Coracle

A coracle is a small, rounded,[1] lightweight boat of the sort

traditionally used in Wales, and also in parts of the west of Ireland
and also particularly on the River Boyne,[2] and in Scotland,
particularly the River Spey. The word is also used for similar boats
found in India, Vietnam, Iraq, and Tibet.[3] The word coracle is an
English spelling of the original Welsh cwrwgl, cognate with Irish
and Scottish Gaelic currach, and is recorded in English text as
early as the sixteenth century. Other historical English spellings
include corougle, corracle, curricle and coricle.

The River Teifi, West Wales

Structure The two men are John Davies
(forefront) and Will Davies of
The structure is made of a framework of split and interwoven Cenarth; the last two legitimate
willow rods, tied with willow bark. The outer layer was originally coracle fishermen in Cenarth.
an animal skin such as horse or bullock hide (corium),[4] with a They are both using the single-arm
thin layer of tar to waterproof it; today replaced by tarred calico, method of propulsion; a means of
gliding downstream in a controlled
canvas, or fibreglass. The Vietnamese/Asian version of the coracle
way. They carry their coracles and
is made of interwoven bamboo and made water proof by using their fish home on their backs.
resin and coconut oil.[5] Oval in shape and very similar to half a (1972)
walnut shell, the coracle has a keel-less flat bottom to evenly
spread the load across the structure and to reduce the required
depth of water; often to only a few inches. This structure helps to
make the boat more maneuverable and less likely to snag when used
on narrow and/or shallow slow-running waterways.

Each coracle is tailored to the local river conditions. In general there

is one design per river, but this is not always the case. The Teifi
coracle, for instance, is flat-bottomed, as it is designed to negotiate
shallow rapids, common on the river in the summer, while the
Carmarthen coracle is rounder and deeper, because it is used in tidal
Coracle on the River Severn
waters on the Tywi, where there are no rapids. Teifi coracles are made
near Ironbridge
from locally harvested wood: willow for the laths (body of the boat),
hazel for the weave (Y bleth in Welsh.) Tywi coracles have been made
from sawn ash for a long time. The working boats tend to be made from fibreglass these days. Teifi
coracles use no nails, relying on the interweaving of the laths for structural coherence, whilst the
Carmarthen ones use copper nails and no interweaving.

They are an effective fishing vessel because, when powered by a skilled person, they hardly disturb the
water or the fish, and they can be easily manoeuvred with one arm, while the other arm tends to the net;
two coracles to a net. The coracle is propelled by means of a broad-bladed paddle, which traditionally
varies in design between different rivers. It is used in a sculling action, the blade describing a figure-of-
eight pattern in the water. The paddle is used towards the front of the coracle, pulling the boat forward,
with the paddler facing in the direction of travel.[6]

The Welsh Coracle is intended to be carried on the back; Welsh saying is Llwyth dyn ei gorwgl (load of a
man is his coracle).

History
Designed for use in swiftly
flowing streams, the
coracle has been in use in
the British Isles for
millennia, having been
noted by Julius Caesar[4] in
his invasion of Britain in
the mid first century BC,
Britons with coracles – from and used in his military
Coracle makers in Wales c.1842
Cassell's History of England, Vol. I, campaigns in Spain.
1909[7] Remains interpreted as a
possible coracle were found
in an Early Bronze Age grave
at Barns Farm near Dalgety Bay, and others have been described,
from Corbridge and from near North Ferriby.[8]

Where coracle fishing is performed by two coraclers the net is

stretched across the river between the two coracles. The coraclers
will paddle one handed, dragging the net in the other, and draw the
net downstream. When a fish is caught, each hauls up an end of the
net until the two boats are brought to touch, and the fish is then
secured, using a priest (or knocker – a small block of wood) to stun
the fish.

A new tax was introduced in 1863 on the commercial capture of Typical River Teifi coracle in
migratory fish in Wales; this led to a decline in the number of Manordeifi Old Church
coracles. During the 1930s, the government decided to begin
revoking the licences of commercial fisher families on the death of
the main licensees. It took some years for this plan to be completed but eventually led to a more
significant decline in the number of craft.[9]

In the 1920s and 30s James Hornell visited hundreds of rivers in the British Isles to talk with remaining
coracle makers and users. He documented the tradition in his book British Coracles and the Curraghs of
Ireland (The Society for Nautical Research, 1938) containing drawings, diagrams and construction details
gleaned from regular makers.[10]
Current status
Coracles are now seen regularly only in tourist areas of West Wales, and irregularly in Shropshire[11] on
the River Severn. A public house in Sundorne, Shrewsbury called "The Coracle" has a pub sign featuring
a man using a coracle on a river. The Welsh rivers Teifi and Tywi are the most common places to find
coracles in Wales. On the Teifi they are most frequently seen between Cenarth, and Cilgerran and the
village of Llechryd.

In 1974, a Welsh coracle piloted by Bernard Thomas (c. 1923–2014) of Llechryd crossed the English
Channel to France in 131⁄2 hours.[12] The journey was undertaken to support a claim that Bull Boats of
the Mandan Indians of North Dakota in the US could have been copied from coracles introduced by
Prince Madog in the 12th century.[13][14]

For many years until 1979, Shrewsbury coracle maker Fred Davies achieved some notability amongst
football fans; he would sit in his coracle during Shrewsbury Town FC home matches at Gay Meadow, and
retrieve stray balls from the River Severn. Although Davies died in 1994, his story is still associated with
the club.[15]

Safety
The design of the coracle makes it an unstable craft. Because it sits "on" the water, rather than "in" it, the
vessel can easily be carried by currents and the wind. The Coracle Society has published guidelines for
safely using coracles.[16]

Similar craft
The oldest instructions yet found for construction of a coracle are contained in precise directions on a
four-thousand-year-old cuneiform tablet supposedly dictated by the Mesopotamian god Enki to Atra-
Hasis on how to build a round "ark". The tablet is about 2,250 years older than previously discovered
accounts of flood myths, none of which contain such details. These instructions depict a vessel that is
today known as a quffa (‫)قفة‬, or Iraqi coracle.[17]

Many scholars believe that the basket that baby Moses was cast adrift in on the Nile (in Exodus 2:3) was
in fact a coracle or quffa, based on the similarity of that passage to Neo-Assyrian legends depicting
infants cast adrift on rivers in quffas.[18][19]

The Irish curach (also currach or curragh) is a similar, but larger, vessel still in use today. Curachs were
also used in the west of Scotland:

The curach or boat of leather and wicker may seem to moderns a very unsafe vehicle, to trust to
tempestuous seas, yet our forefathers fearlessly committed themselves in these slight vehicles
to the mercy of the most violent weather. They were once much in use in the Western Isles of
Scotland, and are still found in Wales. The framework [in Gaelic] is called crannghail, a word
now used in Uist to signify a frail boat.

— Dwelly's [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary[20]

The currachs in the River Spey were particularly similar to Welsh
coracles. Other related craft include:

India – parisal
Iraq – quffa or kuphar
Native American societies – bull boat
Tibet – ku-dru and kowas
Vietnam – thúng chai or thuyền thúng
The Ku-Dru or Kowa of Tibet is
very similar to a coracle. Field
Indian coracle Museum of Natural History,
Chicago, US
Indian coracles (Tamil: பரிசல் parisal; Kannada: ಹರಗೋಲು, ತೆಪ್ಪ,
aragōlu, tep, 'crab') are commonly found on the rivers Kaveri and
Tungabhadra in Southern India.[21] Coracles are light, bowl-shaped
boats with a frame of woven grasses, reeds or saplings covered with
hides.[22] Indian coracles are considered to have been in existence
since prehistoric times,[22] and are a major tourist attraction at the
Hogenakkal falls on the Kaveri river.[23] Although these boats were
originally designed for general transport, they have recently been Yak skin coracle in Tibet, 1938
used mostly for giving tourists rides.[24]

Types
The coracles found in the Hogenakkal are of two types, which differ
mainly in size. The smaller ones are about 6.2 feet (1.9 metres) in
diameter, and are used primarily for fishing. The larger ones, which
measure up to 8.4 feet (2.6 metres) in diameter, are used for
tourists.[25] Yak skin coracle in Tibet, 2006

Design
Indian coracles are either saucer or bowl shaped and circular, with
the greatest diameter across the mouth. The circular coracles in Iraq
are very similar, but they have convexly curved sides, and thus the
mouth is not the widest part.[21] Indian coracles are on average about An Indian coracle near the River
7.3 feet (2.24 metres) in diameter,[25] but can still hold eight people Tungabhadra, in Hampi India
at a time.[23] Other kinds of coracles usually can only hold one
person.[26] Indian coracles, and coracles in general, are made of
bamboo and take about a day to build, given all the necessary
materials.[25] The bottoms of the boats are covered in hides,
sometimes with sheets of plastic, or sometimes the bottom is tarred
in order to make them waterproof.[27] In modern times, a sheet of
LDPE plastic is often embedded between two layers of bamboo. Indian coracles are frequently
Coracles are steered and propelled using a single paddle from the used on the Kabini River,
front of the boat in the direction of travel, making them unique.[25] Karnataka, India
Construction
The boats are made primarily from bamboo. The first step in
construction is a basic framework woven from bamboo sticks. Then
the bottom is further reinforced with the addition of more bamboo
sticks, making the boat's base sturdy. Once the bottom is structurally
sound, the lowest points of the sides are defined by a circumferential
band of three flat strips of bamboo woven into the existing lattice.
The sides of the boat are then made with 20 to 30 adjacent strips of Coracle on the Kaveri river.
Some like this are used by
bamboo. Finally this framework is again strengthened by lightweight
vendors
bamboo, making sure that the sides are not heavier than the base.[25]

The boats had earlier been waterproofed by using hides of animals,

but these days plastic sheets are used for this purpose as they are
cheaper as well as easily available.[25] The waterproofing is further
enhanced by a layer of tar,[25] a feature which is common in most
contemporary coracles.[26][28]
Two Indian coracles on the
Tungabhadra River
Local names

Parisal, sometimes spelt parical – Tamil[25]

Teppa[29] or harigolu[25] – Kannada
Putti in Telugu
Kutta vanchi in Malayalam

Iraqi coracle
Iraqi coracles, called quffa or kuphar (Arabic: ‫)قفة‬, have been used
as ferries, lighters, fishing vessels, and water taxis on the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers since at least the 9th century BC.[30] They share
Dimensions of Indian coracles
details with the myriad types of coracle used across Eurasia.[31]
Modern quffas can be up to 18 feet (5.5 m) in diameter and carry
four to five tons.[32] Modern quffas are of similar size and
construction as their ancient counterparts, with both being made
from woven bundles of reeds or basketry waterproofed with bitumen.

Vietnamese coracle
The Vietnamese battle coracle, called thúng chai or thuyền thúng,
dated back to the 10th century, is traditionally believed to have been
created by a general named Tran Ung Long[33] to be used in battles.
However, thuyen thung were probably strongly developed during the
French colonial period when the colonialists imposed high taxes on
seafaring, local fishermen built coracles to avoid the regulations on
An Iraqi coracle, or quffa (‫)قفة‬, in
boats.[34]
Baghdad in 1914
Pelota
The pelota of South and Central America was a hide vessel similar
to a coracle, but it often lacked an internal wooden framework,
relying entirely on the stiffness of the hide to stay afloat. Thus it
could be carried about on horseback and deployed when there was
a river to cross.

See also Vietnamese coracle, Vietnam in

February, 2019

Currach
Fishing coracle
Kuphar
Kayak
Umiak
Tarai-bune

References
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b/20140301160358/http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/6746/20140128/noahs-ark-round-
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19. "Coracles: The surprising history of Britain's strangest boat" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/program
mes/articles/23Fbd5ybr2CFG9BWYYZ7MZh/coracles-the-surprising-history-of-britain-s-stra
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Gaelic Dictionary" (http://www.dwelly.info/index.aspx). dwelly.info.
21. Hornell, James (October 1933). "The Coracles of South India". Man. 33: 157–160.
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eb/20080609153437/http://www.tbeez.com/Attraction/hogenakkal). Archived from the
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61102033420/http://www.data-wales.co.uk/coracle1.htm). Data-wales.co.uk. Archived from
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(https://books.google.com/books?id=RP2uHT06zYgC&pg=PA130). BRILL. p. 130.
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38%2F143224c0). Nature. 143 (3615): 224. February 1939. Bibcode:1939Natur.143R.224.
(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1939Natur.143R.224.). doi:10.1038/143224c0 (https://do
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33. admin (12 November 2021). "Nhị tướng quân Trần Ứng Long và Trần Công Mẫn, danh
tướng triều Đinh, ông tổ nghề thuyền thúng" (https://cdspvinhlong.edu.vn/nhi-tuong-quan-tra
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34. Kha, Mạnh (30 July 2020). "Thuyền thúng: Giá trị văn hóa của nghề biển Việt Nam" (https://
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External links
The official website of The Coracle Society (http://www.coraclesociety.org.uk)
BBC Legacies – Coracles article (https://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/wales/w_sw/article_
4.shtml)
World of Boats (EISCA) Collection ~ Parisal from Tamil Nadu, Southern India (http://www.wo
rldofboats.org/boats/view/204/26/)
Historical note from the Coracle Society of Wales (https://web.archive.org/web/1996110203
3420/http://www.data-wales.co.uk/coracle1.htm)
Brief history and design principles (https://web.archive.org/web/20071010171139/http://ww
w.loughneaghboats.org/history.html)

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