The ancient Chinese people were good at navigation . With their long experience , they were clever at sailing . They were the first people who invented the scull , the creative propelling tool developed from the long oar but more efficient than he oar . It works both as a rudder and as an oar . It is said , “One scull is equal to three oars,” proving that an integral whole can be more efficient than the added-up efficiency of all its parts . It is characterized by controlling the most complicated movements with the most simple tool , and is seen only in China . The westerners praise it as “the most scientific of all Chinese inventions” .

What is more , the ingenious ancient Chinese led the world in ship construction for a long period . They invented the first water-tight ship compartments in the world . In case of hull wrecking , the invention could ensure that most of the other compartments were safe so that the sailors could with time to dispel water and make repairs in a single compartment to prevent the sinking of the ship . As early as fourteen centuries ago the Chinese already knew this , whereas the Westerners only used this technique at the eighteenth century . The Westerners acknowledged they learnt the technique from the Chinese . The Chinese got the idea of this invention from the construction of the barn . The earliest stern axial rudder for controlling the ship was also an invention of the Chinese .

A ceramic model ship in the Eastern Han Dynasty was unearthed in ceramic modern ship in the Eastern Han Dynasty was unearthed in Guangzhou . An axial rudder was found at its stern . It was transitional from the long oar rudder to the axial turning rudder . Between the second and fourth centuries A.D. , the true axial turning rudder was used already in China , which was important for raising ship-operating efficiency . In about the twelfth century A.D. both the water-tight compartments and the axial turning rudder spread westward to the Mediterranean via the Indian Ocean . In the eleventh century A. D. the Chinese already invented the balance rudder and the holed rudder , both of which were only found in Europe at the eighteenth century A.D.

Around the third century Chinese sailing ships were already rigged in a most clever way . In he West the use of sails had been thought as an invention of a godlike hero . A legend said that a Babylonian hero endeavored to cross the sea . When he was confronted by a lake of dead water , he was advised by a ferryman to fabricate an 18-foot long punting pole . He fabricated one hundred and twenty poles of such size and joined them together into a punting pole . But he could not use the pole to touch the bottom of the dead water lake . As an expedient way , he took off his clothes , stood on his boat , raised his two arms as two masts , and held the clothes , stood on his boat , raised his two arms as two masts , and held the clothes over his arms . Then the boat sailed along .

The Chinese were more practical . As early as in the third century , multiple masts had been installed on Chinese sailing ship in staggered positions and the main mast was tilted toward the stern , so that the sailing ship could sail in all wind directions . On the contrary , three-mast sails were not found in Europe until he fifteenth century . Only in the nineteenth century did the Europeans use staggered masts and backward tilting main mast on the ship . Even the sails rigged on the modern racing boat are designed after the traditional oriental sails . One of the traditional Chinese sails rigging ways is to rig up studding sails with multiple lateral supports and a complex roping system to take advantage of wind power in various directions to generate a maximum thrust . In the west , prior to the modern racing boast , such highly efficient sails rigging was not used at all .

In the Song Dynasty the technique of ship sailing against the wind matured . For overcoming the horizontal drift and the zigzag route of the ship , the Chinese invented the “water splitting planks” , mounted on the two sides of the ship and shaped like shark’s fins . When the boat sailed against the wind , the plank in the lee would be cast down into water to increase the resistance to the lateral movement of the ship to prevent the tilting and the lateral drifting of the ship . This device was adopted in Europe as late as in the sixteenth century .

Not only did the Chinese invent the scull , and know how to take advantage of the wind power the earliest , but they also used wheels to propel the ship the earliest . The ship equipped with propelling wheels was called “chariot ship” in ancient times . In the fifth century , Zu Chongzhi built a “one thousand li” ship propelled by wheels , that could cover more than one hundred li a day (1 li = 1/2 km.) . In the Tang Dynasty in the eighth century , Li Gao , governor of the present Hubei province , built a wheel treadling ship propelled by two wheels , going as fast as ships with set sails . In the Song Dynasty a 24 wheels ship was built . In Europe , researches on wheel propelling started in the 14th century and the first wheel propelled ship was built in Spain in the 16th century .

The Chinese invented many ingenious ship propelling mechanisms , exhibiting a high intelligence and a shred of poetic inspiration .