Nguyen Dinh Chuong, a representative of a Ha Long shipyard, feels sad as wooden sailing boats carrying passengers gradually decrease.
Dating back to the second century in China, the sailing ship was renowned for its maneuverability and stability, especially in stormy seas. Today, motorized sailing ships are still used for fishing in parts of China and Japan, and for sightseeing in Hong Kong, Cambodia and Vietnam.
In Vietnam, after a series of fatal accidents, including a 2011 tragedy that killed 12 people when a wooden boat broke in half, the Quang Ninh Department of Transport said in 2016 that wooden tourist boats would be gradually replaced with safer iron boats.
A wooden boat with sails carrying tourists owned by Nguyen Van Cuong. Photo: Nikkei Asia
To learn more about the dwindling number of wooden sailing ships in Vietnam, Ian Lloyd Neubauer, a reporter for Japan's Nikkei Asia newspaper, went to Ha Long to meet Nguyen Van Cuong, the owner of a small fleet of ships operating in the bay.
After Ha Long Bay was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1994, Nguyen Van Cuong used all his savings to build Cat Ba Imperial, a 27-meter-long ship with four cabins with private bathrooms and two 12-meter-long sails.
By 2019, when Vietnam welcomed a record 18 million international visitors, Cuong’s fleet had quadrupled. Affected by the pandemic, Cuong’s business has gradually recovered as Vietnam is expected to meet its target of welcoming 8 million visitors this year.
“My fleet was inspired by the small sailboats I used to go fishing with my grandfather when I was a kid – the kind of boats that fishermen in Ha Long Bay still use today,” Cuong said as he drove passengers out of Ben Beo, a port on the southeast side of the Cat Ba archipelago.
Cuong's boat is different from the flat-bottomed Chinese junks because "the water in Ha Long Bay is very calm". The rectangular boat gives tourists more space on deck than the curved Chinese junks.
At first glance, the Cat Ba Imperial has peeling paint. Some of the wood is rotten, and there are rust stains on the metal railings. But in return, the boat attracts international visitors thanks to its beautiful decoration with lanterns lighting up the deck at night, and handcrafted woodwork decorating the eaves, window frames, and cabins. At the bow of the ship is a circular teak staircase leading to the observation deck, where visitors can lie on sun loungers and admire the UNESCO heritage. The scarlet sails fluttering in the wind create a magnificent, charming picture of the old world, attracting the attention of every tourist sitting on a modern cruise ship passing by.
Ian believes that the gradual decline of wooden sailboats not only limits the choices of guests but also makes the seascape more monotonous without the bright red sails.
Nguyen Van Chuong, a ship repairman in Ha Long. Photo: Nikkei Asia
“It’s sad because these are the last wooden sailing boats in Vietnam,” Cuong said as he looked at his fleet. The owner added that the boats are not just used to carry passengers to make money, but “are also part of our history, our culture, a symbol of us.”
Ian agrees. He has sailed wooden boats in the Maldives, Indonesia, Tasmania (Australia) and New Zealand. But Ian has "never seen a more photogenic combination of wood and water than the cruise in Ha Long Bay".
Regarding the wooden sailing boats that sank and killed passengers in Ha Long Bay in the past, Cuong said they were "poorly designed" and that the greedy owners built two or three more floors on the deck to have more cabins despite the fact that the boats could not bear the weight.
After two days at sea, Ian visited Anh Hang, the shipyard where Cat Ba Imperial undergoes maintenance twice a year, in Ha Long City. “My family has been building boats for six or seven generations,” said Nguyen Dinh Chuong as he showed Ian around the place where his family built the boats. The yard was littered with old pieces of wood, scraps of metal, and sawdust. A group of workers were using high-pressure hoses to scrape oysters off fishing boats.
Regarding the reason why many wooden sailboats in Ha Long Bay have a bad reputation, Mr. Chuong said that "they are cheap tourist boats that are not regularly maintained. The people working on them know nothing about sailboats. When there is an accident, they jump into the sea to save themselves first and leave the passengers behind," according to Mr. Chuong.
“It’s sad to see fewer sailing boats because they are part of our tradition,” said Mr. Chuong.
Anh Minh (According to Nikkei Asia )
Source link
Comment (0)