David Kwok Shu-wai, a third-generation Hong Kong fisherman, still remembers working on sailing junks with his father when he was a child.

Today, the vessels once ubiquitous in coastal waters around Hong Kong, their distinctive fan-shaped sails long depicted in the tourism authority’s marketing materials, have almost vanished.

Kwok, 58, is determined to maintain a maritime tradition, however, and has spent about HK$3 million (US$383,000) on his first junk restoration project.

“I am a fisherman and have the blood of the fisherman. I really appreciate the traditional style of the sailing junk. It is important to keep the memory alive,” says Kwok, who hails from Aberdeen on the south side of Hong Kong Island, where tens of thousands of people once lived on boats in the harbour.

When he heard of an unused traditional shrimp trawler in Tuen Mun in 2007, he decided to buy the vessel and rescue it from the scrapyard. But Heung Gong Yat Ho (Hong Kong Number One) proved to be an expensive labour of love. “The boat was not in good condition,” says Kwok. Built in nearby Macau in 1981, it took three 12-week repair sessions at a specialist shipyard in neighbouring Zhuhai to render it seaworthy and fit for commercial use.

Heung Gong Yat Ho is one of only three sailing junks still in existence in Hong Kong and the only shrimper, a type of junk once ubiquitous along the southern Chinese coast. These Guangzhou-style junks were not designed for ocean-going voyages but for working in the coastal waters around the Pearl River Delta in the days when fishermen from Hong Kong and Macau shared the bountiful waters.

A traditional way of life for many centuries, commercial junk trawling came to symbolise maritime China before the boats slipped into obscurity.

“I don’t do many trips Hong Kong-side,” says Kwok. “People are no longer interested in this sort of tradition.”

He licensed Heung Gong Yat Ho – registered in English as Hong Kong Pioneer – as a leisure vessel, and it is certified and insured to take 40 guests on a sailing cruise, but Kwok says there’s not much business to be made locally. Any charter work he gets to cover his costs is derived from a marketing company in Macau.

The bill for repairs and maintenance has been “crippling”, Kwok says, but he has no regrets. He undertook the restoration project to keep a memory and skills alive.

“The next generation has no chance of learning unless we retain the heritage. I am still learning, but you can only learn the skills on the job,” says Kwok. He estimates that there are only three or four surviving Hongkongers of his generation who know how to sail a junk.

Some original features of the newly renovated vessel had to be sacrificed for practical reasons, Kwok says.

The traditional heavy, stern-mounted rudder and tiller has been replaced with a modern ship’s wheel. Although the sails are fully functional, the mainsail is significantly smaller than the original would have been, largely because passengers tend not to enjoy the extra motion a larger sail brings.

Despite the historical imperfections, Hong Kong Pioneer can set sail and follow in the wake of thousands of sailing junks that worked along the south China coast for countless generations before they disappeared suddenly in the 1980s as the economy prospered and people moved on land to seek jobs.

“Even with the smaller mainsail, she can make four to five knots [8-10km/h] if the conditions are right,” says Kwok.

Although his interest in the junk was not financial, Kwok admits that the vessel still needs to generate income to cover maintenance costs.

Fortunately, the newly varnished teak decks of Hong Kong Pioneer that were shining from within the Aberdeen typhoon shelter caught the eye of retired businessman Donald Po king-yin, who was surprised to learn that such a beautiful vessel was not out on charter more regularly.

“I want to help create some more commercial interest,” says Po, who was also born into a family of Aberdeen fishermen, but whose father sent him ashore to be educated when he was a small boy. When he approached the local fishing association to offer his support, they were suspicious until they recognised his name, Po says.

“They did not know me, but they all knew of my father,” he adds, and they quickly introduced him to Kwok.

Po then contacted the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, which undertakes research into traditional Chinese junks, and a decision was made to bring Hong Kong Pioneer to Victoria Harbour as a key attraction of Hong Kong Maritime Week last month.

Organised by the government’s Hong Kong Maritime and Port Board, the annual event promotes the modern shipping and logistics industry in the city and focuses on the hi-tech container shipping industry, logistics and computer-controlled ocean-going tugs. This year, the Hong Kong Pioneer junk added a historic dimension.

“If we omit the heritage and cultural aspects, and just look at technical aspects [of the shipping industry], people can’t connect so easily with the maritime world,” says Libby Chan Lai-pik, assistant director (curatorial and collections) of the museum.

Chan curated a special exhibition at the museum called “Beyond Sailing: Chinese Junks in Hong Kong”, which included the story of Hong Kong Pioneer’s restoration.

“The Pearl River Delta area and its people were connected by junks,” she says. “The local economy was built on them.”
Hong Kong Pioneer’s enhanced profile has given Kwok some encouragement to chase his ultimate goal. He wants to build a new ocean-going junk called the Keying, which would sail around the world to promote the merits of Hong Kong and raise the status of Chinese mariners.

The original Keying was a three-masted teak Chinese trading junk, which sailed from Hong Kong to New York in 1846, where she became a much-visited tourist attraction. There has already been a Keying II, also a teak shrimp trawler, built in the 1970s.
Shipping magnate Sir Yue-kong Pau bought the boat in 1980 and gave it to the Hong Kong government for a major cultural exhibition in London, but the vessel later fell into disrepair.

But Kwok and Po are undeterred and insist that everyone they have consulted thinks another Keying is a good idea despite an estimated HK$100 million (US$12.7 million) price tag.

“It would need to be built in China or maybe Taiwan while the skills are still alive, but we need drawings; we need to combine naval architects, designers, shipwrights and builders,” says Po.

He and Kwok foresee a dilemma though. A new Keying could either be an authentic historical sailing craft down to the last bamboo fitting and stone anchor, or a modern reinvention of the Chinese wooden original. This would combine traditional junk features with 21st-century hi-tech features such as solar power, zero-emission propulsion, GPS and satellite communications.

Either way, the pair believe the vessel could be an ambassador for Hong Kong’s maritime past, and they have some institutional support.

“The [Hong Kong Maritime Museum] would like to run a one-day workshop to invite relevant people to brainstorm and work out what exactly would be required,” says Chan, who regards junks as a vital aspect of Hong Kong’s heritage and a legacy that should be kept alive.

“The Tourism Board still uses images of junks in their marketing of the city,” she points out. “It’s symbolic of Hong Kong and its people – flexible and mobile.”

Kwok is passionate about the importance of maintaining as much as possible of Hong Kong’s traditional sailing history.
“My dream is to build a big Chinese junk that will upgrade the status of the Chinese seaman,” he says. “We can build it here and sail it around the world. This is not about the money. This is my mission.”