This is part 2 of a series of articles serving as extensions of Ken’s wonderful book Classic Wooden Fishing Boats of the Vietnamese Coast, now available as an eBook in our Library.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Coming Soon: Part 4
In the Mekong and its smaller tributaries in the northern part of Cambodia I found several varieties of smaller powered canoes. The power was always provided by longtail outboards, commonly using factory-made Thai outboard arrangements and Honda or Honda-clone single-cylinder motors. These are usually operated at a very flat angle astern, producing a spectacular rooster tail, and remarkable speed and can operate in very shallow water. All that I photographed appeared to be plank built, very slender for their length, decked fore and aft, and very neatly made, painted and well kept up. Some were clearly in service as water taxis, but others appeared to be simply family transportation, though of course that might vary with the time of day.
In the same neighborhood I found both “sharp-nosed” boats with at least a little sweep in their sheer line forward and also “square-nosed” boats with dead flat sheers. In service it was hard to detect any reason to prefer one over the other.
Stung Treng Area
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