There are 0 registered members and 16 guests currently viewing the site.
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Photo of the Month - exploring the Story behind the Image...Boy watches Oruwa outrigger fishing boatYear: 2013, Month: JanuarySri Lanka > Western > NegomboA small boy watches as the crew of four prepare to launch their traditional Sri Lankan 'Oruwa' outrigger fishing boat from the beach at Negombo, a busy fishing town 30km north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. I was in Sri Lanka on assigment to photograph a range of images for a new brochure needed by the friendly people at Taprobane Seafoods (Pvt) Ltd., a modern seafood processing factory near Negombo. One of the photos that they wanted was a shot of a traditional outrigger, which the locals still use to catch Yellowfin tuna and other types of fish in the Gulf of Mannar. We hired a boat for a few hours, just as the sun was starting to go down. I was taking photos of the boat as it was being launched from the beach, when in a serendipitous moment well suited to the original Isle of Serendip (as Sri Lanka was once known before it was Ceylon), a small boy came and stood right in front of me. Quickly recognising that his figure was just the thing to add depth and perspective to the shot, I grabbed a couple of photos before someone, thinking he was was in my way, asked him to move off. Luckily, I had the image I needed, and although it would have been nice to get some more shots whilst the boy was in the frame, it turned out that the ones I had were sufficient to please both the company and me, and earn a place on the front cover of their brochure, and their main publicity at a big U.S. trade show. I have many more photographs of fishing boats and fish-processing in Sri Lanka - please visit the galleries. Oruwa Fishing Boats - some background Though similar in many ways to the Pacific Outriggers of the Philippines and other countries, the Oruwa, or more correctly the 'Bala-Oruwa', uses a different rig: a combination of two masts, usually made of bamboo, and a single large rectangular sail who's base can be moved to either end of the vessel. This means that effectively the Oruwa doesn't have a 'bow' or a 'stern' in the recognised sense, and can just as easily be sailed forwards or backwards depending on which end of the boat the base of the mainsail is tied to. The outrigger is always kept to the windward which means that what was the bow on one tack becomes the stern on the other tack. To prevent side-wards drift there is a leeboard midship, and for steering there is a rudder at each end of the main hull. When the bow rudder is being raised the helmsman has to move from one end of the canoe to the other. The helmsman sits and steers the rudder with his foot. To get an idea what it is like to sail in an Oruwa, I would recommend that you read the excellent .pdf article with extensive photographs and diagrams: Sailing a Sinhalese Outrigger Logboat by Gerald Grainge, published in The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 2012. |
Stock Photograph SearchAdvanced Search PageTag Cloud
0
all
alma-ata
architect
are
argentina
ark
artistic
ashgabat
beijing
bolivia
buddhist
canada
car
china
city
creativity
culture
door
doors
end
foz do iguacu
history
horizon
india
kazakhstan
kerala
land
man
men
military
moskovskaya oblast
museum
nature
nizhny novgorod
one
onguday
outdoor
people
rajasthan
representation
rio
russia asiatic
russia european
salta
semipalatinsk
st lazarus church
transport
uniform
use
Popular searches on this site. | |||||||||
Web design by gnomeplanet.com :: All images and pages on this site are © 2008 - 2024 and remain the property of gnomeplanet.com :: All rights reserved |