BALLOU'S PICTORIAL DRAWING-ROOM COMPANION, 1856
FLYING PROAS OF THE LADRONE ISLANDS.
The accompanying picture
represents the peculiar boats (proas)
used by the Ladrone islanders,
with their slender hulls and huge
triangular sails, managed by the
natives with great adroitness. To
the mariner accustomed to
European rigs, a fleet of these queer
craft hurrying along shore affords
a singular spectacle. All the
navigators who made known to us the
existence of groups of islands in
the Pacific, the Indian and other
oceans, accompanied their
narratives with descriptions of the canoes
or other kinds of boats in use
among the natives; and means are
thus afforded for observing the
various ways in which ingenuity is
brought to bear on such matters.
Whether each nation or tribe made
its own discoveries, and applied its
own inventive skill, or whether one
borrowed ideas from another and
modified them according to
circumstances, can now hardly be
known; but it is probable that
both causes led to the production
of the object in view. The proa
we have delineated is used among
the Ladrones and other eastern
islands. In the account of
Anson’s voyage, this proa is spoken
of with marked commendation,
"Whether we consider its aptitude
to the particular navigation of these
islands, or the uncommon
simplicity and ingenuity of its fabric and
contrivance, or the extraordinary
velocity with which it moves, we
shall find it worthy of our
admiration, and meriting a place among
the mechanical productions of the
most civilized nations." The proa
seems to be constructed on a
principle the very reverse of American
vessels; for, while we make the head of the vessel different from
the stern, and the two sides alike, the proa has the head and stern
alike, but the two sides different. There is one side of the vessel
which is intended always to be kept to leeward, and this is flat,
whereas the other side is rounded. To prevent her oversetting,
which is liable to happen from her narrowness of beam, and the
straitness of her leeward side, there is a frame extending from her
to windward, to the end of which is fastened a log, shaped like a
small boat, and made hollow, The weight of the frame is
intended to balance the proa, and the small boat, by its buoyancy,
prevents the oversetting. The body of the proa is made of two
pieces joined endwise, and sewed together with bark -- there being
no iron used about her; it is always about two inches thick at the
bottom, and about one at the gunwale, The proa generally
carries six or seven men, two of them placed in the head and stern to
steer the vessel alternately with a paddle, according to the
direction in which it is going; the other men being employed in baling
out the water which she accidentally ships, or in setting and
trimming the sail. The peculiar construction of these vessels arises
out of the sort of navigation for which they are intended. The Ladrones
are a string of islands lying nearly north and south of each
other, and the proas have scarcely to follow any other points of
the compass than these two in maintaining intercourse between
one island and another. Either end of the vessel may at pleasure
make the head, and thus, by simply shifting the sail, it may go to
and fro without ever "putting about" or turning round. By the
flatness of their lee side and small breadth, they are able to be
much nearer the wind than other vessels, They have been known
to progress, when a brisk tradewind was with them, at the rate of
twenty miles an hour, and their amazing swiftness has earned for
them the name of "flying proas."
