5' Japanese Sado Island Tub Boat (1996)

The taraibune, or tub boat, is the iconic boat of Sado Island in the Sea of Japan. Part of a pantheon of bowl-shaped boats found throughout the world, the tub boat is classic Japanese barrel-making (in the local dialect they are called “hangiri” or half-barrel and most people agree they were invented when someone thought to use a barrel as a boat. They differ slightly from Japanese barrels in that they are oval in shape and have slightly rounded bottoms. I apprenticed in 1996 with Koji Fujii, at the time the last professional builder of these boats. At that time over 300 of these boats were still used in the fisheries. They were traditionally a woman’s boat and people used a variety of bamboo spears and a sight box to harvest shellfish and seaweed from the ocean bottom. They are sculled with a paddle from the bow, though in one village fishermen use outboard motors. The boats are cheap and durable, and able to maneuver safely in the rocky inshore where conventional boats cannot travel. Today tourists line up to ride tub boats operated by three companies. The hardest part of building these boats is braiding the fifty-foot long strips of bamboo to make the hoops, today an extremely rare skill. My first book, The Tub Boats of Sado Island; A Japanese Craftsman’s Methods, chronicles how to build these boats.