As we can see there are various types, and I am willing to assume they are not all simply called "boat" by those who build them. Just to reconfirm, the only design I'm wondering about is the one ytliek posted (and that's a big 'un). Those posted by hans are interesting in their own right, but those have deeper and mostly carvel-built hulls of a kind we would be more generally familiar with in boat design, displacing more water; those with superficially similar square-ended extensions are upswept, and at first glance I am doubtful if their purpose is anything other than aesthetic, or as backrests while dozing. You certainly wouldn't think to stand on them.

The ones ytliek and I posted appear to have a much shallower draft. Best as I can tell, the hull on that design seems to be little more than a surfboard, and that's the one I'm interested in, not the others.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

That's funny. You can be sure I'll be telling that one at the watering hole tonight.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

I'm wondering of the the original boats build to this form used a split-and-partially-hollowed log for the bottom half. The shape in Nano's OP looks enough like a log that I thought it was one on first glance. The extensions would have been the ends of the log, too narrow or too shallow to hold the built-up part and simply left in place. As for the name, no clue.

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The Walrus

What would a wild walrus whistle if a walrus could whistle wild?

The second mouse may get the cheese but the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

Its origins might be that. If the hull were solid wood it would ride lower in the water, so the buoyancy of the hull's design keeps suggesting to me a hollow, sealed construction because best as I can see, there is no apparent recess in the top of the hull, but it is all one deck that the rider sits atop (again like a surfboard) and the raised sides simply keep things from falling off. It's an interesting concept for me.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

If you search on youtube for "thai floating market" there are a lot of videos from tourist trips, some from a high enough vantage point to see into the vendors boats. Most seem to have more internal depth, at least near the the middle, than if they were a 'surfboard' being sat on. Or are those different boats ? With a different name ...

I think I was wrong in assuming that the hull doubles as a deck. Went looking all over (the best descriptive photos were of course copyrighted, so not to be used here), and it's hard to tell because almost all such photos show the boats laden with goods, or only side views of those that aren't. But it does seem that instead of being something more like a surfboard, there does seem to be carrying capacity beneath the raised sides of the boat. Still, it's a pretty shallow draft.

Yep, the videos confirm it. Cool-looking boat, though.

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Name the boat...
Okay...
Bob. The boat's name is Bob.

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"Yes... yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land."

Of course!

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

Road trip!

[Thread revival. - Mod]

Off topic but here’s another interesting Southeast Asia boat. I don’t know the native name for this one either.

Boats made from Vietnam Nam war drop tanks

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The Walrus

What would a wild walrus whistle if a walrus could whistle wild?

The second mouse may get the cheese but the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

Very cool! But the first thing I thought was, That has to be unstable...

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"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

That was my thought as well. Perhaps they put some form of ballast in the bottom. The large boat headed upstream is a 600gallon drop tank from an F-4. They cut the tank roughly in half so, submerged to the gunwales, it displaces 300 gallons. Assuming they use only half that or 150 gallons that’s still 1200 pounds it can carry. The smaller tanks look like 230 or 300 gallon tanks used by a variety of aircraft.

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The Walrus

What would a wild walrus whistle if a walrus could whistle wild?

The second mouse may get the cheese but the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

They're not that unstable. Those boats made from drop tanks are very similar to river boats everywhere. They're all very long and narrow, and they usually don't have much ballast, if any, or even a keel to talk about..

I have found that most people enjoy talking about their culture when asked with genuine interest. You need not feel like a "tool." I think they'd even enjoy writing it down for you in Thai. Just try to eat lunch or dinner in a off hour when they aren't running from table to table. On at least one occasion when I was looking at the pictures in a Vietnamese language paper they had in a waiting area someone came up and asked me if I could read Vietnamese. "I wish I could!" I answered and we had a nice conversation about the story I could not read.

If you look at the design they've developed (especially in the second picture), the original circular cross-section of the drop tank has been widened to a flattened oval using spreaders in a similar way that western canoes utilize them. This results in a wider beam, flatter bottom, and increased lateral stability. A circular cross-section hull has no reserve stability.

dave boling

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I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.
-- Douglas Adams

'Bundinn er bátlaus maðu'.