on the broad deck.
[38] During the 17th century, the British developed the dogger, an early type of sailing trawler or longliner, which commonly operated in the North Sea.
[40] Like the herring buss, they were wide-beamed and bluff-bowed, but considerably smaller, about 15 metres long, a maximum beam of 4.5 m, a draught of 1.5 m, and displacing about 13 tonnes.
England, France, Italy, and Belgium have small boats from medieval periods that could reasonably be construed as predecessors of the dory.
They are lightweight versatile boats with high sides, a flat bottom and sharp bows, and are easy to build because of their simple lines.
[43] Adapted almost directly from the low freeboard, French river bateau, with their straight sides and removable thwarts, bank dories could be nested inside each other and stored on the decks of fishing schooners, such as the Gazela Primeiro, for their trip to the Grand Banks fishing grounds.
The Lancashire nobby was used down the north west coast of England as a shrimp trawler from 1840 until World War II.
