Chinese Junk

A junk is a type of Chinese sailing ship distinguished by a central stern-mounted rudder, a flat bottom without a keel, watertight internal bulkheads and fully battened sails supported by rigid battens rather than a Western-style rig. The design began in China as a river craft with square sails and, by the Song dynasty of the tenth through thirteenth centuries, adopted ocean-going features drawn from Southeast Asian shipbuilding to become a seaworthy oceanic vessel. Junks dominated Chinese and wider Asian maritime trade for centuries and carried Admiral Zheng He's treasure fleet expeditions of 1405 to 1433, among the largest wooden ships built anywhere before the modern era. The type was built in sizes ranging from small coastal fishing and river boats to large ocean-going cargo ships, and it remained in wide commercial use into the nineteenth century.