Watertight Bulkheads

摘要

I was very interested in the UNESCO announcement about the Chinese invention of watertight bulkheads. However, this seems to be a gross under-acknowledgement of the overall invention of which watertight bulkheads form only a part of what we understand to be the basis of Chinese shipbuilding over the centuries. We believe that this involved construction based on the assembly of multiple individual compartments. These were of wood and probably limited in length by the lengths of planking. They were possibly of dimensions similar to the modern container and watertight except for access, probably, limited to top entries.