Canoes and Boats of the Brahmaputra River in Assam

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River ferry across the Brahmaputra. The helmsman is sitting on the roof, controlling the engine with a string.

In April 2009 my wife and I joined a NatureTrek cruise down the Brahmaputra River in Assam, north east India. This was ostensibly, and in practice, a wild life cruise, to see the birds and animals of the region. But this was one of the great rivers of the world and it was full of boats, so I settled down to watch them too.

The Brahmaputra is big. Very big. By the time it has reached the central valley of Assam it has almost completed its vertical decent from the Himalayas, even though it is still 700km the Bay of Bengal. It is braided into multiple changing channels, edged with sand and silt banks.

In spite of its size, there is very little commercial river traffic, apart from fishermen and local ferries. This is largely due to the nature of the river. It is very shallow and fast flowing. The sandy banks make mooring treacherous and the construction of quays and wharfs well nigh impossible. It is also partly due to political geography. To sail to the sea or to the rest of India, all boats have to pass through Bangladesh, and there is little love lost between the Assamese and the Bangladeshis.

Those few river users do have distinctive wooden boats. This is a poor part of India and very isolated from the rest of the world. All the boats you see here were built here, apart from a few dredgers, barges and one or two tourist boats. These local boats range in size from 20 foot canoes to 40 foot cargo boats. Many of the larger ones have engines, but some are still man-powered and all of the canoes are paddled or rowed. I only saw two canoes under sail, both at a great distance, and this seems to be a little used form of propulsion.

First boat first, the Sukapha, our home for 10 days and by a long way the largest boat on the river. 38m long with twin  diesel engines, she was built for the owners, Assam Bengal Navigation specifically to carry tourists on the Brahmaputra and Hoogli Rivers. There are three main decks, cabins for 24 guests and a maximum draft of 6 feet. She and her sister ship the Charaidew are the only large commercial ships we saw, apart from a dredger and its tug.

All the other boats are wooden craft of a range of types.

This is a typical large cargo boat, about 40ft. long. Most boats of this size seem to be motorised, with a short roof at the back to cover the motor and support a big rudder. Here the propulsion is traditional. At first, when I took the photo, I didn't appreciate the function of the mast. I was just impressed that just two men could punt against such a strong current. Then I noticed the rope stretched forward from the top of the mast. Four men were on the bank on the other end of it, man-hauling. The tall mast is necessary to get the haulage point up to the level of the bank top. Two back swept stays (barely visible here) carry the pull down to the boat's gunwales.

So what makes a typical Brahmaputra boat? Large or small, they have many features in common. All are built of heavy wood planks, joined with iron or steel staples and sealed with tar. Most are left black, but some of the ferries are painted blue and white. I don't know what type of timber is used, but Assam is not far from Burma, and I suspect that they are teak. They are double ended, with the small canoes being quite symmetrical fore and aft and punted in either direction. The larger boats sweep up a bit higher and more steeply at the stern. If hauled or rowed they have a steering paddle. Spars and punt poles are invariably bamboo. They are flat bottomed, a few having slight rocker. The larger boats have cross floor planks, whilst on the  canoes they run for and aft. They have absolutely minimal draft, these are very shallow waters. I would suspect that an unladen canoe barely draws more than the depth of its bottom planks.

On the following pages I will look at different types of boat.

Beaked canoes | Pointed canoes | Large boats