Early Ships and Seafaring by McGrail Seán;

Author:McGrail, Seán;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRANSPORTATION / Ships & Shipbuilding / History
ISBN: 2122272
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2015-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

6.1. Map of China showing the coastline, the main rivers and the principal provinces.

CHINESE COASTAL WATERS.

In the summer, from May to September, the predominant wind in Chinese coastal waters is from the south, and typhoons, with storm-force winds, occur mainly in June to August. In the winter months, October to March, a seasonal, northerly monsoon wind prevails in both the Yellow and the South China Seas; in the East China Sea there are north-east trade winds.

Two main sea currents – one warm, one cold – affect the area. The Black current forms in the Malacca strait and flows northwards at c. 1.5 knots as a warm thirty nautical miles wide, stream, along the coast to the Korean strait (between Korea and Japan), and on to the Japanese archipelago. The Lima (cold) current forms in the Tartar strait, between the Russian mainland and the Sakhalm islands, and flows southward along the east coast of Korea to enter the East China Sea near the Jizhou peninsula.

The best time for a southerly passage along China’s coast is thus between October and March when there is a fair wind, albeit a foul current. In the early fifteenth century successive Chinese fleets, under the command of the Grand Eunuch, Zheng He, on a series of seven voyages to South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean and beyond (see p.125), timed their departure from northern ports so that the fleet was in coastal waters by January or February. Moreover, the admiral timed his return so that he was again in those coastal waters by July when there would have been fair, southerly winds and a north-flowing current, and the fleet would have been ahead of the main typhoon season.

In the northern sector of coastal waters (the Yellow Sea region, as far south as Hangzhou Bay at 30° N) river mouths and coastal seas are shallow, often with shifting sand banks. In the southern sector, in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, the rockbound coast has deeper water with offshore islands and fjord-like harbours. By the nineteenth century, two types of planked vessel appear to have been developed in those different regions, with differences that may well have arisen because of the coastal geography.

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