I was asked by the owner of a ryokan (Japanese inn) on Lake Biwa to build him a traditional boat from the region. After researching various designs and measuring several boats we settled on a tabune that is held in the collection of the Lake Biwa Museum. Covid forced us to shelve the project for several years but finally in 2023 I was able to come to Japan and build this boat, along with my friend, Vermont furniture-maker Randall Henson. Mr. Koji Matano, a Japanese boatbuilder who builds canoes and traditional American boats at his shop on the lake, arranged the materials and fastenings for our project.

“Tabune” means “field boat” and normally these are small wooden sledges used for pulling tools and through rice paddies, part boat and part sled. But in the broad rice-growing regions of Takashima on the shores of Lake Biwa spring flooding required farmers to have proper boats for transportation. The area is also crossed by river and canals so boats were long the most efficient means of transportation.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the boats and boatbuilding history on Lake Biwa (Japan’s largest lake) is the bizarre construction of the local boats, a feature not found anywhere else in Japan according to my research. The boats are parallel-sided through most of the hull but rather than planks bending to the bow the side planking ends and is replaced with stave-like planks, like a barrel, narrowing the hull to the stem. These planks are edge-nailed (common in Japanese boatbuilding). Seams in larger Lake Biwa boats are covered with copper plating.