japanese yacht builders

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Kanasashi Yachts for Charter

Kanasashi Heavy Industries is a Japanese yacht builder located in Shimizu Port, the centre of deep-sea fishing. Kanasashi shipyard has a century-long history of yacht construction in Japan, building fishing boats using the latest marine technology. The Japanese shipyard is now one of Japan's leading fishing boat-building shipyards. Aside from commercial vessels, Kanasashi shipyard has established itself as an esteemed shipyard for luxury superyachts up to 58m and 707 GT, with Kanasashi yachts for charter and sale highly sought-after. Indeed a private cruise on a Kanasashi yacht offers the pinnacle of luxury.

Japanese yacht builder Kanasashi Heavy Industries Co; a shipyard with a century-long tradition

Kanasashi Heavy Industries Co was founded in 1903 by Jokichi Kanazashi and has become one of the world’s leading shipyards, setting new benchmarks for yacht construction in Japan. The Japanese yacht builder has become the largest manufacturer of steel fishing boats, creating the first of its kind in 1928. Over the years, the Japanese shipyard has been actively promoting the construction of short-sea cargo ships with the goal of building low-cost, high-quality commercial ships.

Kanasashi also offers a successful repair department with extensive after-sales service. With in-depth construction experience, Kanasashi meets the demand for repair work for over 100 ships annually, ensuring the ocean-going vessels can operate in harsh environments and safely navigate the roughest seas.

Iconic Kanasashi yachts for charter; M/Y EVOLUTION

M/Y EVOLUTION is a superb example of a Kanasashi yacht for charter, perfect for a large group of guests.

Motor yacht EVOLUTION was built by Kanasashi Heavy Industries and delivered to her owner in 1979 before undergoing an extensive refit in 2017. The 58m EVOLUTION Kanasashi yacht is one of the largest superyachts available for charter, designed to accommodate up to 32 charter guests in 16 suites comfortably.

This private yacht provides guests with the finest amenities and all the services of a luxury yacht charter of the modern age. The 2017 refit saw a complete refurb of the interiors by Adriana Hoyo, giving the space an elegant and inviting feel. Her sublime alfresco lounge is situated on the bridge deck aft, offering unobstructed 360-degree views.

Built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, she offers greater onboard space during a luxury yacht charter and is more stable when at anchor, thanks to her full-displacement hull.

When she is not cruising the world's blue water havens, M/Y EVOLUTION boasts an incredible selection of water toys and accessories for you and your guests to connect with the ocean on a yacht charter vacation, including eight kayaks. This Kanasashi boat for rent is managed by a crew of 20, ensuring a seamless private charter experience.

Kanasashi Shipyard Yachts for Charter

• 58.3M (191.1FT)
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Explore Kanasashi boats for rent and sale with YPI

Yachting Partners International is the expert in Kanasashi boats for rent and sale. If you would like to learn more about our portfolio of Kanasashi yachts, contact our team of luxury yacht brokers.

Merchant & Makers

The craft of japanese wooden boatbuilding.

Continuing the craft of Japanese boatbuilding - Q&A with boatbuilder, writer & researcher, Douglas Brooks.

A very small sabani a type of semi-dugout once used for fishing in Okinawa. Photo by Mr. Hiroyuki Asato.

Boatbuilder first, then writer & researcher is how Douglas Brooks describes himself in a self-effacing modest kind of way, however, his commitment to the curation and continuation of the ancient but fast-disappearing craft of Japanese boatbuilding is far from moderate, his achievements to date are so much more than mediocre and his ambition to achieve a Japanese boatbuilding institution is massive, fuelled by a monumental passion for this ancient craft.

Douglas Brooks has dedicated himself to documenting never-before-recorded annals of apprenticeships, condensing centuries of ‘stolen lessons’ and hard-earned secrets into a cohesive curation of design, material and technique in order for future generations to be able to appreciate the mastery and aesthetics of a wooden hand-built boat that is a world away from the mediocrity of modern fibreglass vessels.

An ashitenma , a type of small fishing boat from the Inland Sea, built by Douglas Brooks in the Setouchi Arts Festival in 2013. Photo by Simon Wearne.

Here we are privileged to be given an insight into the unique world of Anglo-American-Japanese cultures that Douglas Brooks seamlessly crosses and co-exists within in what has become a life-changing vocation to preserve and perpetuate the skills of traditional wooden boatbuilding in Japan.

Douglas Brooks fits the two side planks of a bekabune under the watchful eyes of his teacher Mr. Nobuji Udagawa. The two built one of these traditional seaweed gathering boats at the Urayasu Museum in 2001. Udagawa built over 300 of these boats during his career. Photograph courtesy KAZI publications, Yokohama, Japan.

Ethnographer, anthropologist, curator, boat-builder… Sometimes apprentice, sometimes master… Please can you outline how you would describe yourself to the reader?

First of all, I would never use the term master for myself. One of the things my experiences in Japan have taught me is the incredible devotion and seriousness craftspeople bring to their work. It’s not “what they do” so much as a calling, or a discipline. In the Japanese context one cannot really call themselves a master until their teacher has passed away. I think the idea of any craftsperson under the age of 60 referring to themselves this way would be considered strange. I consider myself a boatbuilder, writer and researcher. Basically, that is the order in which my career developed. I realised immediately in Japan that my background building boats gave me a unique perspective on the craft that no other researchers possessed. My research explores a very particular niche: documenting the craft and how the objects are made.

Brooks fitting the garboard plank by sawing through the seam while building the shimaihagi , a fishing boat from Aomori Prefecture, that he built in 2003 with his teacher Mr. Seizo Ando. Photo by Catherine Wood Brooks.

Yours is a truly amazing story, can you explain to us a little of your background, in terms of how hailing from the US Eastern seaboard, with its obvious maritime traditions, along with a chance friendship with a Japanese room-mate, has led to a life-changing fascination with Japanese boatbuilding?

I was raised in Deep River, Connecticut and my father always had a small fishing boat so I was on the water from an early age. I drifted away from fishing but loved boats, and eventually got into sailing and bought myself a small sailboat while in high school. While at Trinity College I attended the Williams College Mystic Seaport Program in American Maritime Studies (now just called Williams Mystic). Mystic Seaport is North America’s largest maritime museum and while there I got to do an internship with the museum’s boatbuilder. I helped him build a small skiff and do some other repair work. It was just a taste of boatbuilding but it definitely intrigued me. The next year I attended the University of Oregon where my roommate Nobu Hayashi was from Japan. We became close friends and in the years after college he kept inviting me to visit his native country. I eventually found work in the Small Boat Shop of the maritime museum in San Francisco and spent five years there getting more immersed in building and curating traditional boats. When I left that job in 1990 Nobu immediately sent me a plane ticket to Japan with a note that said, simply, “Now you have no excuses.” On that first trip, I met several boatbuilders, including the man who would become my first teacher six years later. I began to get an inkling of the crisis in the craft: all the boatbuilders were elderly and none had taught apprentices. Very little was written down and the craft depended entirely on the apprentice system for its survival. I saw immediately how the work of these amazing craftsmen deserved to be preserved somehow, and eventually that led to studying directly with boatbuilders in order to document their design secrets and techniques.

Brooks’ teacher in Tokyo, Mr. Kazuyoshi Fujiwara, runs a saw through a seam to fit two planks together. Brooks studied with Fujiwara in 2002.

What distinguishes Japanese wooden boatbuilding from your other areas of expertise; Anglo & American boatbuilding, in terms of tools, craft technique, materials used, etc?

In a broad sense, Western boats are based on a framework that is then planked, a skeleton-like arrangement. Japanese boats tend to have very little framing, relying instead on much thicker planks which are edge-fastened to each other, something called shell-type construction. Japanese boats are also almost always hard chine, meaning the strakes of the hull meet at angles, or knuckles. There are really no round-hulled, smooth planked traditional boats in Japan, except for dugouts. The greatest similarities between Western and Japanese boats can be found in the dugout and semi-dugout varieties. In most Western boats seams are made watertight with cotton caulking, but in Japan a very sophisticated technique is used to made plank seams watertight without caulking. A series of ever finer saws is run though the seams in a very particular way, and with each pass the seam fits tighter and tighter. The technique is called suriawase, and a good translation is “to reconcile.” It takes quite a bit of practice to master. Japanese do caulk boats, using the inner bark of the cypress tree, but this is reserved for older boats whose seams have opened up, and the caulking is driven from the inside.

A scow schooner yawl boat, built by Douglas Brooks while working at the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco.

Western apprentices in traditional crafts in Japan are extremely rare; can you outline to us what are the main distinctions, would you say, between a Western & Japanese apprenticeship, beyond the obvious linguistic differences?

Interesting you end your question with the mention of linguistics, because I think the salient difference between Western and Japanese notion of apprenticeship is that there is no teaching in the latter. All six of my teachers told me on my first day there would be absolutely no speaking in the workshop. Questions were sometimes tolerated though my teachers’ irritation at being interrupted was palpable. If I did ask a question the answer was generally either mite wakaru or matte wakaru: “Watch and you will understand” or “Wait and you will understand.” Ironically, the lack of speaking meant that language was not an obstacle in my apprenticeships. Though my Japanese has improved steadily over the years, I barely spoke the language at all at the time of my first apprenticeship, but this didn’t matter, because my teacher did not speak to me! The upshot of this kind of training is the apprentice is expected to learn by observation only. This puts incredible pressure on the apprentice, needless to say, but these pressures are also considered an essential part of the training. What becomes clear is the apprentice is fully responsible for his or her learning. While my teachers accepted the premise of my work, they felt no responsibility whatsoever for making sure I understood everything; that was my problem. It is very much a values-based style of learning, first inculcating humility (all my teachers told me my previous boatbuilding experience meant nothing), and then forcing the apprentice to develop a laser-like focus on the work. All of my teachers pointed to the broom my first day, and all I did at the outset was sweep, fetch tools, and move material. After a certain interval, I would be asked to work on the boat, but the understanding was that if I didn’t perform the work perfectly I was going back to sweeping. It’s a style of learning that provides a lot of motivation.

Mr. Hiroshi Murakami adzing the back of the stem of an isobune , or inshore fishing boat, during the author’s apprenticeship with him in 2015. Murakami is the last active boatbuilder in the region devastated by the 2011 tsunami. The isobune is the most common type of small fishing boat in the region, hundreds of which were destroyed in the disaster. Brooks is currently working on a book documenting the design and construction of these boats.

It is well known that it is a great honour and achievement to be accepted as an apprentice to a Japanese master, can you shed any light on how you have managed to become an apprentice to not one but six different masters over the years, with a seventh apprenticeship planned shortly?

For the most part it was because I developed relationships with my teachers. I met my first teacher in 1990, then I saw him again, interviewing him with the help of an interpreter in 1992 and 1994. At the end of the third visit his invited me to become his apprentice. He told some mutual friends that I showed perseverance and commitment and this convinced him to take me on. The process was much the same with my second teacher. Some of my other apprenticeships were arranged by intermediaries. I think all of my teachers supported the idea of my research. They certainly understood the precarious state of their craft better than anyone. I was the only person to come along expressing an interest in their work, and to varying degrees each of my teachers saw me as the only chance they had to pass along that knowledge. In addition, I have travelled to forty-five of Japan’s forty-seven prefectures meeting and interviewing almost sixty boatbuilders.

The launch of the chokkibune , an Edo-era water taxi built by Douglas Brooks and his teacher, Kazuyoshi Fujiwara, in Tokyo in 2003.

Part of your aim is to document what is historically an oral tradition in order to preserve and retain traditional Japanese boatbuilding design & techniques. How does this work when a major part of Japanese craftsmanship is the culture of secrecy and almost the ‘stealth’ of knowledge and expertise from the master by the apprentice?

There is a well-known phrase in Japanese crafts called nusumi geiko, or “stolen lessons.” If the apprentice was not a family member often the master would withhold critical information from them. It was up to the apprentice through guile to steal those secrets. My first teacher told me he used to sneak into his master’s workshop at night with a candle and study his layout. He eventually figured out the critical dimensions of the boat, and also discovered his master had been snapping meaningless lines in an attempt to fool him! Also, where boat drawings do exist almost all are incomplete; you cannot build a boat from them. The missing information was memorised by the builder.

A copy of a plank drawing. While the profile view is complete, the plan view is missing lines showing the chine and sheer, rendering the drawing useless. The missing information would be memorised by the builder.

One of my teachers would make patterns when building a boat but he burned them at the end of the project. In some ways, I came along at just the right time. My teachers were in their seventies and eighties when I met then and most had been put out of business by fibreglass boats. They had come to a point where they understood the craft was about to disappear and there was really no longer an incentive to keep secrets. That said, some of my teachers still remained close-lipped, not revealing certain secrets to me, and I had to figure these things out for myself. At one boat launching my teacher said, “Mr. Brooks understood 95% of what I did, but I am not going to tell him what the 5% was he did not understand.” While this attitude may rankle Westerners, it is really something embedded in Japanese crafts.

A shimaihagi fishing boat built by Brooks and his teacher Mr. Seizo Ando in 2003. This type of boat was used on the far northern coastline of the main island of Japan in Aomori Prefecture. Most of the regions’s wooden boats feature elaborate carvings decorating their hulls.

How did your Masters feel about you recording their ‘secrets’?

In all but one case I really had no problems. As mentioned before most of my teachers understood fundamentally what I was trying to accomplish. What varied was how hard or easy they were going to make it for me. One teacher exploded when I tried to trace one of his patterns. He said I was stealing his secrets. When I said my goal had been clear at the outset of the project that I was going to be recording his work for publication he said he understood. It turned out he was absolutely opposed to his secrets being revealed locally, even though he was the last boatbuilder of the region and all the wooden fishing boats were rotting away in boathouses. Oddly, after this altercation he restated that I was not to trace his pattern. Then he ordered me to clean the shop and close up. He walked out and of course I promptly traced the pattern. I don’t know how he could have thought I wouldn’t, but maybe this was a kind of kabuki, where he felt compelled to state his position regardless of what I might do.

A bekabune , or seaweed gathering boat, built by Douglas Brooks and Mr. Nobuji Udagawa in 2001. Japanese boatbuilders don’t use clamps, preferring to hold parts in place and bending planking using props. The line of mortises visible in a sheer (upper) plank are for the edge-nails that join the upper and lower plank together.

Your dedication & passion for Japanese wooden boatbuilding has not gone unnoticed; you are a highly-respected author, teacher, lecturer & project leader, with achievements such as the Anderson Garden project and honours such as the Rare Craft Fellowship Award from the American Craft Council to your name… What would you say is your proudest achievement/most important moment so far and upon retirement, and what sort of legacy in the craft-world would you like to leave behind?

I find writing and teaching very rewarding. At this point, Japan’s boatbuilders are rapidly disappearing, and the opportunity to work with the last generation of traditional boatbuilders simply won’t exist in five years, ten at the most. I want to transition my own work to finding ways to disseminate what I have learned, through how-to books, workshops, lectures, etc. I’ve done three boatbuilding projects in Japan where I brought in apprentices, and in 2015 and 2016 I taught a course in Japanese boatbuilding at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.

Middlebury College students in the boat they built in a 2015 Winter Term class taught by Brooks. The boat is a type of river fishing boat from the Hozugawa River near Kyoto. Fifteen students built this boat and another river boat in one month. Photograph by Trent Campbell.

The key is to give a new generation of craftsmen the means to build these amazing boats. Sadly, the apprentice system is not the answer. It simply takes too long, though I have been thinking very seriously about a boatbuilding school, the model of how the revival of Western boatbuilding has been energised and sustained. Ultimately, if I can make a contribution to preserving these remarkable skills I will have done a small part in repaying my teachers’ amazing generosity.

Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding , Douglas Brooks’ fourth book. This book chronicles the first five of Brooks’ apprenticeships, and is the first comprehensive survey of the craft. Signed and inscribed copies are available from the author at www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com .

For anyone considering becoming an apprentice in a traditional Japanese craft, are you able to provide any advice?

First, to clarify, I worked with my teachers over the course of building one boat (two in the case of my Tokyo teacher). That time frame varied from two weeks to seven months. The average boatbuilding apprenticeship in Japan lasted six years, but one must remember the apprentice came in at age 14 or 15 with no skills whatsoever. It’s not an efficient system; apprentices might spend two to three years before they ever did any significant work other than cleaning and sharpening. Some boatbuilders have told me they spent the first year of their apprenticeships helping their master’s wife in the kitchen. Despite what my teachers said about my previous experience being of no use to me, they were wrong. I knew how to sharpen and use the tools, and as time went on I understood the design and techniques of Japanese boatbuilding. I am contacted fairly regularly by people who find my website and express an interest in apprenticing in Japan. What I tell them is they need to go to Japan, find a potential teacher and then demonstrate their willingness to do what it takes to learn the craft. Other Westerners I’ve met who have studied Japanese crafts tell stories not dissimilar from my own. The culture of Japanese crafts demands a total commitment, and people have to prove they are serious.

A yuta , or shaman, presides over the launching of an eight metre  sabani built by Brooks and his teacher Mr. Ryujin Shimojo, visible at right. Photo by Sgt. Emery Ruffin, USMC.

That said in some ways there couldn’t be a better time to study the crafts, because so many masters are elderly and want apprentices. It’s very bittersweet for me, because the apprentice system, while brutal in some regards, nevertheless turned out craftspeople of incomparable skills. The problem is in today’s world you are not likely to find many people willing to work years for little or no pay.

The chokkibune being sculled in a canal in Tokyo. The Japanese ro , or sculling oar, is similar to the Chinese yuloh .

You have written extensively on the subject of traditional Japanese boatbuilding. Who are the books aimed at, and what could a reader expect to glean from them?

My first three books are strict how-to manuals on particular boats. The first book, on how to build the tub boat of Sado Island, became a textbook used in a series of tub boat making workshops on Sado. Eventually several dozen people made tub boats and now one of them is making them professionally again. My fourth book, Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding, is the story of my first five apprenticeships and is the most comprehensive survey published of the craft. I hope it gives a generous overview to the reader. I am right now working again on another how-to book – the 21-foot fishing boat from the tsunami zone – and my goal is to give a competent woodworker enough information to build this boat for themselves. This is where I would like to keep going with my writing. One dream would be to publish a book entitled Ten Japanese Boats You Can Build. With the collapse of the traditional apprentice system and the disappearance of craftspeople we have to find a way to give people the ability to build these boats.

A woman spearing shellfish from a taraibune , or tub boat, on Sado Island. These boats are still used in six fishing villages on Sado Island in the Sea of Japan. Primarily used by women, they traditionally provided a cheap, durable second boat for fishing families. As a result they were mainly used by women. Brooks apprenticed with the last builder of these boats in his first apprenticeship in 1996, and his first book documented how these boats are built.

Given the rise of modern fibreglass boat in recent decades, why do you think traditional wooden boats are still relevant in the modern world?

It’s a craft, one with a fascinating history. Like any craft, people derive enormous pleasure and satisfaction from the work. There is something inherently enriching about pursuing mastery, and seeing the tangible results of one’s work is extraordinarily fulfilling. Traditional boats reflect rich and varied histories and aesthetics, and their use encompasses a different kind of journey, no less enriching.

Douglas Brooks and Seichi Nasu pose in front of a rice field boat Nasu built.

What is the main difference between sailing a traditional Japanese vessel compared to the more familiar Western wooden sailing boats?

The only sailing vessel I built in Japan was the sabani of Okinawa. The sabani is an extraordinarily difficult boat to sail, and I have almost no experience at it. Otherwise all the boats I’ve studied were powered by paddle or sculling oar. The latter comes from China and is a large and powerful way to move a boat versus Western oars.

An Okinawan sabani sailing . These boats have enjoyed a revival in Okinawa, and race throughout the year. Photograph by Hiroyuki Asato.

Where do you see your journey within the craft of traditional Japanese boatbuilding going next?

I was just in Japan building a boat for a famous garden in Takamatsu City. While there I met with an 85-year old boatbuilder, perhaps the last builder of the iconic cormorant fishing boat. I will be returning in May to study with him and document his work. I see more opportunities to build boats in Japan and I hope to continue teaching and writing. As mentioned before, if I could find the support of an institution I really think Japan is ripe for a boatbuilding school.

An ukaibune , or cormorant fishing boat. These unique boats are very rare and Mr. Seichi Nasu, age 85, is perhaps the last man who knows how to build them. Douglas Brooks will be apprenticing with Nasu and documenting his design and techniques beginning in May of 2017.

Thanks to Douglas Brooks for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. All photographs by Douglas Brooks unless otherwise noted. Be sure to follow Brooks’ upcoming work in Japan at his blog:  http://blog.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/ .

www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com

• By Gerry Jones
• March 16, 2017
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A definitive look at Japanese boatbuilding

It was about seven years ago that Ocean Navigator publisher Alex Agnew and I drove up one night from Portland up to Brunswick, to Bowdoin College, to hear wooden boatbuilder Douglas Brooks speak. Alex and I share a fascination for boats of all kinds, wooden in particular, but I was doubly drawn by a distinct linguistic allure. I had been studying Japanese language for several years and Douglas Brooks was and is the leading sensei of Japanese wooden boatbuilding.

Mr. Brook’s talk not only opened its audience’s eyes to a boatbuilding art developed with hardly a whiff of influence from the world of Western craftsmanship and technique, but it also unveiled again that clichéd inscrutability that has long described Japanese ways.

For starters, the Japanese are dumbfounded that American and European boatbuilders caulk their boats from the outside. After all, they say, that’s the side the water is on. The Japanese caulk from the inside and then only after their boats become very old. In fact, they don’t need to caulk new wooden boats at all due to a technique Brooks explains in detail in his new book, straightforwardly entitled “Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding.”

This is the story of the author’s apprenticeships with Japanese masters, the last of their kind building unique traditional boats of endangered styles. It is part ethnography, part instruction, and part the personal story of a wooden boatbuilder fueled by a passion to preserve a centuries-old craft on the brink of extinction. Over the course of 17 trips to seek out these elderly masters, Mr. Brooks built boats with five of them, and for most he was their sole and last apprentice.

At 320 pages with 378 color photographs and 36 drawing, a launch into Japanese Wooden Boatbuidling is a leap into an exotic new world. Design, workshop and tools, wood and materials, joinery, fastenings, propulsion, ceremonies—this comprehensive volume will be of interest to boatbuilders, woodworkers, and anyone who has ever been impressed with the marvels of Japanese design and workmanship.

Hijouni ni omoshiroi. Extremely interesting.

Signed and inscribed copies are available directly from the author at www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com . Buying from this site directly supports Mr. Brook’s ongoing research. 

By Ocean Navigator

• Japan Real Estate Advice

Top Japanese Luxury Yachts

Yachts are the ultimate symbol of decadence. With sizes ranging up to 181 meters (almost the length of two football fields), these floating mansions—replete with dozens of guest cabins, heated swimming pools and helicopter pads—eat up millions of dollars in annual maintenance and staffing cost. The $5.7 billion a year luxury yacht industry is no stranger to Japan—the country is home to many respected yacht builders such as Kanasashi Heavy Industries Co and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co.. 

While the majority of the world's most expensive yachts are owned by Middle Eastern royals and Russian oligarchs, Japan does produce some of the most expensive and luxurious yachts known to man.

• ATTESSA IV | ¥16.49 billion ($149 million)

The Attessa IV is a 92 meter (302 ft) superyacht built by Hayashikane Zosen KK in 1999. The yacht, initially designed by Felix Buytendijk and Diana Yacht Design, underwent a massive renovation in 2007. Attessa IV, which has a passenger capacity of 38, features a host of amenities that includes 19 luxurious cabins, a pool, a spa, a gym, and an onboard helicopter with a landing pad. Manned by a crew of 21, the yacht has a cruise speed of 4.21 knots and a maximum speed of 22 knots.

"Attessa IV in Desolation Sound"   by   nwclassicyacht   is licensed under   CC 2.0 

• Guntu | ¥5.5 billion ($49.9 milion)

Part yacht and part ryokan, Guntu is the brainchild of visionary architect Yasushi Horibe and legendary chef Kenzo Sato. The 19-suite, 266-foot-long vessel, built by Tsuneishi Shipbuilding Co., Ltd, is the personification of luxury and opulence on the sea. Guests are left in solitude inside the spacious and artfully decorated ryokan. Every inch of the vessel has been carefully designed and crafted by artisans in Hiroshima to deliver a timeless and unforgettable experience to guests as the Guntu sails across the Setouchi region of western Osaka.

• O’MEGA | ¥6.4 billion ($58 million)

Built in 1987 on the shipyard of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the O'Mega is a refined and exquisite mega yacht designed for endless summer days and nights. The 82.5 meters (270.7 feet) vessel is spacious and decadent, featuring clean, elegant lines and color schemes that augment one's sense of space. Designed by famed naval architect Giorgio Vafiadis, O'Mega has a live-in crew of 30 to look after 28 to 32 passengers in its 14 cabins spread across four decks. This superyacht is available for rent at the cost of €450,000 per week.

"The Mega Yacht O'Mega"   by  Butterfly2012   is licensed under   CC 3.0 

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Many Japanese boats are considered among the best in the business. If you are thinking about the best Japanese sailboat brands, you’re in the right place.

Japan is no stranger to the world of sailing. When it comes to investing in a sailboat, you might want to consider Japanese sailboat brands because their boats offer just the right mix of technology and ergonomic design, which is what sailing enthusiasts look for in boats.

From Mitsubishi to Ishikawajima-Harima, and Yamaha, there are many Japanese brands that are making a mark in the sailboat industry. These sailboats range from compact beginner vessels to luxury yachts for more experienced sailors.

Many Japanese brands produce a range of reliable boats for sailing newbies, as well as experts that can make the sailing experience comfortable and fun.

As sailing enthusiasts who have owned and sailed in many different types of sailboats, including Japanese sailboats, we are in the ideal position to help you make a more informed decision when it comes to choosing from Japanese sailboat brands.

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‍ Japanese Sailboat Brands

There's no disputing that sailors are passionate individuals. They are so enthusiastic about sailboats that they’re always on the lookout to find the greatest ones. Many sailing enthusiasts fantasize about owning a sailboat, but few of us ever have the opportunity to cruise the seas on something we can truly call our own. While you can rent a sailboat, many sailors aspire to purchase one.

Gliding over the ocean, waves, and wind in the company of a beautifully made sailboat provides an unparalleled sense of comfort and calm. When you combine this with the fact that sailing takes you far away from the everyday grind that we've grown accustomed to, it's easy to see why sailing is so enticing to the people. However, without a decent sailboat, all of this enjoyment and the pleasures of sailing are lost.

Contrary to popular belief, buying a sailboat is not out of reach for everybody. It's something we can all accomplish. But, first, it's vital to understand some of the greatest sailboat brands. The greatest sailboat brands can make your sailing life smoother and more enjoyable. The top sailboat brands have perfected the skill of carpentry for decades, if not centuries.

What makes Japanese sailboat brands unique is that they've committed their abilities and a significant amount of time to developing and constructing the highest quality sailboats available. You've come to the correct place if you're seeking the top sailboat brands from around the world. We'll talk about the best options in Japanese sailboats, something that will provide you with a fantastic escape from your daily routine.

Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Ind. Yachts

Yachts are constructed in Japan by Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries. The shipyard has produced superyachts up to 77 meters long and 2200 tons, with an average of 56 meters long and 787 tons.  The company Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Ind. launched a total of 5 superyachts and is showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.

IHI Corporation is a heavy-industry producer with four primary areas of focus: resource, energy, the environment, and defense. But, it has also garnered a reputation for its luxury yachts. IHI's origins date back to 1853, when the Ishikawajima Shipyard, Japan's first modern shipbuilding plant, was founded.

The firm was instrumental in Japan's modernization, utilizing its shipbuilding expertise in new fields, including plant construction, aero-engines, and heavy machinery manufacturing. Ishikawajima Heavy Industries joined Harima Shipbuilding & Engineering to become Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries in 1960, the successor of Ishikawajima Shipyard. In 2007, the name IHI Corporation was chosen to promote the company's worldwide brand.

IHI is dedicated to making a positive impact on society via technology, integrating a wide range of engineering skills to fulfill the growing worldwide need for energy, urbanization and industrialization, and transportation efficiency.

One of the standout yachts of the company includes the Paloma. The luxury yacht is an incredible feat in yacht design; the vessel was built in 1965 at the Ishikawajima-Harima shipyard in Japan and measured 60.25m (197' 8"). The yacht was completely rebuilt in Malta in 2003-04 to the Owner's specifications.

The luxury yacht features some great amenities, such as comfy furniture and decor, a/v entertainment system, water sports equipment, a luxury on-deck Jacuzzi, and anchor stabilizers for a smooth stay aboard the luxury yacht.

During Paloma's renovation, she acquired new onboard systems as well as the majority of her interior and external equipment, including an entirely new engine room with cutting-edge engineering equipment and cutting-edge navigation and communication systems.

The interior décor is subtle modern English style, with a blend of rich, colorful materials complimented by her original wood paneling that adds to the warm and inviting environment. The main salon of the classic yacht Paloma is spacious, with many comfortable seating places, a wide sofa, bar facilities, an office room, and a giant Plasma screen television.

The formal dining space, which can be closed off, is located forward of the main salon. A plasma TV and music equipment are installed in an audio/visual recreation room placed ahead of the eating area. Paloma is a classic yacht with a large main deck, which is part of its aesthetic appeal and is the reason why Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Ind, makes it one of the biggest names in the yacht world.

New Japan Yachts

New Japan Boat was founded in 1969 in Shirai, Makinohara City, Shizuoka Prefecture, and is currently one of the few domestic yacht builders. The company used to solely make yachts but expanded into the RV / camper sector, which has a lot in common with yachts. They've started doing interior work and selling components for campers, particularly outfitted cars.

Requests for different FRP-related items, such as FRP sinks, custom-made products, and shells for mobile sales vehicles, are also accepted by the company. The Libeccio is their best-selling yacht. Libeccio, a 26ft class representative boat, is a best-selling true cruising yacht capable of running in open waters.

The Group Fino design provides a superb combination of stability, operability, usefulness, and comfort that never gets old. A strong hull that has sailed the seas of Japan and a serene cabin made of teak. The most crucial but frequently overlooked subject once you leave the port is returning to the port. The company has solved this problem with its modern design and features.

Libeccio's hull stability is designed to provide high stability and sailing performance without adding additional weight. It is a critical feature that eliminates the anxiety of running in heavy winds while also reducing occupant fatigue. NJY's dedication to "hand lay-up" creates the hull by stacking without omissions. The hull liner is, of course, fully attached to the interior of the integrally molded hull.

It is one of the strongest hulls ever made, designed to withstand the worst sea conditions. The same manufacturing procedure is used for all NJY boats. The ability to quickly convert a small place to its intended purpose. This is a key consideration in this class and is what sets them apart as yacht builders. It is adjusted for optimum usage in any environment, from the living area to a navigation room, dining room to a luxurious bedroom.

Aoki Yacht is another big name in the world of Japanese sailboat building. The sailboat builder is known for its design of the Zen24, which is a class apart. The inspiration behind the design is clear, which is that it’s important to practice sailing with a single hand for a long period in order to develop your sailing skills. In 500 hours, a little difference in wind level may be noticed, and in 1000 hours, blind sailing is conceivable. Zen24 is a semi-custom sailing vessel, which makes that possible.

You may mix and match the fittings, equipment, and even the interior finish to suit your riding style. There are three standard kinds. To ensure a long life, an ISO-based weather-resistant polyester resin is employed, and a UV blocking layer is produced under the gel coat. The essential keel mounting portion is attached to the inner hull using a sturdy fastening mechanism. The firm has a dependable and straightforward fitting out to improve your sailing. The engine is capable.

Outboard motors and diesel inboard motors are all options for the powerplant. You'll feel fantastic while sailing alone on a yacht that is so quiet that you could go unnoticed. However, not only for skippers but also for convenient equipment, rapid weather changes might be a difficulty. When the weather suddenly changes, the captain runs out of room and mishandles the equipment. The halyard that goes to the cockpit is prone to errors. A single blunder sets off a chain reaction.

In this sense, the ocean's reality frequently falls short of expectations, so you will need the right boat for the job. Even if you are only sailing for the day, you may experience unexpected weather changes. It is safer to plan for unexpected weather changes, which is easy to do on this luxury yacht because of the many modern features that make it easy to navigate.

Complex fittings stymie the sailors’ ability to control the vessel, which is why this boat is extremely easy to use and maneuver. This is due to the fact that the reading of the wind and tides is updated in real-time, so you are not distracted while navigating. This is exactly what a skipper needs; it is a strategy that allows the boat to function at its optimum by employing basic fitting out to observe sails, wind, and currents, which the Zen24 allows sailors to do effortlessly.

Nishii Zosen KK/Sterling Yachts

The motor yacht Lady Orient is a 48-meter (158-foot) large carbon ship designed by Sterling Scott and built by Nishii Zosen Kk/Sterling Yachts. The motor yacht Lady Orient, which can accommodate 20 guests and 13 professional crew, was previously known as 687 Lady Kinara; her build project name, or yacht title was Asean Lady.

The naval architect engaged in the formal vessel composition for Lady Orient was Sterling Scott. Sterling Scott was also involved in the basic design work for this yacht. This boat was built by Nishii Zosen Kk/Sterling Yachts in the well-known yacht-building country of Japan. Before being given to the owner, she was successfully launched at Ise in 1983.

A total beam (width) of 8.23 m or 27 ft creates an impression of spaciousness. She is quite shallow, with a maximum depth of 2.74m (9ft). The hull of the motorboat was constructed using the material carbon. Carbon fiber is used to construct her superstructure above the hull.

Lady Orient can attain a top speed of 16 knots thanks to two Caterpillar diesel main engines. Twin-screw propellers are connected to the engines. Her overall HP is 2110, and she has 1553 Kilowatts. She uses Naiad as a stabilizer. The Lady Orient was built to accommodate up to 20 people. This ship can accommodate up to 13 passengers. This ship can accommodate up to 13 capable crew members, allowing for a relaxing luxury yacht holiday experience.

The luxury yacht Devotion was completed in 1986 at the Nishii Zosen Kk/Sterling yard and is 43.6 meters (143 feet) in length. As a result, she was proudly manufactured in Japan. Her former names were 688 Shalimar, Lindeza, and Marjorie Morningstar (s). Bannenberg Designs Ltd created an elegant external style. Sterling Scott created the naval architect design for the warship. The interior design was created by Arthur Fishman (1986) and Susan Puleo (1990). The superyacht hull was constructed using composite material, which makes the vessel more ergonomic.

The draught is 2.59 meters (8.5 feet), and the beam is 7.92 meters (26 feet). The superstructure is mostly composite up top. With a cruising speed of roughly 14 knots, Devotion has a range of over 2500 nautical miles under typical weather conditions. Her whole range is powered by her 60500-liter fuel capacity. The maximum number of visitors allowed at Devotion is nine. The boat can also accommodate up to 8 yacht crew members, ensuring a relaxing luxury yacht holiday.

Horizon Group

Horizon Group is the first Asian yacht manufacturer to use four separate subsidiary shipyards to manufacture its premium boats. Each yard adds a specific technique to the development, allowing for not just higher capacity but also a more efficient build operation overall, according to Horizon Group CEO John Lu's design. The shipyards may integrate and grow on each other's ideas and resources under Lu's group structure while emphasizing the spirit of artisanship.

Horizon is distinguished from other yacht builders by its flexibility in design and construction, which allows each boat to be modified to fit the unique owner's lifestyle. Horizon's devoted staff of highly experienced professionals makes this degree of personalization feasible. Horizon's specialized staff of highly competent yacht-building professionals would not be able to provide this level of personalization.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has designed and built many luxury yachts over the years. Dubai Shadow was once known as Umitaka Maru's project/yacht Australis Mentor. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries built this 79-meter (259-foot) luxury yacht in 1973. The superyacht Dubai Shadow is a stunning vessel. Mitsubishi Hi is the naval architectural business that created the yacht's blueprints and overall arrangement.

Dubai Shadow is the support boat for the luxury superyacht, which was previously the world's largest superyacht. Dubai Shadow is a powerful and durable vessel meant to transport all of the extras that do not fit aboard Dubai, such as tenders, speed boats, toys, jet skis, and fishing and diving equipment. The Dubai Shadow also serves as a support vessel for additional supplies and lodging.

Mitsubishi Hi was the naval architect for Dubai Shadow's official superyacht design work. This project was also completed successfully by Mitsubishi Hi. She was officially launched in Shimonoseki in 1973, and after sea testing and final completion, she was handed over to the owner who commissioned her.

In Japan, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries completed the construction of a new motorboat. Steel was used to make the hull. The superstructure of a motor yacht is mostly built of steel. Dubai Shadow has an amazing interior capacity with a width of 12.4 meters (40.7 feet).

She has a 5.35m draught, which is rather deep (17.55ft). By 2006, she had completed refit improvements and modifications. A single screw propeller propels the Dubai Shadow. The yacht's primary engine produces 3304 horsepower (or 2475 kilowatts).

Hitachi Zosen Corp.

Hitachi Zosen Corporation is a major industrial and engineering corporation founded in 1881 in Osaka, Japan. The company has also been recognized for its sailboat designs, such as the company’s signature design, the yacht Mikado.

The sailing yacht Mikado is a 47-meter-long, 155-foot-long aluminum boat designed by William Garden and Martin Francis and built from the keel up by Hitachi Zosen rp. A spacious ketch motor sailer is a particularly unusual Japan-built superyacht that was launched to great acclaim in 1986. William Garden and Martin Francis were the naval architects that created the design for this ship. Parish-Hadley is also responsible for interior design. She is a ketch motor sailer in the conventional sense.

The naval architectural firm William Garden was engaged in Mikado's technical superyacht design. Parish-Hadley was in charge of her interior design. The boat design is also linked to William Garden and Martin Francis. William Garden and Martin Francis are also involved in the yacht's overall design partnership.

The yacht was designed and built in Japan by Hitachi Zosen rp. Before being given to the owner, she was successfully launched at Kanagawa in 1986. Aluminum was used for the primary hull, making the boat lighter. The superstructure of a sailing boat is mostly built of aluminum. Mikado is rather huge, with a width of 9.51 meters (31.2 ft). Her draught is 6.34 meters (20.8 feet) (20.8ft). In 2008, she had refit improvements and alterations made.

Mikado has been designed to reach a top speed of 12 knots thanks to twin GM diesel engines. Twin-screw propellers power her propulsion system. In addition, she has a driving range of 3000 miles. When traveling at her cruise speed of 11 knots, she has a range of 3000 miles. Her total HP is 972, and she has 715 Kilowatts. Vosper is her go-to stabilizer.

Kanawa Shipyard

The Kanawa Shipyard also has quite a few luxury yacht designs under its belt mainly because of collaborations with other world-renowned yacht designers. One such design is the Don Giovanni, a superyacht designed by the company in 1964.

The superyacht Don Giovanni can accommodate up to 6 guests along with a total of four crew members. Her rather conventional interior design was christened in the year 1964 and exemplifies the typical yacht setting from A Pistoia / S Caracci (Refit), which are the leaders in interior yacht design.

Kanagawa was the naval architect company in charge of Don Giovanni's technical superyacht design. Kanagawa was also a successful collaborator on this project. The general inside styling was chosen by interior designer A Pistoia / S Caracci (Refit).

She was successfully launched in Kobe in 1964, and after sea testing and final completion, she was transferred to the yacht owner. In Japan, Kanagawa Shipyard constructed a new-build motorboat. With a total beam (width) of 7.85 m or 25.75 ft, the sensation is adequate. Steel was utilized to construct the hull of the motorboat. Steel is used to construct her superstructure above deck. In 2009, more refit and upgrading work was completed.

The boat is powered by a nippon hatsudaku compressed air start engine. Twin-screw propellers propel her sheathed in skirts that double as the vessel’s rudders. The yacht's engine produces 1000 horsepower (or 783 kilowatts).

Yamaha Motors

Yamaha Motors was founded in 1955 in Japan. While the company is known for its motorcycles and other vehicles, including outboard motors, they have also made a name in the boating industry. Since its inception more than 50 years ago, the Yamaha Motor Group has been dedicated to the production of different values via manufacturing and services.

The Yamaha Motor Group is a firm that uses wisdom and enthusiasm to achieve people's ambitions, with the goal of offering fresh feelings and prosperous lifestyles to people all over the world, and is constantly expected to be "the next impression." It is clear that they want to be known as an amazing creative firm.

Yamaha has always strived to be a company that is new and impresses by offering new value. They have built unique goods and a wide range of products using a mix of energy and four main technologies: body/hull technology, control technology, and powertrain, just to name a few. The firm has expanded through expanding our business and creating demand for ourselves.

The electrification of mobility, the rapid growth of digital technology, and the rearrangement of numerous frameworks that follow it are all big developments in business trends. Under such conditions, modern technology, a diverse set of business foundations, and the capacity to mold ideas and concepts will be important driving forces.

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The Last Boat-Builder

• by Tony McNicol
• May 23, 2014 November 9, 2021

This is an article from 2003 about the work of Japanese-boat builder Douglas Brooks . Brooks was helping to preserve Japanese boat-building skills, which were rapidly disappearing.

‘All those guys are over seventy, five of them have now died. There were only two apprentices . . . three now including me. It looks like its going to go from seventeen to three in one generation! I have had boat-builders say to me “please come back so I can teach you these things.”’

I still feel privileged to have been able to report on his work. (This article was first published in Look Japan magazine, 2003)

Two Men and a Boat

Douglas Brooks, an American boat-builder, is struggling to save a Japanese tradition that’s sinking out of site fast.

During his childhood and most of his working life 76 year old Fujiwara Kazuyoshi lived by the banks of a tributary flowing into Tokyo’s Sumida-river. As a master boat-builder he made river craft for the fishermen near his home. Then, one day in the 1970s, the city buried the stream under concrete and tarmac and his boat-building work dried up as fast as the water that used to flow past his front door.

Decades later, on a bright fall morning in a ramshackle workshop virtually under the eaves of Tokyo’s Koto-ku city office, he’s taken up his old tools again, but today he has a student, an American, Douglas Brooks. The two carpenters are building a three meter long cedar and cypress-wood Japanese boat. Neither seem much disturbed by the noise of traffic from the streets surrounding them or by the November cold or by the occasional curious faces at the workshop windows. There’s a sign on the wall prohibiting talking in the boat-shed and they work in silence until their break. Douglas hands me one of the two cans of coffee set on the edge of the electric stove to warm.

He explains how he is learning to build a ‘Chokibune’, a long flat river boat used during the Edo-period to transport people along Tokyo’s waterways (‘a kind of a Japanese gondola’). It is being made from a single cypress tree and a single cedar, both picked out from the forest by Fujiwara-san. Douglas makes sure to introduce me to his teacher and we chat about the project and their work together.

‘It’s the just the same teaching a foreigner as teaching a Japanese person. He’s a very diligent and obedient student. It normally takes eight years to become a boat-builder . . . but if he uses his time well he will learn how to make a Japanese boat.’

The break over, I watch the two men at work again. A schoolgirl stands and stares through the door for a few minutes and then leaves. One middle-aged lady wobbling past on grocery-laden bicycle stops and dismounts.

‘You’re that American I saw on TV yesterday, aren’t you?’ she blurts out.

Douglas explains about his appearance on a TV news program the previous evening. But, the small measure of fame he’s enjoying now is a big change after his first visits to Japan.

‘I came here eight times before anyone paid my ticket. I’ve slept on railway platforms. . . then I would go home and save my money until I could come back to Japan.’

His first trip was in 1990. Already a boat-builder in the United States he came to Japan as a tourist and spent three months looking for traditional Japanese boats in fishing villages along the coast of the inland sea.

‘I didn’t expect to find any boats, but I found hundreds’

Three years later he was back, this time to interview the boat-builders and to begin the documentation of the craft. He was particularly interested in meeting the builders of taraibune, a kind of small round boat or coracle. Douglas traveled to the island of Sado in the Sea of Japan.

‘I found two builders, but I never saw one again, he died a year after I met him’

Douglas discovered that the remaining craftsman, Fuji Koichi, had no-one to whom he could pass on his knowledge.

‘He couldn’t find a Japanese student . . . his son became a policeman, his daughter a housewife and they both moved to the city. There’s a different culture here . . . the west has rediscovered [traditional] crafts but here it’s still low-status, blue collar work’

On his third visit to Japan Douglas became Fujii-san’s ‘deshi’ (student). He lived for two weeks in Fujii-san’s home learning how to make the taraibune and helping with the rice-harvest. When Fujii-san passed away in 1996, Brooks realized he was the only student of the last taraibune builder. That year he was invited by Fujii-san’s wife to come back to Sado to finish the construction of his teacher’s final boat.

Douglas’s current project (funded by the U.S. based ‘Freeman Foundation’) is to document the techniques used in the building of three different types of Japanese boat. He estimates that he has taken several thousand photos and shot over twenty-five hours of video, but he is well aware that his techniques are very different to the way boat-builders have worked in the past.

The tradition of ‘nusumigeiko’ teaching or ‘stolen learning’ meant that the boat-building techniques could only be passed on directly from master to pupil. Even then, the teacher was often loathe to divulge his secrets for fear an able pupil might better him and set up shop down the street. The students were forced to watch and steal what learning they could though a lengthy poorly paid apprenticeship.

‘Skills are precious . . . the master was protecting himself from the student. If the students were going to get the secrets, they had to steal them. My taraibune teacher said “I used to go into the masters shop at night with a candle”’

Yet, asked if he’s ever had a negative reaction from craftsmen jealously trying to preserve their secrets, Douglas answers emphatically:

‘No. Because every one of these men (they are now in their 70s,80s and 90s in some cases) . . . . realize what is about to be lost.’

On his earlier trips to Japan Douglas met and interviewed seventeen different boat-builders.

Alex Kerr, the author of ‘Lost Japan’ and ‘Dogs and Demons’, has worked hard to draw attention to the neglect and decline of Japan’s traditional arts.

‘Japan has generally turned its back on traditional craft of many types; paper-making, kimono weaving and dyeing, barrel-making, brush making, you name it, they’re all in decline, and in the 90’s the speed of the decline was drastic.’ he says.

‘I put the collapse of craft at the feet of what I call “the victory of the industrial mode.” Japan set out after world war two to build a new economy on manufacturing industry – and that alone – and everything was sacrificed to that goal.’

He argues that service industries, including tourism, were neglected as a consequence of this drive. It is a mistake that the Japanese government has only lately woken up to:

‘Recently the government has realized that tourism is an important industry (the world’s largest), and there is a big campaign afoot to revive it.’

Perhaps one of Douglas’ boats has already become part of this revived tourist industry? On a sunday morning several months after my visit to Fujiwara-san and Brooks’ Koto-ku workshop I accompanied Douglas to the ‘wasen tomo no kai’ [friends of the Japanese boat]. Each week at the Koto-river park a group of boat builders take Tokyo residents and visitors out on the water.

On the way to the pier we walk past a pond and a clutch of photographers all focusing thousands of dollars of lens technology at a solitary bemused-looking kingfisher. Trying to crop out the office windows glinting through the trees, perhaps? A short walk and a century away, a trip on Douglas’ now complete and river-worthy Edo-era craft is an altogether different sort of escape from city-life. The passengers, all ages and several different nationalities, are obviously enjoying the beauty of the craft, the skill of the oarsmen and the fine weather.

Douglas sees potential for Tokyo’s rivers and canals, ‘When I look at the wasen tomo no kai and what they do there and how popular it is, I can’t help but look at a lot of the other waterways in Tokyo and think . . it would be incredible if there were traditional boats here!’

As Alex Kerr points out: ‘Tourism is one way in which boats such as [Douglas’] could find a place in Japan’s new society. His idea of putting such boats into the moats in Tokyo is a great one; ideas like this make a successful tourist industry and add interest to drab towns.’

And as Fujiwara-san, who thought he had built his last boat twenty years ago, says, ‘Its better to use Japanese boats than to just look at them in a museum’.

Brooks himself realizes that there is still a lot more work to be done to save Japanese boats from a dry future gathering dust in museum halls.

‘We’ve got to preserve the basic boat-building skills. I have sketches of literally . . step 1 through 5 of pounding a chisel into the wood . . because there is a certain way it has to be done. I need to record to a level of detail so that in 50 years a competent woodworker could read my text and do it right’.

He is even thinking of approaching some of Japan’s new craft universities with the idea of setting up courses in traditional boat-building. Last spring he went back to the island of Sado to build two more coracles, and he even began to train his own ‘deshi’ or apprentice, a 36 year old carpenter from the island. Douglas explains how he passed on all his diagrams to his student as well as showing him how to build the boat.

‘We are doing the traditional thing and the modern thing’

And what about the tradition of nusumigeiko, ‘stolen learning’, and the secret skills of boat building? Is his apprentice creeping into the workshop at the dead of night with a candle to pilfer the master’s techniques?

‘No nusumigeiko . . . . we don’t have time for that!’

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Model ship clubs of the usa.

• Updated on: 24th January 2021
• Written by Gary Renshaw

Model Ship building is a craft that has been around since water transport first began. Every boat ever built has a unique story to tell. The model ship clubs of the United States have an important part to play in continuing the skills and tradition of the art of model ship building. Here we have compiled a list of the model ships clubs that are situated across the United States.

California Model Ship Clubs

Ship modelers association.

The Ship Modelers Association (SMA) is the largest ship modeling club in California, and one of the largest in the nation. They seek to foster research and interest in the nautical heritage of the United States by researching and building scale ship models. 

Sacramento Mo del Shipwrights

The Sacramento Model Shipwrights, are a club of radio-control model ship enthusiasts, who sail at the lake in Elk Grove Regional Park in Elk Grove, California. They are known for building civilian and military models, which are powered by electric motors, steam engines, or sail.

South Bay Model Shipwrights

The South Bay Model Shipwrights is a club to learn and share info on shipbuilding techniques using a variety of materials.  Member’s projects include model ships from plastic and wood from commercial kits and scratch built vessels in resin and wood. 

Club members have built ships ranging from 3’ to 56” in Over All length.  Members have built vessels from all timeframes in human history.  This includes rafts, Viking Ships, Galleons, Clipper Ships, Japanese and Chinese Sailing ships, Steam Ferry Boats, and modern era combat ships.

At club meetings they discuss maritime construction, current events, history, and archaeology.

Channel Islands Maritime Museum Ship Model Guild

The Channel Islands Maritime Museum sponsors a Ship Model Guild, an active club of local model builders, who meet once a month at the Museum.  The public is welcome to the monthly meetings, third Tuesday of the month at 6:30 PM and all are welcome to join the Guild.

Learn Maritime history by building models of ships that made history.  Techniques for wood, plastic or metal construction are addressed at the meetings.  Every meeting is different as members discuss their progress during the “show and tell” sessions.  Interesting bits of information are exchanged about the ships of adventure on the high seas. 

Inland Nautical Society

Inland Nautical Society is a club for Radio Controlled Model Boaters. The club have beginners who have never built a model before, to the experienced modelers who have built museum quality models. The club has a reputation of friendly and knowledgeable members who are eager to share a wealth of their knowledge and expertise of radio controlled modeling.

San Diego Ship Modeler’s Guild

The San Diego Ship Modeler’s Guild welcomes people of all ages with an interest in preserving maritime history through the art of ship modeling. Membership ranges from new ship modelers to experienced master modelers. Ship model projects include period sailing ships through to contemporary steel navy.

Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights

The Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights are associated with the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, a unit of the National Park Service, and have a model shop aboard the historic ferryboat Eureka berthed at the Hyde Street Pier.

Anyone interested in model shipbuilding is welcome to attend their meetings. Members can offer advice and support on all stages of model shipbuilding, from selecting a kit for your first model to advanced layout and scratch building.

San Francisco Model Yacht Club

Colorado model ship clubs, rocky mountain shipwrights.

The Rocky Mountain Shipwrights group of model ship builders in Colorado dedicated to promoting, developing, and furthering scale model shipbuilding. With about 50 members, building many types and sizes of model ships – from Egyptian barges to WWII destroyers, ships in bottles to all-paper models, miniature liners to four-foot men of war. Several members and their creations have won national and regional awards, and some have built models now on display at maritime museums nationwide.

But they are not all expert modelers. Some members are working on their first models. They get advice and encouragement from those who are more experienced, and the goal is for everyone to enjoy the hobby of building model ships and to get the satisfaction of completing and displaying their work.

Connecticut Model Ship Clubs

Connecticut marine model society.

Connecticut Marine Model Society are a group of enthusiastic ship model builders from Connecticut. They meet on the second Saturday of the month from September to June in West Haven, Ct. They build models from scratch or from kits; both wood and plastic. The subjects range from wooden sailing ship to present day ships of steel.

Florida Model Ship Clubs

Southwest florida shipmodeler’s guild.

The Southwest Florida Shipmodeler’s Guild purpose is to provide and promote a forum from which its members can share their model ship building knowledge, skills and techniques, personal experiences, nautical history and any other related maritime interests that might benefit its membership. Their goal is to learn and grow in competence in pursuing the construction of ship models in an atmosphere of constructive fellowship, assistance, and active participation.

Their members come from all walks of life and represent all levels of ship modeling skill from novice to expert. Meeting in a friendly and informal environment at the beautiful Fort Myers Riverside Community Center.

Tampa Bay Ship Model Society

The Tampa Bay Ship Model Society brings together model ship builders, both newcomers and veteran builders, for the mutual benefit of expanding their knowledge of ships, research, techniques, and further develop their abilities in all areas relevant to ship model building and maritime history.

Members model in all materials; wood, metal, paper and polymers, from plans only, or commercial kits, vessels from every era and purpose; Exploration, Steel Navy, Submarines, Yachts, Tugs, Commercial, Fishing, Liners, Working Small Craft, Coast Guard, River/Paddle Wheel, Racing Power and Sail.

Georgia Model Ship Clubs

Atlanta model shipwrights.

Atlanta Model Shipwrights aim to educate and promote model shipbuilding through fellowship mentoring and instruction in a non-competitive environment. Meetings are held the second Saturday of each month from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

Illinois Model Ship Clubs

The north shore deadeyes.

The North Shore Deadeyes primarily focused on static scale ship models with an emphasis on the Great Age of Sail, but builders of models from all eras and at all levels of skill welcome.

Midwest Model Shipwrights

The Midwest Model Shipwrights was formed in 1982 by individuals who had a common interest in model ship building and maritime history. Goals of the club are to discuss and share modeling ideas and concepts while making new friends.

Vessels built by the Shipwrights represent a variety of types and eras. Sizes range from miniatures a few inches in length to radio control warships over five feet long, and from basic to amazingly complex. Their membership includes beginning through to advanced modelers, some of whose works can be found in museums, galleries and private collections.

In spite of all these accomplishments, the organization’s primary focus remains the interaction between expert, intermediate and novice.

Indiana Model Ship Clubs

Admirals of indianapolis.

Admirals of Indianapolis club’s members build and operate scale merchant ships, pleasure craft, work boats, military ships, sailboats, and just about anything that floats or submerges (in the case of submarine models). Many boats are built from kits and some are scratch-built from plans and photographs. The models are powered by electric motors, steam engines, or wind power in the case of sailboats.

Kansas Model Ship Clubs

Kansas city square riggers modeling association.

The Kansas City Square Riggers Club are a model ship-building enthusiasts club based out of the greater Kansas City area. They welcome builders of all skill levels and interests. If you are into naval research and model building they would love to hear from you.

Massachusetts Model Ship Clubs

Uss constitution model shipwright guild.

The USS Constitution Model Shipwright Guild is the largest model ship association on the East Coast. Meetings overlooking Old Ironsides at the USS Constitution Museum are well attended.  In addition to monthly meetings, the Guild takes part in the annual meeting of model clubs from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They also attend the annual Salem Maritime Festival and the Antique & Classic Boat Festival, as well as the biennial Woods Hole Model Boat Show.

Novices and experienced model builders alike can have fun developing resources, experiences, and skills by joining us. SS Constitution Model Shipwright Guild

U.S. Vintage Model Yacht Group

The US Vintage Model Yacht Group is a Special Interest Group of the American Model Yachting Association. Their organizational goals are the preservation, building, and sailing of older model yacht designs and the study of the history of the sport of model yachting.

“Vintage” primarily means any older model sailboats no longer sailed (or never raced) in serious competition. These encompass free-sailing model yachts, older designs converted to R/C and pre-1970s R/C sailing models. This includes class racing yachts, non-class sailing models, and commercially-built toys of the past. There are also replica models built to the older designs and new designs recreating older sailboat styles.

The group also support those who sail traditional sailing craft models, such as Schooners, Skipjacks, and other scale models. The hulls are generally made of wood, with some fiberglass models, and range in length from 1 to 6 ft. The rigs are usually constructed from wood or aluminum, with cotton or dacron sails.

Marine Modelers Club of New England

The Marine Modelers Club of New England have about 50 members, based in the greater Boston area.  They meet monthly, usually pond-side, when the weather allows it.  Meetings are rather informal, with little time spent on business, and lots of time talking about RC boats. 

Their members are a creative bunch, and there is usually an interesting array of models at gatherings. Their modelers are a creative bunch and there is usually an interesting array of models at their gatherings. Their interests include tugboats, warships, pleasure craft, sailboats (both scale and racing) and pond sailors.  

Merrimack Valley Ship Model Club  

The Merrimack Valley Ship Model Club are an enthusiastic and friendly group of model ship makers who share a particular interest in the naval history of Newburyport, and the Merrimack River Valley area.

Maryland Model Ship Clubs

CBMM’s volunteer Maritime Model Guild supports the curatorial needs of CBMM with exhibition models and building kits that are available for purchase  online  and at the Museum Store. In addition, the Guild offers classes for building scratch models, and the annual  Maritime Model Expo  featuring “live” steamboat models, skipjacks with working sails, speedboats, tugs, and other radio-controlled miniatures.

The group also hosts children’s model-making activities at CBMM’s signature events and other outreach and educational programs throughout the year. 

Washington Ship Model Society

The Washington Ship Model Society (WSMS) was founded in 1929 and is the oldest continuously active ship model club in the United States. The organization is composed of active ship model enthusiasts from the Greater Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area. Its purpose is to provide a socially enjoyable means for serious ship modelers to meet, share, and expand upon their common avocation through the exchange of ideas and knowledge.

The society draws its members from all walks of life and many different occupations. The modelers’ skills range from absolute beginners to professionals who have constructed models for maritime exhibits in the Smithsonian Institution and other museums throughout the United States and Europe. Over the years, members have written numerous articles for nautical research and ship model publications. Society membership has included such notables as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Major (and later General) George Patton, Howard I. Chappelle, and Paul E. Garber.

The interests of the modelers are as varied as their occupations, ranging from 17th-century sailing vessels to radio-controlled models of modern powered craft. All types of ship models have been constructed, in static display and operating versions, and in wood, brass, plastic, and card media. 

The society conducts monthly meetings, alternating between Virginia and Maryland locations. The meeting format consists of brief society business, informal discussions of members’ model projects and a program or presentation relating to a nautical or ship modeling topic.  Society members also form subgroups to focus on common modeling interests, such as steel (modern) ship modeling or plank-on-frame modeling. Subgroups are open to all members and meet on a periodic basis, generally in members’ homes. The club’s newsletter, the  Lynx , is published monthly. 

Maine Model Ship Clubs

Down east ship modelers guild.

The Down East Ship Modelers Guild is an active group of static and R/C modelers, ranging from novice to experienced. They meet on the second Thursday of each month from 1 pm – 3 pm at the Legion Hall in Bath, Maine. The group has a long history of association with the Maine Maritime Museum , also in Bath, ME.

Michigan Model Ship Clubs

Great lakes nautical society.

The Great Lakes Nautical Society is a club consisting of model shipbuilders, who are interested in persevering Great Lakes history through model ship building, the model ship shows and educational seminars put on by the club members. The club is open to anyone with an interest in model shipbuilding and the Great Lakes.

Minnesota Model Ship Clubs

The state of Minnesota currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

Missouri Model Ship Clubs

St. louis admirals model boat club.

The St. Louis Admirals R/C Model Boat Club is a group of hobbyists dedicated to sharing the knowledge and fun of the R/C model boat hobby. The depth and breadth of experience the club offers, combined with its laid-back atmosphere, attract the beginner modeler and master builders alike.

Nevada Model Ship Clubs

The state of Nevada currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

New Hampshire Model Ship Clubs

Their members are a creative bunch, and there is usually an interesting array of models at gatherings. Their modelers are a creative bunch and there is usually an interesting array of model at their gatherings. Their interests include tugboats, warships, pleasure craft, sailboats (both scale and racing) and pond sailors. 

New Jersey Model Ship Clubs

The ship model society of new jersey.

The Ship Model Society of New Jersey is dedicated to the pursuit and enjoyment of ship model building in all its forms. They welcome those who enjoy or would like to learn more about this fascinating hobby. Membership spans all skill levels, from novice or highly accomplished and from gadget guru to historical recreator.  Meetings aim to share collective wisdom and resources, and provide the opportunity to enjoy the company of other modelers. 

South Orange Seaport Society

South Orange Seaport Society is a group of folks of all ages who like model boating. They have boats from kits and scratch builds, electric and steam-driven, quite a few fun electric race boats, and some eccentric things. A group of people from all walks of life who like RC boating. 

New Mexico Model Ship Clubs

The state of New Mexico currently has no model ship clubs listed.

New York Model Ship Clubs

Buffalo model boat club.

Radio Controlled model boating is a fascinating hobby that can be as simple or as complex as one wants and can be enjoyed by all age groups. There are as many types of model boats as there are full sizes: enough to satisfy all tastes and interests. Those who enjoy the excitement of speed will find plenty of thrills and competition in the fast electric field. Sailing enthusiasts will find that the racing of radio-controlled sailboats offers all the challenge and exhilaration of the full-sized yachts. Builders of exact scale models get the added satisfaction of operating their craft under full radio control. 

The Model Shipwright Guild of Western New York

Upon a chance introduction at the Military History Society of Rochester New York in 2015 several like-minded individuals, working through the Nautical Research Guild, were able to form our group.  They quickly realized they were an enthusiastic collection of ship modelers and researchers interested in the history and preservation of our maritime legacy in the age of sail and more.

The Model Shipwright Guild of Western New York brings together members from near and far;  Rochester NY, Syracuse NY, Buffalo NY and even Lisbon Portugal. From all walks of life, experience, endeavours with varied nautical interests making for a very dynamic group.

They draw in subject matter experts to enlighten the club meetings on the historical nature of the naval and maritime craft, and their accurate modeling.

Empire State Model Mariners

The Empire State Model Mariners club was founded in 1988, by a group of model boat enthusiasts. The club is a non-profit organization aimed at recreational RC boating and building, with emphasis placed on helping each other and welcoming new members.

We welcome all classes of modelers, from beginners to experts. Boats can be ready to runs, semi kits, kits and scratch built. Whatever your passion is, pleasure crafts, speedboats, workboats, fishing vessels or military replicas.

North Carolina Model Ship Clubs

Carolina maritime society.

The Carolina Maritime Model Society exists to promote the production of high-quality ship models and encourage members and the public to participate in this craft that is as old as shipbuilding itself. 

The society is the only such organization in the entire state and has become a major vehicle for widening public interest in North Carolina’s maritime history and culture.

Ohio Model Ship Clubs

Shipwrights of ohio.

The Shipwrights of Ohio is a club dedicated to model shipbuilding. All types of ships and boats: sailing to steel navy, wood, resin, plastic, kits to scratch built, static to radio control. for all ages – young to retirees, and all skill levels – beginner to expert. Members share their skills, ideas and expertise.

The Shipwrights of Ohio were founded in 2004. Its purpose is to provide a socially enjoyable means for serious and not-so-serious ship modelers to meet, share, and expand their common avocation through the exchange of ideas and skill knowledge. Skills range from beginners to those who build museum quality models.

Oklahoma Model Ship Clubs

The state of Oklahoma currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

Oregon Model Ship Clubs

The state of Oregon currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

Pennsylvania Model Ship Clubs

Philadelphia ship model society.

The Ship Model Shack is the home of the  Philadelphia Ship Model Society , the oldest ship modeling society in America. The Museum is home to over 50 ship models, but this is the only place to see them being created right before your eyes. Have a seat, and watch a model come together while talking with the modelers. 

Rhode Island Model Ship Clubs

Tennessee model ship clubs.

The state of Tennessee currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

Texas Model Ship Clubs

Gulf coast ship modelers society.

The Gulf Coast Ship Model Society is a welcoming group of amateur and professional ship modelers who enjoy sharing their work and discussing tips and tricks of the trade.

Meetings are held on the second Saturday every odd month from 10:00am – 1:00pm at the Houston Maritime Museum. Members are encouraged to bring models they are working on for a ‘show & tell’ discussion.

Utah Model Ship Clubs

Utah State currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

Virginia Model Ship Clubs

The Washington Ship Model Society (WSMS) was founded in 1929 and is the oldest continuously active ship model club in the United States. The organization is composed of active ship model enthusiasts from the Greater Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area. Its purpose is to provide a socially enjoyable means for serious shipmodelers to meet, share, and expand upon their common avocation through the exchange of ideas and knowledge.

The society draws its membership from all walks of life and many different occupations. The modelers’ skills range from absolute beginners to professionals who have constructed models for maritime exhibits in the Smithsonian Institution and other museums throughout the United States and Europe. Over the years, members have written numerous articles for nautical research and ship model publications. Society membership has included such notables as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Major (and later General) George Patton, Howard I. Chappelle, and Paul E. Garber.

The interests of the modelers are as varied as their occupations, ranging from 17th century sailing vessels to radio-controlled models of modern powered craft. All types of ship models have been constructed, in static display and operating versions, and in wood, brass, plastic, and card media.

The society conducts monthly meetings, alternating between Virginia and Maryland locations. The meeting format consists of brief society business, informal discussions of members’ model projects and a program or presentation relating to a nautical or ship modeling topic.  Society members also form subgroups to focus on common modeling interests, such as steel (modern) ship modeling or plank-on-frame modeling. Subgroups are open to all members and meet on a periodic basis, generally in members’ homes. The club’s newsletter, the  Lynx , is published monthly.

Hampton Roads Ship Model Society

The Hampton Roads Ship Model Society, founded in 1967, is an association of individuals who are interested in pursuing the art of ship model building and the exploration of maritime history. The primary purpose of the society is to bring together persons interested in building quality ship models so that they may have the opportunity to exchange views and improve their skills. Members are people representing a wide range of ages who come from many varied occupations and backgrounds. Members come from as far north as the Northern Neck, as far west as western suburbs of Richmond and as far south as the border of North Carolina. Honorary members hail from such dispersed locations as Annapolis, Maryland and Toronto, Canada.

The interests of our members runs full spectrum, from the historical (photos and records), artistic (painting), decorative (pond yachts/half hulls), radio-controlled (RC) models, to highly detailed and historically accurate scale reproductions of all ship types. The skill level of members runs the full gamut from complete novices to highly skilled experts who have won top awards in highly regarded competitions both in the United States and abroad. Models built by past and present members of the Society can be found in many of our nation’s premier museums. Model builders of all skill levels are always welcome. The Society is dedicated to helping ship model builders new to the craft learn new skills while giving experienced builders the opportunity to perfect their abilities. Even the most highly-skilled members are always seeking to improve their techniques with the help and advice of other Society members.

Washington Model Ship Clubs

The state of Washington currently has no model ship clubs listed. 

Wisconsin Model Ship Clubs

Wisconsin scale boating association.

The Wisconsin Scale Boating Association is about promoting and enjoying the model shipbuilding hobby. 

They are a “scale” model club.  Models are representative of an actual boat or type of boat, either static or operational.  Radio-Controlled models attempt to recreate authentic operation and look like a full size boat. 

The club participates in several events throughout the year.  Membership is open to anyone who has an interest in the model boating hobby.​

KNOW A MODEL SHIP CLUB NOT ON THIS LIST?

If you know of a model ship club that is not on this list of United States Model Ship Clubs please let us know  here

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VESSEL REVIEW | Sinichka – Electric commuter boats designed for Russia’s Moskva River

A series of three new electric monohull commuter ferries have already begun operational sailings on the Moskva River in the Russian capital Moscow.

Built by Russian shipyard Emperium, sister vessels Sinichka , Filka , and Presnya – all named after rivers in Moscow – are being operated by the Moscow Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development (Moscow Deptrans). They are the first units of a planned fleet of 20 vessels that will serve the capital city and other nearby communities. The new ferry system will be the water transport system to be operated on the Moskva River in 16 years.

Each vessel has a welded aluminium hull, an LOA of 21 metres, a beam of 6.2 metres, a draught of only 1.4 metres, a displacement of 40 tonnes, and capacity for 80 passengers plus two crewmembers. Seating is available for 42 passengers on each ferry, and the main cabins are also fitted with USB charging ports, wifi connectivity, tables, toilets, and space for bicycles and scooters. The cabin layout can be rearranged to allow the operator to adjust the distances between the seats and to install armrests of varying widths.

An open upper deck is also accessible to passengers and is the only area on each ferry where smoking is allowed.

The ferries are all of modular construction with each ferry’s wheelhouse, main cabin, and other structural elements being built as complete, separate components. This enables the ferries to be easily dismantled for transport to anywhere in Russia by rail and then quickly re-assembled within seven days.

The ferries are also ice-capable. Recently completed operational trials on the Moskva showed that the vessels can also easily navigate under mild winter conditions with broken surface ice, though year-round operations are planned for the entire fleet.

The ferries are each fitted with 500kWh lithium iron phosphate battery packs that supply power to two 134kW motors. This configuration can deliver a maximum speed of 11.8 knots, a cruising speed of just under 10 knots, and a range of 150 kilometres.

Emperium said the transfer of rotation of electric motors to the propeller is carried out by direct drive. As a propulsion installation, a pulling rotary propeller-steering column with double screws is used. The installation of double pulling screws, with similar power, allows an operator to increase the efficiency of the propulsion system to deliver a slightly higher speed or to reduce energy consumption. This arrangement also provides the ferries with enhanced manoeuvrability necessary for navigating in close quarters.

The batteries themselves have projected service lives of 10 to 12 years and are fitted with safety features such as built-in fire extinguishers and gas vents. Quick-disconnect features allow the batteries to be easily removed for replacement or maintenance.

Some of our readers have expressed disquiet at our publication of reviews and articles describing new vessels from Russia. We at Baird Maritime can understand and sympathise with those views. However, despite the behaviour of the country’s leaders, we believe that the maritime world needs to learn of the latest developments in vessel design and construction there.

Click here to read other news stories, features, opinion articles, and vessel reviews as part of this month’s Passenger Vessel Week.

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Tags: Emperium Filka Moscow Moscow Department of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development Moskva River Presnya Russia Sinichka WBW newbuild

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Ayubune pages on this site

Meijer Garden Ayubune : Middlebury College Winter Term 2015 : Middlebury College Winter Term 2018

(Boat photograph courtesy of Mr. Omote Nobutada)

The two terms most commonly found in Japan for small boats are Tenmasen, and ayubune. The former is a generic term for many types of small working boats, often a ship’s boat, while the latter refers to river craft, specifically those fishing boats used to catch ayu, a sweetfish popular throughout Japan and found in most of Japans’s rivers.

Given the varieties of Japan’s rivers, naturally ayubune take many forms, reflecting the type of fishing in a particular region as well as the local boatbuilding technology. In 2014 I built an ayubune indigenous to the Hozu River, which flows from the mountains southeast through Kyoto. I built the boat at the Mizunoki Museum in Kameoka, a city of 90,000 just over the mountains to the northwest of Kyoto. Kameoka sits in a high fertile valley, the last open land before the Hozugawa cuts through the mountains, tumbling as a white water river until it reaches Kyoto.

One of Kameoka’s most well-known businesses is the Hozugawa-kudari, a downriver tour boat company offering very exciting rides down the river ( http://www.hozugawakudari.jp/en ). The kudari boats look like enlarged versions of the ayubune: flat bottoms with wide, pram-like bows. These bows give the forward end of the boats buoyancy as they plunge into the currents. The boats feature a simple interior framework of horizontal beams bracing the hull, and small decks fore and aft. Like most Japanese boats, planks are edge-nailed together with flat steel nails.

For well over a hundred years the company has taken passengers downstream. Today the trip ends in Arashiyama and the boats are brought back upstream by truck, but in the old days the boatmen actually pulled the boats back upstream. The company has historic footage of this work, and as you head downstream today the boatmen will point to deep grooves cut in the rocks by their predecessors towlines.

After speaking at a conference in Kameoka a few years ago I began discussing a boatbuilding project with the Mizunoki Museum’s director. She wanted to see a boat built as a public demonstration and I felt the type of boat should be one with meaning to the local community. At first I was told there were no surviving historic ayubune, then a large (eight meter) derelict boat was found. The Hozugawa-kudari also had an old fiberglass mould made from a six meter boat and I decided to use those lines and refer to the construction details of the larger boat.

I had six students in the project. All were volunteers at the Mizunoki Center, a facility for the mentally and physically handicapped that is a sister organization to the museum. Over the course of three weeks during the Spring of 2014 we built an ayubune, hosted a workshop on boatbuilding and preservation, and measured two historic boats: the eight meter ayubune as well as a five meter boat I found after starting the project. I also interviewed the son of Kameoka’s last builder of wooden boats. He had apprenticed with his father and later went on to build fiberglass tour boats for the Hozugawa-kudari.

In talking to the boatbuilder, along with the owner of the five meter boat, I learned that ayubune were used for both fishing but also during the annual spring flooding of the river. People fished seasonally for ayu, and most of these fishermen were rice farmers. The boats were essential for transportation in the area when the floodwaters prevented other forms of transit. I also learned that some of our construction details were incorrect. Our boat’s bottom was made of three wide boards, but ayubune were built with noticeably narrow bottom planking. The reason? To make it easier to repair and replace boards damaged from running down a white water river. The two historic boats we found had been fiberglassed and this hid some other, more minor, construction details. See my blog postings, beginning here ( http://blog.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/2014/04/ayubune-project.html ) for a more detailed description of the project. About the museum: http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/what/spotlight/artbrut/story5/index.html

Detail of the forward beam, showing the half lap shouldered dovetail joinery used in these boats.

One plank hung on the hull. The boat was built on a grid of beams to provide a secure framework to prop against. Japanese boat-builders use very few clamps, relying on wooden props to hold parts in place.

View of the boat in the Mizunoki Museum http://www.mizunoki-museum.org

The completed boat. Note the lack of frames and the plugs along the inside planking where the planks were edge-nailed.

The mortises for the edge-nails.

A historic five meter ayubune found in the Hozu neighborhood of Kameoka. This is perhaps one of only two original boats left in this community. In addition to fishing, these boats were invaluable to farmers for transportation during the spring floods.

The lines for our boat were taken from this fiberglass mould, which was made by fiber-glassing an original six meter ayubune. The boat is lost but luckily the mould provided exact external dimensions of the original boat.

The three bottom planks propped in place for fitting seams. This was done by running saws through the joints, a technique called suriawase and one that might be unique to Japanese boat-building.

The planks are shown supported by temporary braces, posts and various props, typical of the Japanese boat shop.

Kameoka is famous for the Hozugawa Kudari, a downriver trip through a mountain gorge to Kyoto. Today the company uses fiberglass boats built along similar lines to the former wooden boats. Tourists have traveled this way down the Hozugawa for well over a hundred years.

The ayubune on launch day. These boats were poled in the river and their pram-type bows provided extra buoyancy when plunging through rapids.

An eight meter ayubune, fiber-glassed and derelict near the river. We measured this boat as part of our project, allowing us to record five, six, and eight meter variants of this important local watercraft.

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Japan really wants to build airplanes, $33 billion project shows

Japan’s trade ministry wants to get the country’s aviation ambitions back up in the air.

The plan was outlined in the government's aircraft industry strategy, which was endorsed Wednesday.

The government has long sought a domestically produced passenger aircraft. As part of the latest attempt, the ministry will back the ¥5 trillion ($33 billion) effort over the next decade to build a next-generation aircraft fueled by hydrogen or alternative sources of energy, officials said in a briefing Wednesday. The announcement comes as Boeing seeks to restore confidence in its airplanes.

Global air passenger demand is projected to double in 20 years and aggressive investment in Japan’s aircraft industry will lead to annual growth worth ¥6 trillion, as much as 5 times from the current level, according to the trade ministry.

"Japan needs to dive into profitable and value providing territories other than providing some parts for the airline industry,” Masuo Kuremura, director of the ministry’s aerospace and defense industry division, said during a briefing.

Mitsubishi Heavy, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and other manufacturers are major suppliers to Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus.

Mitsubishi’s SpaceJet, backed by ¥50 billion in government investment, was to be the country’s first homemade jet in half a century. Instead the scuttled program racked up more than ¥1 trillion in sunk costs.

The development of the SpaceJet, formerly known as the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, began in 2008, but the delivery schedule was postponed six times before coronavirus pandemic disruptions dealt the final blow to the project.

Mitsubishi Heavy said last year that it lacked the understanding and technological know-how for SpaceJet to materialize, and also struggled to gain regulatory approval in the U.S. There was also pressure to electrify and decarbonize, forcing the manufacturer to reassess its strategy.

"It is our mission to take full advantage of know-how and experiences (gained from the regional jet project)," said Kazuchika Iwata, a senior vice minister of the industry ministry, who attended the panel meeting that drew up the new industry strategy.

The panel cited a combination of factors that led to the failure of the regional jet project, including uncertainty surrounding the market environment and insufficient government engagement in the process.

Regarding the approach for developing new aircraft, the panel said the foundation has been nearly laid, along with an accumulation of talent and know-how.

The new strategy focuses on strengthening supply chains to support Japan’s aircraft industry. The private and public sector will explore hydrogen engine technology and clean energy options at a time when the airline industry has set a target of eliminating carbon emissions on a net basis by 2050.

Unlike last time, the latest project will include multiple players including automakers Subaru, Mitsubishi Heavy and Kawasaki Heavy Industries and heavy machinery maker IHI, as well as Japan's space agency and energy-related organizations.

"We will need to build new technology” and collaborate with foreign original equipment manufacturers, Kuremura said.

The development of the new plane is expected to leverage Japan's technologies and experiences in areas such as aircraft bodies, engines and equipment, potentially leading to the establishment of final assembly plants in the country.

Before and during World War II, Japan boasted a strong aircraft manufacturing sector that produced fighter jets, such as the Zero fighter, but the industry was banned under the Allied Occupation until 1952.

The development of the Mitsubishi SpaceJet essentially represented the first domestic attempt to produce a commercial plane since the YS-11, a turboprop made by Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing that was discontinued in 1974.

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