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the amazing JUNK

Gentlemen, I need a professional opinion on a which of these two hull shapes to use for the Empress, as there is NOT A SINGLE reference on the web of how the empress looks below the waterline. The earlier version had a completely flat bottom (literally
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The first is somewhat medieval or chinesse (I dont know...) looking:

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The second is much more modern (maybe even too modern
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). It has a keel and looks like some blend between chinesse and western design.

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So which one looks better to you, or should I make a third design?
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well, it depends, really. if it's south-chinese, you'll need the western hull. but judging by the rig, i'd say it's north-chinese, so the medieval hull is more appropriate. i do like the look of the western hull better though, so it's really a matter of realism or appearance here, and appearance isn't much of a factor with low visibility on that area in game. is that medieval design copied from historical junks?
 
Unless I am very much mistaken, a Chinese junk is commonly a flat-bottomed boat similar to the Dutch ones for the same reason: being able to operate in shallow waters.
I have some reference at home that the rudder on a junk sometimes stick deeper than the bottom of the hull and can be hoisted up by chains in case the water is not deep enough.
As such, the first option seems more accurate to me and I think the hull could even be more flat than it currently is on there; that version looks quite rounded.
Basically, keep the rudder as-is and shave off a bit of the bottom of the hull on the first version and I think you'd have something pretty good.
It might not be fully accurate, but at least it'd draw home the point of being different from the European ship types.
 
If your modeling the Empress specifically, I think the one with the keel would be more accurate, at least in the time frame we are looking at and the purpose of the vessel. She would need to be fast and maneuverable Perhaps not 100% accurate, but not completely unheard of either. Flat bottom certainly wouldn't be out of the question for a junk hull either, but perhaps there is room in the game for all 3 designs!
 
I must say though that Morgan Terror makes a very valid point: it's below the water so you wouldn't see much difference.
Personally, I'll be happy with any of the solutions as long as we get a Chinese junk at all. :cheeky
 
now that i've read the rest of the comments, i'd prefer it flatbottomed. makes it even more distinctive than it already is. and i do think you can at least see the outline of the hull, though that's only the case at sandy shorelines, and not on the open ocean.
 
That first design is somewhat similar to some junk designs, however it was used on much much larger vesels, and I guess it doesnt fit that much on Empress because of her short lenght. Also I might have made it too round
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I guess I could try to do a flatbottomed version.
 
why would the bottom of the hull distinguish the two from each other? i mean, that ship was specifically made to look like the empress above the waterline. i'd say we use it for that.
 
Just to clear things up, here's what Wikipedia has to say about the Chinese Junk hull designs:
The bottom is flat with no keel (similar to a sampan), so that the boat relies on a daggerboard,[sup][/sup] leeboard or very large rudder to prevent the boat from slipping sideways in the water.
Click to expand...
In the Empress' case, clearly the rudder would be her keel supplement, being larger and deeper than usual, as Pieter suggested.

Just as an interesting fact from the same page, it is speculated that the largest junks (Treasure ships) may have been over 390ft in length.
Considering HMS Victory's overall length is 227ft, these things would have been absolutely HUGE! :shock
 
Holy SHIT! That's RIDICULOUS! And they're the same scale??? 8 masts. EIGHT! And some of them SIDE-BY-SIDE of all things. :shock
Not to mention that ship is a lot wider, relatively speaking, than what I'd consider "common".
I can't imagine her being very efficient though; has to be dead slow and terribly difficult to manoeuvre that beast.
 
Actually I think there's a small ninth mast on the stern... but still... she's one helluva monster! :shock:
I don't even want to know how slow this ship was, even with all those extra masts. Must have been pretty awful to manoeuvre if she got into a fight. :whipa
Clearly they were designed for transporting a LOT of cargo and passengers.
And imagine being hired to build one of these things; even our modellers would probably have nightmares!

I guess one advantage is that this ship would be nigh on impossible to capture- you'd be tired out before you've even cleared the first deck! :ixi

Imagine a pirate seeing this thing on the horizon... only to get up close and realise the scale of things... what a terrifying experience that would be!
 
It's like the Oasis of the Seas of historical Chinese shipping! :razz
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That "small" ship (still 220 meters) is the one I work on.
 
There's been a lot of arguing about how well those really large junks worked among archeologists and modern wood shipwrights.

An ongoing search for the wreck of a large junk on the Oregon coast has been covered in the press for a while. Many argue that those large junks would never have made the Pacific crossing. There is a whole revisionist school of thought that believes the Chinese discovered the west coast of America in 1421 - even a book of the same title written about it.

The detractors focus on poor ship handling characteristics. They say the large junks could have possibly made it to America, but would never have been able to make it back. They say they would have been too precarious and flexible in heavy seas and would have broken apart. The pro-Chinese theorists believe that the Chinese layed a coating of cement made of rice (I'm not making this up) along the inside of the hulls to stiffen them up making them seaworthy.

They look like medieval aircraft carriers to me. Not very pretty - unlike the Empress which is a beautiful little junk.

MK
 
i've heard of those big ones. it's really more of a giant barge than anything. i think the biggest problem they'd have is finding logs big enough to build it. also, all junks had bulkheads. they were nigh unsinkable sometimes.
the rice cement is something i'm not sure about, but i do know that the seaworthiness of ancient vessels is vastly underestimated. in fact, the capability of mankind in the past is underestimated in general. just because we can't think of a way to do it doesn't mean they couldn't. it's long been proven that you could circumnavigate the globe on a wooden raft of all things.

i like the larger, imperial junks as well though. just don't make them TOO monstrous.
 
Ok. I made two flat-bottom variants of the hull, can't decide which is better though
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First one is a fat boxy frame with just a bit of roundness on the corners. This really suits a trade junk very well.

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The second has a slightly narrowing hull shape.

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should I round the stern like in the above?

Ive done some research and found that there were basically two types of junk hull designs: a flat-bottomed and a V shape. The later seems to be more suitable for ocean crossing as it would be more stable during rough seas.
 
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