[3] Although well established, the sewn boat name is somewhat misleading since it suggests textile or leather skin construction, as often found in kayaks.
The planks may overlap, as in the Hjortspring boat, or joined flush at their edges, as is found in Arab dhows and along the coast of India.
[6] The replica of the Belitung shipwreck, Jewel of Muscat, was built mostly by Indian shipwrights with extensive experience of sewn planking construction.
The investigated example, BG10, had an unusual sewing technique, with the continuous fibrous strap running at right angles to the long direction of the planks.
In contrast, other sewn boats that use continuous sewing (as opposed to a series of individual stitches) have the thread go along the seam between two planks.
[9] In other parts of the world, the oldest sewn craft comes from North Ferriby, where one sample (called F3) mass-spectrometry dates to 2030 BC.
[10] Sewn construction is used in the various forms of the Austronesian "proas" of the Indo-Pacific (which also used the lashed-lug techniques)[4] and the Middle Eastern and South Asian dhow native to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean.
However, the development of metallurgy in Maritime Southeast Asia in the last two thousand years resulted in the replacement of the sewing technique with internal dowels, as well as increasing use of metal nails.