INDIAN BOAT DESIGNS. 



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in width. The two types exist side by side save at a few very exposed centres such 

 as Cape Comorin, and both are worked exclusively by Parawas. Nowhere else in 

 India is either type found, so that this strict limitation, being regional as well as 

 racial, is particularly notable. The boat catamarans vary little in size (fig. 2). They 

 are worked normally in pairs and usually one of the two is slightly longer and wider 

 than the other, the former being 23 feet long by 3 feet wide, the latter 2o|- feet by 2J 

 feet. Of the three logs of which they are made the central one is stouter than the 



Fig. 2. — Boat catamaran of Cape Comorin and the Tinnevelly coast, a and c, large and small units 

 of a pair ; b, side view of a ; d, transverse section near one end ; e, transverse section at mid-length. 



side ones ; the whole three are shaped and fitted together in such a way that the central 

 one fits keel-wise at a lower level than the other two which rise sufficiently high 

 to form a trough-shaped hollow above. At each end the logs are planed flush on 

 the under surface to give an easy entrance. The three are held in position by a 

 transverse two-horned block of wood at either end, whereto the logs are lashed 

 securely by coir ropes passed through grooves cut in the sides of the logs. Usually 

 two men form the crew, using, instead of wooden paddles, short lengths of split 

 bamboos wherein they differ from the Coromandel catamaran men who use broad- 



