I have a new book just published and available for free digital download. If you have any questions about my work please feel free to contact me at douglasbrooksboatbuilding@gmail.com.

Announcement: New Book

Tobunken, the Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, published this spring Building the Nagara River Ubune with Nasu Seiichi, by Douglas Brooks, an American boatbuilder, writer, and researcher. Nasu san is among the last craftsmen left in Japan who has built ubune, or ukaibune, the traditional boats used to fish with cormorants. This fishery today takes place for tourists in about a dozen places in central and western Japan, but Gifu, where Nasu san lives and works, is the iconic setting. Gifu claims this fishery has a 1,300 year history and over 100,000 tourists a year come there to ride spectator boats nightly during the six month fishing season and watch six hereditary fishermen.

The habits of the fishermen, their costumes, and the boats are all largely unchanged. Nasu san is now 89 years old but in 2017 he agreed to teach Brooks and, over a two-and-a-half month period, along with a pair of apprentices, they built a 42-foot ubune under Nasu san's direction. Brooks and staff from Tobunken recorded every detail, and this is largely a how-to book documenting the design secrets and techniques of the craft. It also includes a chapter on koyamaki, the type of wood used, and an essay on the state of traditional crafts in Japan, both by faculty at Gifu Academy of Forestry Science and Culture, one of the project's sponsors. Funding for the project came from Tobunken and the Freeman Foundation.

A free download of the book is available at:

https://www.tobunken.go.jp/ich/wp-content/uploads/ubune2020-1.pdf

Nasu san, like a minority of boatbuilders in Japan, employs a fascinating technique when driving nails. Some craftspeople refer to this as uguisu no tani watari. You can watch a video of him here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUw1JYAlip1/

This is Brooks' fifth book on Japanese boatbuilding. Since 1996 he has apprenticed with nine boatbuilders from throughout Japan documenting their work. He is the sole apprentice for seven of his nine teachers, all craftspeople in their seventies and eighties when he worked with them. It is a sobering fact that Japan's last generation of boatbuilders is fast disappearing.

He is working with his publisher in the US on an English version of the ubune book. More about his work can be found at his website: www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com.


Douglas Brooks
84 South Maple Street
Vergennes, Vermont 05491
USA
(802) 877-3289
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