The origin of the Trengganu perahu pinas
C.A. Gibson-Hill published this short note in 1953, examining the origins of the Trengganu perahu pinas, a two-masted cargo boat of the East Coast of Malaya whose hull was clearly built on European lines. Drawing on an anonymous 1846 account of a visit to Kuala Trengganu, local oral tradition, and later colonial reports, Gibson-Hill argues that the vessel’s design was introduced not by a shipwrecked French sailor (as local tradition held) but by a European blacksmith—identified as a German named Martin Perrot—who settled in Trengganu in the 1840s and became closely associated with the construction of the Sultan’s first European-style schooner.
Summary
The article addresses a specific problem in the maritime history of the Trengganu coast: how and when European shipbuilding techniques were transferred to Malay craftsmen, producing the distinctive perahu pinas. Gibson-Hill had recorded a local tradition in 1948 attributing the design to a survivor of a French vessel wrecked during the reign of Baginda Omar (r. 1839–76), who converted to Islam, married a Chinese woman from Kuala Marang, and settled as a shipwright at Kuala Trengganu. A variant collected by C.C. Brown in the 1930s replaced the shipwreck narrative with an account of a European who arrived via Malacca and Singapore “in search of opium cum dignitate.”
The pivotal evidence is an unsigned article in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago (1854) describing an official visit in April 1846 aboard the Hon’ble Company’s steamer Phlegethon, commanded by Captain Robert Scott. The account records a long conversation with an English-speaking European in Malay costume, identified as Martin Perrot, a German who had served as a conscript in Napoleon’s army, been captured by the British, fought at Waterloo in the second brigade of German Rifles, and subsequently settled in Trengganu after the abandonment of Malacca, where he worked as a blacksmith. The same article notes that the Sultan of Trengganu owned a schooner built by natives who had learnt shipbuilding at Singapore, assisted by Chinese carpenters.
Gibson-Hill’s argument proceeds by elimination and association. Perrot was a blacksmith, not a shipwright or sailor, and the 1846 account gives no indication he built the schooner. However, European wooden vessels required heavy ironwork—rudder gudgeons, pintles, and frame fastenings—that Malay builders, who worked by eye, would have struggled to produce independently. It is therefore “almost certain” that Perrot was responsible for at least the essential metalwork on the royal schooner, which would have been sufficient to associate him closely with the vessel in the memory of later generations. The linguistic evidence reinforces this: the term pinas derives from the French pinasse (a two-masted sailing vessel) rather than the English pinnace (by this period a rowing boat), suggesting the name was established by the European himself rather than borrowed from the English or Malay terms already in use in Singapore.
Key Findings
- The 1846 account identifies Martin Perrot as a German conscript in Napoleon’s army who served in Italy, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, was taken prisoner by the British, fought at Waterloo in the second brigade of German Rifles, received the victory medal, and came to India in Dutch service before settling in Trengganu after Malacca’s abandonment (p. 207–208).
- The Sultan of Trengganu owned a schooner in 1846, described as “a very creditable piece of workmanship,” built by natives who had learnt shipbuilding at Singapore and assisted by Chinese carpenters (p. 208).
- Clifford’s 1895 report records that the art of European-pattern boat-building was “first taught by one of the Baginda’s workmen, who was presented with a Singapore-built gig for use as a model,” with teak imported from Siam and an ordinary four-oar costing $300 (p. 209).
- Warington Smyth’s sketch (c. 1890–1900) shows the perahu pinas with a true schooner rig; by 1900–1910 the batten-lug had become the standard rig, and R.H. Yapp’s photographs of October–November 1899 show the simpler single-spar bowsprit configuration (p. 208–209).
- The term pinas implies derivation from the French pinasse rather than the English pinnace, which by the mid-nineteenth century was a rowing vessel; the Malay word sekunar (from schooner) and katar (from cutter) were already available in Singapore but were not adopted for the Trengganu boats (p. 210).
- Descendants of the founding family used the patronymic bin Feranchis (Peranchis), and one, Mat bin Feranchis of Kemaman, died only a few years before Gibson-Hill’s 1948 visit (p. 207).
Conclusion
Gibson-Hill concludes that the perahu pinas was not the product of a single European shipwright introducing a complete design, but rather the result of Malay craftsmen—already trained in Singapore—adopting European hull lines and framing techniques, with the essential metalwork supplied by a European blacksmith whose close association with the Sultan’s first schooner led later generations to credit him (or a conflated figure) with the vessel’s entire origin. The local tradition of a shipwrecked French sailor is thus best understood as a folk-etymological elaboration of the historical kernel: a European of non-English, non-Dutch, non-Portuguese origin who became embedded in Trengganu’s boat-building community during Baginda Omar’s reign.
Context
- The article’s central primary source is an unsigned account published in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago, 8 (7), 1854: 175–199, describing the 1846 visit of the Phlegethon to the eastern Malay ports; Gibson-Hill identifies the vessel and commander from internal evidence and contemporary newspaper corroboration.
- The study’s historiographical contribution lies in connecting a previously unexamined mid-nineteenth-century colonial account to the local oral tradition of the perahu pinas, demonstrating how a minor figure in an official dispatch could become the eponymous founder of a boat type in the collective memory of a coastal community.