Masula boat

Masula boat, also known as masoola or masulah boat, is a kind of non-rigid boat built without knees used on the coast of Madras (the present day city of Chennai), India, along with catamarans. Locally known as padagu or salangu among the fisher folks, it is a large, flat-bottomed, high-sided, open boat with a clumsy design consisting of mango wood planks sewed together with strands of coir which cross over a wadding of the same material, but without frames or ribs, so that the shock due to surf is much reduced. It is specially designed for use where there are no harbours of refuge, chiefly upon the surf-beaten Coromandel Coast of India. It is used in shooting shore seines and also as a cargo lighter. Its range extends along the whole of the eastern coast of India northwards of Cape Calimere. The equivalent type of boats used on the west coast are the beach lighters. Masula boats are generally smaller, although they can be up to 9 m in length. The pattern varies across the coast, namely, padava on the Andhra coast and bar boat in Orissa coast. A variant found in the region between Kakinada and Machilipatnam has ribs inside.