- related:: [[China]] - relaetd:: [[Beyond the Blue Horizon by Brian Fagan]] & [[Galleons and Galleys - John Francis Guilmartin]] #xref > [!quote] [Before cotton become common things in china, in which material were made their sails?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u8nmyh/before_cotton_become_common_things_in_china_in/) by [[wotan_weevil]] via [[rAskHistorians]] on 2022-04-06 > Early Chinese sails were woven matting, made using bamboo leaves, other long thin leaves, thin peelings of bamboo skin, reeds, palm leaves, etc. These were reinforced by horizontal bamboo battens. Battened matting sails remained the most common type into modern times. > > Cloth sails were in use by the late Han Dynasty. This is long before cotton would have been used. The two most likely candidates for sailcloth were hemp, mostly grown in the north, and ramie (_Boehmeria nivea_), mostly grown in the south. By the Han Dynasty, both of these fibre crops had been grown for thousands of years. Two other fibres might have been used: kudzu (_Pueraria montana_ var. _lobata_, AKA _Pueraria thunbergiana_, with common names East Asian arrowroot, vine-creeper, etc.), and banana. Kudzu was used as a fibre plant during the Zhou Dynasty, if not earlier. The earliest records of banana fibre are from the Han Dynasty. > > Some ships carried both matting sails (as their main sails) and cloth sails (to use as additional sails when running before the wind). Cloth sails would have been attractive as additional sails since they were lighter and easier to store. Some ships also used "silk sails" as additional sails - perhaps sails of some other cloth with silk embroidery, but silk cloth is possible. >