The earliest rudders in China were what is called 'balanced' rudders. This means that part of the blade projected in front of the post. Such rudders are easier to use, but Europeans did not adopt them until the nineteenth century. One of the earliest ships to use such a rudder was the Great Britain of 1843. The British were in the forefront when it came to adopting Chinese inventions for naval use, with this as well as the square-pallet chain pump as a bilge pump and watertight compartments in hulls. It is no exaggeration to say that the superiority of the British Navy was to a large extent due to its readiness to adopt Chinese inventions more rapidly than other European powers.
Multi-chine and round bottom junks, based on the Hainan junks, range from 42’ to 150’ in length. The most popular ones are OOTHOON at 41’ (shown above), K’UNG FU-TSE at 48’ (shown below), and LUK CHIN at 54’ which have been built in both steel and aluminum. The 54' junk has also been built as a round bottom steel hull. The larger sizes are usually round bottom since, in larger sizes, most builders prefer this type of construction and are equipped to handle the bending of round bottom frames. These are excellent sea boats. The larger ones incorporate daggerboards, while on the smaller ones used for yachting I have substituted a long shallow keel which opens up the whole interior to an infinite variety of arrangements. Most of them have made long voyages and, as such, I like to keep the engine and fuel tanks very close to the center of floatation and center of buoyancy. I also use the engine room with bulkheads at each end to isolate all machinery. This provides good working conditions around the engine. Most vessels have access doors for passage through the engine room; whereas, in others the engine room bulkhead is not pierced and access is from the deck only.
