158 J. HORNELL ON 



The outrigger canoe, called oruwa in Sinhalese and kulla in Tamil, as used in 

 Ceylon is one of the most distinctive craft in the world ; moreover its form has 

 become strictly stereotyped, bespeaking very long lineage and an end to the experi- 

 mental stage. As we see it thus fixed in design, the hull consists primarily of a long 

 dug-out with tumble-home curve along the upper side. Upon the original gunwale is 

 sewn with coir yarn a wide vertical wash-strake on either side, leaving a well-shaped 

 opening running the length of the boat, so narrow that sitting on a boom where it 

 crosses the hull — there are no thwarts — a passenger can usually accommodate only 

 one leg inside ! 



The rig is a high and somewhat narrow double spritsail of large area. The mast 

 sprit is a stout, carefully chosen bamboo stepped exactly amidships. The other sprit 

 is fully as long and only a little less strong than the mast. The sail is cotton, usually 

 tanned brown. The outrigger float is a carefully-shaped well-smoothed log of light 

 wood, boomed out permanently by two cross pieces made up, not of a single pole as 

 in the Kilakarai outrigger boats shortly to be described, but of a number of thin 

 flexible pieces bound tightly together fascinewise. 



In outrigger canoes used for sailing, the outrigger must necessarily be on the 

 weather side in order to give the necessary counterpoise. Now the Ceylon type hav- 

 ing a permanently fixed outrigger^ cannot have any definite stern or fixed rudder. 

 Accordingly we find the two ends are similar, so that either may function as bow as 

 required. In place of a rudder a long-bladed wide paddle is used on what should 

 answer to the quarter, being supported in a coir grommet passed through a hole in 

 the gunwale. On returning from sea with the wind in the same quarter, the sail has 

 to be reset on the other side of the mast and the quarter paddle shifted to the other 

 end of the boat which now becomes transformed from bow to stern. To compensate 

 for lack of keel, a powerful leeboard is carried at each end, to be used according to 

 which end of the boat is acting as stern. No other boats except these Ceylon 

 outriggers and those used in Palk Bay and Strait and around Kilakarai appear 

 to use this most useful contrivance. It is never used for example in the boat-canoes 

 of the opposite Indian coast, whose most notable weakness is inability to sail close 

 hauled and which make a terrible amount of leeway in such circumstances. 



The Sinhalese are so wedded to the outrigger that they also apply this device in 

 the design of their small coasters. These were at one time very numerous in the 

 carrying trade between the island ports, giving such an old-world touch as we seldom 

 see in these prosaic days of fussy steam coasters. These Yathra oruwas as they are 

 termed, run to 50 tons' burden. They are usually fitted with two-pole masts and a 

 short bowsprit and are provided with a boomed-out outrigger of massive size, similar 

 in general structure to those of the fishing boats. No iron is used in putting the hull 

 together ; the planks are sewn together with coir yarn in the same manner as is em- 

 ployed in building the masula boats of the Madras Coast, the work being rendered water- 

 tight by laying over the joints long strips torn from the leaf stalk of palm leaves, with 

 dried plantain leaf stalks put between the plank edges as caulking. To sew the planks 

 together a row of closely set holes is bored along the edges of adjoining planks and 



