What are traditional Japanese boats called?

Answer 1

The original posting below was taken by someone from my website, but its misleading. The most general term for "traditional Japanese boat" is WASEN. WA means a traditional Japanese thing (washoku is Japanese food, washi is Japanese paper, among others) and SEN is a suffix that means boat. "Boat" alone is "fune" in Japanese, changed to "bune" when it becomes a suffix, such as "bekabune." The names given below were for specific types of boats, and there would be many dozens, if not hundreds of such names found all around Japan for particular local boats.

So WASEN would be the most general category or term, and from there names would describe particular types of boats peculiar to individual locales. When the posting below claimed there were five types of Japanese of traditional Japanese boats they were looking at just the five (now six) that I have built in Japan with my teachers. There are hundreds of traditional boat types in Japan. Please refer to my website: www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com for more about my research.

there are, i found, five different styles of Japanese wooden boats. here's your answer (unless you are referring to the wooden ships).

there is the Shimaihagi, the chokkibune, the tenmasen, the bekabune, and the taraibune.

The shimaihagi is a type of inshore fishing boat from the Tohoku region of northern Japan. The name means, literally, "four boards put together" referring to the planking.

Chokkibune were famous in the Edo era (1603-1867) as fast water taxis in use on the canal system of Edo (Tokyo). The boats enjoy a romantic status in Japan and the name "chokki" means the tusk of a boar, referring to long raking stem.

Tenma, or tenmasen, is a name that is used throughout Japan to refer to small cargo boats or ship's boats. The term probably refers to horses used to transport goods along the post roads in the Edo Era (1603-1867). Because tenmasen also carry cargo this etymology seems reasonable.

Taraibune (tub boats) were once found along the Echigo coast of the Sea of Japan and on Sado Island. Now they are used only in six small fishing villages on Sado Island. They have survived to the present because of their low cost and durability.

Unlike other Japanese boats, bekabune have very thin planking (though not thin by western standards); hence the name bekabune is probably onomatopoetic: the sound of waves slapping the hull of these boats made the sound peka, peka, peka... The light construction may be because these boats were often carried aboard larger motorboats and taken out to the fishing grounds, where they were used in clamming and to gather nori, a type of Japanese seaweed cultivated on nets. The seam between the upper and lower planks meets flush, unlike the overlap seen in other Japanese boats. This was to prevent the boats from snagging the nori nets.

Answer 2

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