Plank Joinery in Nailed Boats

Nailed boats must have come into vogue on Indian coast quite late. The wide prevalence of sewn or stitched boat forms for both coastal and overseas voyages, irrespective of the size of the boat, and the strong conviction of ‘niloham’ or non-use of nails in the Indian tradition seem to strongly point to the fact that nailed boats came into use only as late as the 12 th century A.D. or even later. They came into a far greater use with the appearance of oak and elm built European boats from the 16 th century onwards. In fact, the early arrivals among the Portuguese boats on Indian shores were taken aback by the larger size- upto 600 tons - of the sewn boats built in India and employed in overseas cargo and passenger traffic.