INDIAN BOAT DESIGNS. 



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an outrigger it can be used only in calm weather. It is so used occasionally but 

 normally the outrigger is fitted. The latter is smaller than the Ceylon type and 

 boom pole or poles are weaker and each consists always of a single pole without 

 fascine strengthening. But the most remarkable divergence is that these outriggers are 

 made to unship instantly by a very simple device and can be rigged out on the other 

 side of the boat, thus avoiding the unseamanly custom of the Sinhalese who can 

 never say which end of canoe is the head without looking at the direction they may 

 happen to be sailing ! The Kilakarai boats can therefore employ a rudder fixed 

 at the sharp curved stern by the orthodox pintles and gudgeons. The details of 



Fig. 7. — A Kilakarai outrigger fishiag-boat furnished with one boom only. 



the stays led to the outrigger are readily seen in the sketches given. The device for 

 attaching the booms inboard on the one side and to the outrigger on the other is 

 a form of the Spanish windlass, well known to sailors and shipwrights for exercising 

 force in bending a plank into position and holding it there till secured ; the principle 

 is that of the surgeon's tourniquet. In the present instance the loop end of a ring 

 of rope or grommet is passed through a hole either in the gunwale or in the outrigger 

 float, the boom pole is laid over this and the looped ends of the grommet are 

 brought up at each side and over the pole ; the end of a short rod or stake is passed 

 through the two loops and then by the simple device of twisting the two loops 

 round one another by means of the rod, the two main parts are bound together with 



