Hulls, Horses, and Kamikazes…

C.E. Grundler

After spending a lifetime on and around boats, I’m often fascinated by new-to-boating buyers and their choices of vessels. On one hand, I understand not everyone on the water started there, and over the years I’ve met many who entered boating, lured by the romance and the dream of fun-filled days and tranquil sunsets, who quickly learn the ropes, so to speak, and become exceptionally competent boaters. Often they enter the boat buying market armed with ample research and understanding of what they want and why, and the decisions they make result in a boat best suited to their needs and use. But others simply see a boat that seems appealing, and jump right in without truly understanding the finer points of hull design, seaworthiness and appropriateness. If they’re lucky, they might find a good match. Or they might find themselves in the middle of a Kamikaze.

While most people are familiar with the term, ‘Kamikaze’ dates back to long before World War II, when Japanese fighter pilots were flying suicide missions into Allied ships. Essentially, Kamikaze means ‘Divine Wind.’ And those divine winds, in the form of two typhoons, were what had spared Japan from assault by the Huns in 1274 and 1281. But it wasn’t simply a matter of foul weather wiping out the invading fleets. That was a factor, but there was another issue in play: New boater syndrome.

Simply put, the Mongols were a horse driven army. Their reputation as cavalrymen and archers is renowned. From they time they could walk, children were on horseback. Horses were their way of life. But when they reached the shore of China, they claimed the ships from those they conquered, set their sites on Japan, and demanded the people whose vessels they’d taken build them more, and fast. Ships were built, and off they went.

Now, boats and ships, I understand. Horses, not so much. I haven’t been raised around them, haven’t lived in a family where horses were a way of life for generations. All I know is they’re beautiful creatures. They have four legs, a head, a tail, and you ride them. Food goes in one end and comes out the other. That pretty much sums up my understanding of horses. If I needed a horse tomorrow, I wouldn’t know the first thing about which one to pick or why. Which brings us back to the boatloads of now very sea-sick Huns.

You see, the Huns looked at all these Chinese vessels the same way I’d see a herd of horses. They saw something that floated, had masts and sails, and could carry cargo and manpower over water. What they didn’t see was the bottoms — these were vessels designed for river sailing. Shallow, flat-bottomed hulls. These belonged on open ocean as much as a Clydesdale belongs in the Kentucky Derby. A little understanding of hull design on the part of the Huns would have gone a long way. Furthermore, studies of wrecks have shown construction on the rushed fleet was lacking at best, and possibly even intentionally flawed. The lesson there: Don’t expect the people you just conquered to send you off to sea in safe boats. And when the typhoons, or Kamikazes, as they became known, hit, not once, but twice, that was the end of the Hun Naval Fleet.

The bottom line: while a boat’s bottom may not excite the new-to-boating buyer, a good understanding of hull design can make or break your day on the water — or invasion of a foreign country.

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