The Queen
Mesmerised
With the flirtatious play of dolphins in the bow wave
Heading for Pilau Kapas
The rolling of the junk
In the pendulant swell
Sailing into the sun
Warn on the face
The wind tousling the hair
Turning
Looking down the length of the junk
Between the three masts
Standing
Resolute
legs astride at the tiller
Was a leathery tanned
Bleached blonde
Statuses German
Beatrice or Bee
The queen of the seas
At the helm
her sarong flapping rhythmically against her legs
With a ginger cat
Hanging over her shoulder
Two paws neatly aligned
Erect
Alert
Eyes dilated
Head
knowingly
Scanning the skies
Resolute
A fixed steer
Captivated by the circling birds
With an irritated shake of the head
As Bee’s hair
Wafted in the gentle breeze
Swept around the cat’s head
We meet in the market over a bowl of rice porridge
When she was provisioning the junk
Bee and her partner had spent three years in Malacca
On the west coast of Malaysia
Building a Chinese junk
Going native to survive
Living with the boat builders
Using traditional techniques developed around 200 BC in China
For this 18m craft
No nails, wooden pulleys, bark caulking
I soon learned what their version of
Going native
really meant for them both
they had been peddling drugs to tourists
sailing the junk around to the east coast of Malaysia
they started a regular drug run from Thailand to Singapore
sitting out the monsoon in Thailand
This worked well for a number of years
Until her partner was arrested in Singapore for drug trafficking
She was now surviving on a hand to mouth basis
Until he gets out
Hence ferrying of the local expats out to the coastal islands
Normally we would hire a Malay fishing boat that would get to the island in about an hour
Sailing directly into the wind though
The junk took four hours
We had time to listen
Bee’s junk was an extension of herself
Rugged
Roughly Huon
A primitive but ancient intelligence
Extremely capable
Dependable
She knew what she was doing
launching a lightning smile
she would tie the tiller
swept us along the deck
in animated delight
Bee
unfolding the character of her second self
her junk or pinyin
literally a Chinese clipper
In Malay adjong
a ship or large vessel
From which the English derived the word junk
This revolutionary technology was brought to Malacca
By Chinese traders during the Melaka Sultanate around 450 AD
And adapted by the Malays and the Bugis pirates
Who were based in the Singapore area
Well before it was Singapore
It took the Europeans centuries to catch up to this technological wonder
No European standing rigging here
Three sails in a line
Lazy jacks or ropes in the plane of the sail
Linking and strengthening the sail panels
The sails designed to direct the wind into one another
Enabling the junk to sail into the wind
The bamboo sail stays panelling the sail
So any tear in the sail was limited to a single panel
smart
But the big advance
was the watertight compartments, thirteen in this case
Each sealed from the other
One being damaged
the junk would still be safe to sail
Great for freight
The forward compartments
Had limber holes
Very small holes to enable the ballast to flow between compartments
Stabilising the junk
During rough seas
the lee boards, centre board and the stern mounted rudder
were all innovations at the time
With fenestrated rudders being introduced in the 13 century
Namely holes in the rudder
Reducing the force needed to direct the rudder
explaining Bee’s confidence at the helm
I was enthralled
Watching this prematurely aged
weathered soul’s
child-like wonder
in sharing her passion
still
the flapping red flags
capped each mast
to please the sky dragon in the Mazu religion
supposedly where Macau got its name
on queue
the red flags flapped
as the wind changed direction
we lumbered towards Kapas
in a time warp
Bee’s world
The queen of her domain