Sam Son Bamboo Raft across Pacific 30 Years Ago

Ancient Chinese texts tell the story of Hsu Fu, a navigator and explorer, sent by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, in 218 BC into the "Eastern Ocean" in search of life-prolonging drugs. Hsu Fu completed the voyage on a bamboo raft, which some believe took him to America and back. Many documents also record that Hsu Fu was sent to perform this task twice. The expedition, with a 5,000-strong screw of 3,000 chaste man and 2,000 maidens, was led by Hsu Fu on the second voyage but did not complete the trip. Some texts say they got lost in Japan and mistook Mount Fuji for the Elysium, the goal of the voyage, but they decided not to return to their homeland.

Tim Severin (born 1940) is a British explorer, historian and writer. He is known for recreating legendary voyages of ancient celebrities such as Macro Polo, the Vikings, Brendan, Moby Dick and Robinson. With discoveries in his voyages, Severin was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for his 1982 book, Sindbad Voyage. The Sindbad Voyage is the book where Tim Severin depicts his sea voyage on a replica of an 11^th century sailboat, following the path of the medieval sailor Sindbad. The boat left Oman on November 21, 1980. Navigating by the stars, Severin and his crew travelled nearly 6,000 miles (9,600 km) in eight months. They sailed east across the Arabian Sea, south down India's Malabar Coast to the Laccadive Islands and on to Calicut, India. The next phase of their voyage took them down the coast of India to Sri Lanka and finally to China on July 6, 1981 when their sail was broken by sea waves.

 

In 1992, Tim set out to prove that such a Hsu Fu raft voyage across the Pacific Ocean really could have been made, not just in legend. To realise his idea, he came to Vietnam where he combined simple boats on bronze drums and seafaring raft industry.

 

On Sam Son beach, Vietnam, Tim Severin, yacht designer Collin Muddie, and painter Nina Kojima worked with nearly 100 people to construct a 60 foot (18.3 m) long, 15 foot (4.6 m) wide raft. This raft was made from 550 bamboos and tied with rattan cords. All materials were taken from Thanh Hoa province.

 

Local fisherman Luong Viet Rop, a witness to the raft making, said that the making of such a big raft was an unprecedented event in Sam Son. Despite using rafts to earn a living, fishermen in Sam Son only build rafts to a length of 8 metres. All elderly fishermen and carpenters in the area were invited. All traditional techniques and unwritten secrets were studied and applied to increase the durability of the bamboo and rattan. After six months of hard working, on the beach near the foot of Hon Doc Cuoc appeared a three-layer bamboo raft tied by rattan cords. No iron nails or plastic wires were used, nor were modern boatbuilding techniques employed. Dozens of strong young fishermen were invited to test the endurance of the raft in rough waters and strong storms by throwing, buckling and rotating. However, it was predicted that the draft could resist only three months in the rough sea.

 

After six months of working with Sam Son people, Tim Severin chose Luong Viet Loi, a young fisherman in Sam Son, as the operator. It was a lucky choice for Tim and the crew. In his book "The China Voyage" on this journey, Tim Severin had a lot of nice words for Luong Viet Loi. In the crew, he was the main operator, the technician and the food finder. His ability was vivid evidence for the ability of ancient Vietnamese people to conquer the sea, using rudimentary means.

 

On March 16, 1993, after a launching ceremony at Doc Cuoc Temple, the raft was pulled to Bai Chay, Quang Ninh province, by a navy ship, hosted its mast and a 75 square meter mainsail made by Pham Van Chinh and his three sons and dropped in Ha Long Bay. On April 10, 1993, the raft was taken by the Vosco Vietnam carrier to Hong Kong, where the ocean conquest by the Sam Son bamboo raft officially started.

 

In addition to Captain Tim and Luong Viet Loi, the crew also had a physician and two yacht athletes. The voyage across the Pacific Ocean with a rudimentary raft equipped with only a few basic communications devices and a minimum power supply sourced from a small solar panel was surely a grave challenge even for professional explorers. Not all followed through the adventure till the end of the journey. Nearly two months after the date of departure, on June 9, 1993, the raft encountered a fishing boat and Geoffrey, a yacht athlete, surrendered and returned to Hong Kong and he was replaced by Nina Kojima.

 

Taking the legendary path of Hsu Fu described in the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, a historian of the Chinese Han Dynasty, the raft sailed from Sam Son through Hong Kong and Taiwan and along the coast of Japan. From the north of Hokkaido, Japan, the raft directly crossed the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, west of the United States. Problems frequently appeared. On May 24, 1993, when Tim and Loi were on duty, the raft narrowly clashed a very large vessel. On June 02, 1993, it was swept by Kuroshio Current, a north-flowing ocean current on the west side of the North Pacific Ocean. On June 4, 1993, the crew confronted pirates for the first time and nearly abandoned the visit to Taiwan on June 7, 1993.

 

The raft faced pirates for the second time on June 10, 1993 but, like the first encounter, they left because they found nothing valuable on the rudimentary raft. On June 12, 1993, the explorers called at Miyako, Japan and stayed there for nine days to recruit more volunteers and they employed Rex. After suffering a cabin fire and undergoing violent storms, they anchored at Shingu for five days on the Hsu Fu legendary route to reach Shimoda on July 20 where they replaced the sail sent from Vietnam, prepared wires, bought 1,250 litres of freshwater, saw off Mark to Hong Kong and Nina to Tokyo, and recruited Trondur. On August 5, 1993, the crew consisted of five members, namely Tim, Loi, Joe, Rex and Trondur, left Shimoda (Japan) to start the voyage across the Pacific Ocean, heading towards San Francisco, west of the United States. On September 23, they passed the International Dateline. They saw the first bamboo go off on September 28 and they witnessed five bamboo sticks come off. On October 20, the US-flagged USCG Jarvis vessel met them and offered a rescue but the expedition turned them down. On November 3, an ocean storm appeared, forcing Rex and Trondur to lower the mainsail, and Trondur tied unwound bamboos while waves were raging on the raft. After days of struggling with storms and thunderstorms, on November 16, 1993, they left the raft to get on California Galaxy container vessel when they were just about 1,000 nautical miles off California coast and a fierce storm was approaching them.

 

After six months floating on the water and withstanding many storms, the Sam Son raft last twice as long as forecast by its builders. The man of Sam Son silently entered his name into the group of voluntary explorers. The trip, while not reaching its final destination, provided important evidence for the aim that Tim Severin pursued: Proving the "trans-ocean” doctrine of Joseph Needham (1900-1995): Central American civilization originated from Asia because of trans-Pacific migration from Asia thousands of years ago.

 

In his recent article on Vietnam Heritage Day, Dr Trinh Sinh from the Vietnam Institute of Archaeology wrote: "This voyage also added rich data to archaeological materials: Ancient Vietnamese used to send bronze drums far and wide, along the coast, to the mouth of the Yangtze River (China) or the Indonesian archipelago. They crossed the stormy sea with rudimentary vehicles like Sam Son rafts. The ancient Vietnamese also sailed tempestuous sea to the Spratlys Archipelago or the Palawan Island of the Philippines where Sa Huynh cultural relics were found.”