Chialoup

A chialoup (or chaloup) was a type of sloop used in the East Indies, a combination of western (Dutch) and Nusantaran (Indonesian) technologies and techniques. Many of these "boat-ships" were produced by VOC shipwrights in Rembang and Juwana, where the majority of the workers were local Javanese. Chialoups were used by the Dutch East India Company and private merchant-sailors of western and Nusantaran origin.

A chialoup in Cirebon, 1775.

Description

Javanese prahu with two rudders.

The chialoup sail plan mimics that used in sloops, with a combination of square-rigged and fore-and-aft sails. The boats are usually single-decked with one mast, sometimes with an added mizzen mast.^[1]: 34 While most such chialoups use a European-style central rudder, some are equipped with two side (quarter) rudders, a characteristic of Nusantaran boats. The length is between 15 and 25 meters, with a cargo bay almost 6 meters long. Depending on the size of the boat, crews run 20 to 40 people, with a typical load capacity of 72 to 144 metric tons.^[2] In the syahbandar's (harbourmaster) record of Malacca a chialoup is listed carrying up to 200 tons of cargo and a crew of 75 people.^[3] Chialoups on average were armed with 4 cannons, 1 swivel gun, and 7 snaphaunces.^[4]

In the era after 1820, chialoups gradually disappeared from the "List of Ships and Sea Vehicles from the East Indies", a periodical published by the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies, and the term chialoup appeared more rarely in newspapers, replaced with kotter, a Dutch word for a type of sloop.^{[5]: 37 [6]: 434, 444 [7]: 42}

See also

• Sloop
• Shallop
• Kakap
• Padewakang
• Pencalang
• Toop