Masula boat, also known as masulah boat, is a kind of non-rigid
boat built without knees used on the coast of
Madras (the present day city of
Chennai),
India, along with
catamarans.
Description
Locally known as padagu or salangu among the fisher folks, the masula boat is a large, flat-bottomed, high-sided, open boat with a clumsy design consisting of
mango wood planks sewed together with strands of
coir which cross over a wadding of the same material, but without frames or ribs, so that the shock due to
surf is much reduced. It is specially designed for use where there are no harbours of refuge, chiefly upon the surf-beaten
Coromandel Coast of India. It is used in shooting shore
seines and also as a cargo lighter. Its range extends along the whole of the eastern coast of India northwards of
Cape Calimere. The equivalent type of boats used on the west coast are the beach lighters.[1] Masula boats are generally smaller, although they can be up to 9 m in length. The pattern varies across the coast, namely, padava on the
Andhra coast and bar boat in
Orissa coast. A variant found in the region between
Kakinada and
Machilipatnam has ribs inside.[2]
The masula boats were mainly used by
Europeans in the 19th century before the building of
Chennai Port.[3][4] The dimensions of the masula boat generally varies from 30 to 35 feet in length, 10 to 11 feet in breadth, and 7 to 8 feet in depth. On the Coromandel Coast, it is distinctly short, measuring as short as about 28 feet in length. In the northern region of the coast, chiefly in
Godavari and
Visakhapatnam districts of the Andhra coast, it exceeds 40 feet in length. However, the beam and the depth measures about 8 feet and 4 feet, respectively, across the region. An oculus is sometimes painted on the bows of the masula boats in the Madras region. They are rowed by a crew varying from 8 to 12 men using
bamboo or
casuarina paddles, which consist of a board measuring about 10 inches in width and 14 inches in length, fixed at the end of a bamboo or young casuarina tree. They are steered by one or two tindals (coxswains), and two men are constantly kept to bale out the water.[5] Mast and sail are not used in the masula boats as they never go far from the shore.