Djong (ship)
The djong, jong, or jung (also called junk in English) is a type of ancient sailing ship originating from Java that was widely used by Javanese and Malay sailors. The word was and is spelled "jong" in its languages of origin, the "djong" spelling being the colonial Dutch romanisation. Djongs are used mainly as seagoing passenger and cargo vessels. They traveled as far as the Atlantic Ocean in ancient times. Their tonnage ranged from 40 to 2000 deadweight tons, with an average deadweight of 1200–1400 tons during the Majapahit era. Javanese kingdoms such as Majapahit, Demak Sultanate, and  Kalinyamat Sultanate used these vessels as warships, but still predominantly as transport vessels. Etymology. Views diverge on whether the origin of the word is from a dialect of Chinese, or from a Javanese word. The word "jong", "jung" or "junk" may derive from the Chinese word "chuán" (, "boat; ship"). However, Paul Pelliot and Waruno Mahdi rejects the Chinese origin for the name. The word jong can be found in a number of ancient Javanese inscriptions dating to the 9th century. It was first recorded in the Malay and Chinese language by the 15th century, when a Chinese word list identified  it as a Malay term for ship, thus practically excludes the Chinese origin of the word. The late 15th century "Undang-Undang Laut Melaka", a maritime code composed by Javanese shipowners in Melaka, uses jong frequently as the word for freight ships. European writings from 1345 through 1609 use a variety of related terms, including "jonque" (French), "ioncque", "ionct", "giunchi", "zonchi" (Italian), "iuncque", "joanga", "juanga" (Spanish), "junco" (Portuguese), and "ionco", "djonk", "jonk" (Dutch). The origin of the word "junk" in English language, can be traced to Portuguese word "junco", which is rendered from Arabic word j-n-k (جنك). This  word comes from the fact that Arabic script cannot represent the digraph "ng". The word used to denote both the Javanese/Malay ship ("jong") and the Chinese ship ("chuán"), even though the two were markedly different vessels. After the disappearance of jong in the 17th century, the meaning of "junk" (and other similar words in European languages), which until then was used as a transcription of the word "jong" in Malay and Javanese, changed its meaning to exclusively refer to the Chinese ship. People from the Nusantara Archipelago usually refer to large Chinese ships as "wangkang", while small ones  are called "top". There are also terms in the Malay language, "cunea", "cunia", and "cunya" that originates from the Amoy Chinese dialect 船 仔 (tsûn-á), which refers to Chinese vessels 10–20 m in length. The "djong" spelling is of colonial Dutch origin, rendering the j sound as "dj", though both traditional British and current Indonesian orthography romanises it as "jong". Sailor and navigation. The Nusantara archipelago was known for production of large junks. When Portuguese sailors reached the waters of Southeast Asia in the early 1500s they found this area dominated by Javanese junk ships. This Javanese trading ship  controlled the vital spice route, between Moluccas, Java and Malacca. The port city of Malacca at that time practically became a Javanese city. There were many Javanese merchants and ship captains who settled and at the same time controlled international trade. Many skilled Javanese carpenters are building ships in the dockyards of the largest port city in Southeast Asia. For seafaring, the Malay people of Indonesia independently invented junk sails, made from woven mats reinforced with bamboo, at least several hundred years before 1 BC. By the time of the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD) the Chinese were  using such sails, having learned it from Malay sailors visiting their Southern coast. Beside this type of sail, they also made balance lugsails (tanja sails). The invention of these types of sail made sailing around the western coast of Africa possible, because of their ability to sail against the wind. During the Majapahit era, almost all of the commodities from Asia were found in Java. This is because of extensive shipping by the Majapahit empire using various type of ships, particularly the jong, for trading to faraway places. Ma Huan (Zheng He's translator) who visited Java in 1413, stated  that ports in Java were trading goods and offer services that were more numerous and more complete than other ports in Southeast Asia. It was also during Majapahit era that Nusantaran exploration reached its greatest accomplishment. Ludovico di Varthema (1470–1517), in his book "Itinerario de Ludouico de Varthema Bolognese" stated that the Southern Javanese people sailed to "far Southern lands" up to the point they arrived at an island where a day only lasted four hours long and was "colder than in any part of the world". Modern studies have determined that such place is located at least 900 nautical  miles (1666 km) south of the southernmost point of Tasmania. The Javanese and Malay people, like other Austronesian ethnicities, use a solid navigation system: Orientation at sea is carried out using a variety of different natural signs, and by using a very distinctive astronomy technique called "star path navigation". Basically, the navigators determine the bow of the ship to the islands that are recognized by using the position of rising and setting of certain stars above the horizon. In the Majapahit era, compasses and magnets were used, and cartography (mapping science) was developed: The use of maps full of longitudinal  and transverse lines, rhumb lines, and direct route lines traveled by ships were recorded by Europeans, to the point that the Portuguese considered the Javanese maps were the best map in the early 1500s. When Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca, the Portuguese recovered a chart from a Javanese pilot, which already included part of the Americas (see Pre-Columbian contact). Regarding the chart Albuquerque said: ...a large map of a Javanese pilot, containing the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal and the land of Brazil, the Red Sea and the Sea of Persia, the Clove Islands, the navigation of the Chinese  and the Gom, with their rhumbs and direct routes followed by the ships, and the hinterland, and how the kingdoms border on each other. It seems to me. Sir, that this was the best thing I have ever seen, and Your Highness will be very pleased to see it; it had the names in Javanese writing, but I had with me a Javanese who could read and write. I send this piece to Your Highness, which Francisco Rodrigues traced from the other, in which Your Highness can truly see where the Chinese and Gores come from, and the course your  ships must take to the Clove Islands, and where the gold mines lie, and the islands of Java and Banda. – Letter of Albuquerque to King Manuel I of Portugal, 1 April 1512. A Portuguese account described how the Javanese people already had advanced seafaring skills and still communicated with Madagascar in 1645: (The Javanese) are all men very experienced in the art of navigation, to the point that they claim to be the most ancient of all, although many others give this honor to the Chinese, and affirm that this art was handed on from them to the Javanese. But  it is certain that they formerly navigated to the Cape of Good Hope and were in communication with the east coast of the island of São Lourenço (San Laurenzo – Madagascar), where there are many brown and Javanized natives who say they are descended from them. – Diogo do Couto, "Decada Quarta da Asia" Description. Duarte Barbosa reported that the ships from Java, which have four masts, are very different from Portuguese ships. A Javanese ship is made of very thick wood, and as it gets old, the Javanese fix it with new planks, this way they have 3–4 planks, one above  other. The rope and the sail is made with woven rattan. The Javanese junks were made using "jati" wood (teak) at the time of his report (1515), at that time Chinese junks were still using softwood as their main material. The Javanese ship's hull is formed by joining planks to the keel and then to each other by wooden dowels, without using either a frame (except for subsequent reinforcement), nor any iron bolts or nails. The planks are perforated by an auger and inserted with dowels, which remains inside the fastened planks, not seen from the outside. On some  of the smaller vessels parts may be lashed together with vegetable fibers. The vessel was similarly pointed at both ends, and carried two oar-like rudders and lateen-rigged sails (actually tanja sail), but it may also use junk sail, a sail of Indonesian origin. On top of the mast there is a "top" or "", which is used for observation and fighting. It differed markedly from the Chinese vessel, which had its hull fastened by strakes and iron nails to a frame and to structurally essential bulkheads which divided the cargo space. The Chinese vessel had a single rudder on  a transom stern, and (except in Fujian and Guangdong) they had flat bottoms without keels. Historical engravings also depict usage of bowsprits and bowsprit sails, with deckhouse above the upper deck, and the appearance of stemposts and sternposts. The deckhouse is extending from the front to the back, where people are protected from the heat of the sun, rain, and dew. At the stern there is a cabin for the ship's captain. This cabin, is square in shape and protruding ("hanging") above the sharp waterline stern (the sternpost), overhung above the water like a farmer's outhouse. The bow  also has square platform that protrude above the stempost, for bowsprit and forward facing gun shield/gun mount ("apilan" or "ampilan" in Malay language). A jong could carry up to 100 "berço" (breech loading artillery – likely refers to local cetbang cannon). According to father Nicolau Pereira, the jong has 3 rudders, one on each side and one in the middle. Pereira's account is unusual, however, because other accounts only mention 2 quarter rudders. This may refer to hybrid jong, with middle rudder being like those on Chinese vessels (hanging axial rudder) or western axial rudder (pintle and gudgeon rudder ). A jong has about 1:3 to 1:4 beam to length ratio, which makes it fell to the category of "round ship". Barbosa also reported various goods carried by these ships, which include rice, meat of cows, sheep, pigs, and deer, dried and salted, many chickens, garlic, and onions. Traded weapons include lances, dagger, and swords, worked in inlaid metal and very good steel. Also brought with them cubebs and yellow die called cazumba ("kasumba") and gold which is produced in Java. Barbosa mention places and route in which these ships visited, which include Maluku Islands, Timor, Banda, Sumatra, Malacca, China , Tenasserim, Pegu (Bago), Bengal, Pulicat, Coromandel, Malabar, Cambay (Khambat), and Aden. From the notes of other authors, it is known that there were also those who went to the Maldives, Calicut (Kozhikode), Oman, Aden, and the Red Sea. The passenger brought their wives and children, even some of them never leave the ship to go on shore, nor have any other dwelling, for they are born and die in the ship. It is known that ships made with teak could last for 200 years. The size and special requirements of the djong demanded access to expertise and materials not available  everywhere. Consequently, the djong was mainly constructed in two major shipbuilding centres around Java: north coastal Java, especially around Rembang-Demak (along the Muria strait) and Cirebon; and the south coast of Borneo (Banjarmasin) and the adjacent islands. A common feature of these places was their accessibility to forests of teak, as this wood was highly valued because of its resistance to shipworm. Southern Borneo's supply of teak would have come from north Java, whereas Borneo itself would supply ironwood. Pegu, which is a large shipbuilding port at the 16th century, also produced jong, built by Javanese who resided  there. History. Early eras. In the first millennium AD, the ship called "kolandiaphonta" was recorded in Claudius Ptolemaeus' Geography (ca. 150 AD). It is referred to by the Chinese as "K'un-lun po". The characteristics of this ship are that it is large (more than 50–60 m long), the hull is made of multiple plankings, has no outrigger, mounted with many masts and sails, the sail is in the form of a tanja sail, and has a plank fastening technique in the form of stitching with plant fibers. Faxian (Fa-Hsien) in his return journey to China from India (413–414 ) embarked a ship carrying 200 passengers and sailors from "K'un-lun" which towed a smaller ship. A cyclone struck and forced the passengers to move into the smaller ship. The crew of the smaller ship feared that the ship would be overloaded, therefore they cut the rope and separated from the big ship. Luckily the bigger ship survived, the passengers were stranded in "Ye-po-ti" (Yawadwipa – Java). After 5 months, the crew and the passengers embarked on another ship comparable in size to sail back to China. In 1178, the Guangzhou customs officer Zhou Qufei, wrote in "Lingwai Daida  about the ships of the Southern country: The ships which sail the southern sea and south of it are like giant houses. When their sails are spread they are like great clouds in the sky. Their rudders are several tens of feet long. A single ship carries several hundred men, and has in the stores a year's supply of grain. Pigs are fed and wine fermented on board. There is no account of dead or living, no going back to the mainland when once the people have set forth upon the cerulean sea. At daybreak, when the gong sounds 	Djong (ship)
12664036	aboard the ship, the animals can drink their fill, and crew and passengers alike forget all dangers. To those on board everything is hidden and lost in space, mountains, landmarks, and the countries of foreigners. The shipmaster may say To make such and such a country, with a favourable wind, in so many days, we should sight such and such a mountain, (then) the ship must steer in such and such a direction". But suddenly the wind may fall, and may not be strong enough to allow of the sighting of the mountain on the given day; in such a  case, bearings may have to be changed. And the ship (on the other hand) may be carried far beyond (the landmark) and may lose its bearings. A gale may spring up, the ship may be blown hither and thither, it may meet with shoals or be driven upon hidden rocks, then it may be broken to the very roofs (of its deckhouses). A great ship with heavy cargo has nothing to fear from the high seas, but rather in shallow water it will come to grief. The word "jong" itself was first recorded in an Old Javanese inscription from the  9th century AD. Majapahit era. In 1322 friar Odoric of Pordenone recorded that the during his voyage from India to China he boarded a vessel of the "zuncum" type carried at least 700 people, either sailors or merchants. The Majapahit Empire used jongs as its main source of naval power. It is unknown how many exactly the total number of jong used by Majapahit, but the largest number of jong deployed in an expedition is about 400 jongs accompanied with uncountable malangbang and kelulus, when Majapahit attacked Pasai. The second largest military expedition, invasion of Singapura in 1398, Majapahit deployed  300 jong with no less than 200,000 men (more than 600 men in each jong). Among the smallest jong recorded, used by Chen Yanxiang to visit Korea, was 33-meter-long with an estimated capacity of 220 deadweight tons, with a crew of 121 people. According to Pramoedya, the large ones could carry 800–1000 men and were 50 "depa" (about 80–100 m) long. A Balinese jong used by Bujangga Manik to travel from Bali to Blambangan was 8 "depa" (12.8–16 m) in width and 25 "depa" (40–50 m) in length. Prior to the Battle of Bubat in 1357, the Sunda  king and the royal family arrived in Majapahit after sailing across the Java Sea in a fleet of 200 large ships and 2000 smaller vessels. The royal family boarded a nine-decked hybrid Sino-Southeast Asian junk (Old Javanese: "Jong sasanga wagunan" "ring Tatarnagari tiniru"). This hybrid junk incorporated Chinese techniques, such as using iron nails alongside wooden dowels, the construction of watertight bulkhead, and addition of central rudder. Wang Dayuan's 1349 composition "Daoyi Zhilüe Guangzheng Xia" ("Description of the Barbarian of the Isles") described the so-called "horse boats" at a place called Gan-mai-li in Southeast  Asia. These ships were bigger than normal trading ships, with the sides constructed from multiple planks. The ships uses neither nails or mortar to join them, instead they are using coconut fibre. The ships has two or three decks, with deckhouse over the upper deck. In the lower hold they carried pressed-down frankincense, above them they are carrying several hundred horses. Wang made special mention of these ships because pepper, which is also transported by them, carried to faraway places with large quantity. The normal trading ships carried less than 1/10 of their cargo. Usually, the main vessel towed  behind a smaller "tender" for landing. Data from Marco Polo records made it possible to calculate that the largest ships may have had a burden tonnage of 500–800 tons, about the same as Chinese vessels used to trade in the 19th century. The tender itself may have been able to carry about 70 tons. Marco Polo also noted that they may have 2 or 3 of these tenders, and may have about 10 small boats for helping the main vessel, such as for laying out anchors, catching fish, and bringing supplies aboard. When sailing, the small boats were slung to  the ship's sides. Niccolò da Conti, in relating his travels in Asia between 1419 and 1444, describes ships much larger than European ships, capable of reaching 2,000 tons in size, with five sails and as many masts. The lower part is constructed with three planks, to withstand the force of the tempests to which they are much exposed. The ships are built in compartments, so that if one part is punctured, the other portion remaining intact to accomplish the voyage. Fra Mauro in his map explained that one junk rounded the Cape of Good Hope and traveled far into  the Atlantic Ocean, in 1420: European age of discovery. Florentine merchant Giovanni da Empoli (1483–1517), one of the first Italian agents to join a Portuguese armada to India in 1503–1504, said that in the land of Java, a junk is no different in its strength than a castle, because it had three and four boards, one above the other, which cannot be harmed with artillery. They sail with their women, children, and family, and everyone has a room for themselves. Passing by "Pacem" (Samudera Pasai Sultanate) the Portuguese came across two junks, one is from Coromandel, which is captured  immediately, and the other is from Java which weighed about 600 tons, near "Polvoreira" (likely "Pulau Berhala", 160 miles from Malacca, between Belawan, Medan and Lumut, Perak). The junk carried 300 Javanese "Moors" (Muslims) on board. The Portuguese sent out small boats to approach it, ordered it to halt but it promptly opened fire on the fleet, its crew hurling down spears and arrows. Afonso de Albuquerque approached it with his entire fleet. The Portuguese began firing on the junk, but the cannonball bounced off the hull, then the junk sailed away. The Portuguese ships then fired on the junk 's masts causing them to fall. Near dawn, Flor de la Mar (the highest Portuguese carrack) caught up and rammed the junk, while firing artilleries which killed 40 of the junk's crew. The junk was so tall that Flor de la Mar's rear castle could barely reach its bridge, and the Portuguese does not dare to board it. Their bombard shots did not damage it because it has 4 layers of board, while the largest Portuguese cannon could only penetrate no more than 2 layers. When the Portuguese tried to grapple it and attack in close combat, the  crew set fire to their junk, forcing the Portuguese to pull away. During the escape, the junk's crew tried to put out the fire with great difficulty. After two days and two nights of fighting, Albuquerque decided to break the two rudders at the side of the vessel, causing it to surrender. Once aboard, the Portuguese found the king of Pasai, whom Albuquerque hoped he could be made a vassal for trading. They also gained such an admiration for the junk and its crew and nicknamed it "O Bravo" (lit. "The Brave"). The Portuguese crew pleaded with Fernão Pires  to convince Albuquerque that the crew should be spared and viewed vassals of Portugal who were simply unaware of who they were actually fighting. Albuquerque eventually agreed to this. In late 1512 – January 1513 Pati Unus of Demak Sultanate tried to surprise Malacca with 100 vessels with 5,000 Javanese from Jepara and Palembang. About 30 of those were junks weighing about 350–600 tons (except for Pati Unus' flagship), the rest being smaller boats of pangajava, lancaran, and kelulus types. The junks themselves carried 12,000 men. These vessels carried much Javanese artillery. Although defeated, Pati Unus sailed home and beached his  armored war junk as a monument of a fight against men he called the bravest in the world, his exploit winning him a few years later the throne of Demak. In a letter to Afonso de Albuquerque, from Cannanore, 22 February 1513, Fernão Pires de Andrade, the captain of the fleet that routed Pati Unus, says: The junk of Pati Unus is the largest seen by men of these parts so far. It carried a thousand fighting men on board, and your Lordship can believe me . . . that it was an amazing thing to see, because the Anunciada near it did  not look like a ship at all. We attacked it with bombards, but even the shots of the largest did not pierce it below the water-line, and (the shots of) the "esfera" (Portuguese large cannon) I had in my ship went in but did not pass through; it had three sheathings, all of which were over a "cruzado" thick. And it certainly was so monstrous that no man had ever seen the like. It took three years to build, as your Lordship may have heard tell in Malacca concerning this Pati Unus, who made this armada to become king  of Malacca. – Fernão Pires de Andrade, "Cartas", III, p. 59 Fernão Lopes de Castanheda noted that Pati Unus' junk is built with 7 layers of planking, called "lapis" in Malay, between each layer was put a coating consisting a mixture of bitumen, lime, and oil. Pati Unus was using it as floating fortress for blockading the area around Malacca. The Portuguese remarked that such large, unwieldy ships were weaknesses. The Portuguese succeeded in repelling the attack using smaller but more maneuverable ships, using boarding tactics and setting fire to the junks. They did not specify the exact size of Pati  Unus' junk. Irawan Djoko Nugroho suggested that it has a length of 4–5 times the Flor do Mar (a nau). This would make its size about 144–180 m, with the tonnage between 1600 and 2000 tons. Pierre-Yves Manguin put it as low as 1000 tons. Muhammad Averoes calculated the size by determining its displacement first, and obtained that the Pati Unus' junk have a displacement tonnage of 5556 tons and deadweight of 2000 tons, with an LOA of 88.56 m and LOD of 80.51 m. Impressed by the Javanese's skill in shipbuilding, Albuquerque hired 60 Javanese carpenters and  shipbuilders from the Malacca shipyard and sent them to India, with the hope that these craftsmen will be able to repair Portuguese ships in India. But they never arrived in India, they rebelled and took the Portuguese ship they boarded to Pasai, where they were welcomed extraordinarily. The Portuguese employed junks in big numbers for their trade in Asia. At least 1 jong was sailed to Portugal, to be deployed as coast guard ship at Sacavem under the instruction of King John III, and as a warship in the Gibraltar Strait Fleet, the "Esquadra do Estreito". Tomé Pires in 1515  wrote that the authorities of Canton (Guangzhou) made a law that obliged foreign ships to anchor at an island off-shore. He said that the Chinese made this law about banning ships from Canton for fear of the Javanese and Malays, for it was believed that one of their junks would rout 20 Chinese junks. China had more than a thousand junks, but one ship of 400 tons could depopulate Canton, and this depopulation would bring great loss to China. The Chinese feared that the city would be taken from them, because Canton was one of China's wealthiest city . Lopo Homem-Reineis Atlas (Miller atlas) of 1519 was one of the earliest European map which depict jong. The ships were three to seven masted, with equally sharp end (the presence of stempost and sternpost), and steered using double quarter rudders. However, there are inaccuracies in the depiction. The ships were depicted with high forecastle akin to a carrack. The sail is drawn like a square sail, although the artist may have tried to depict the canted rectangular sail (the tanja sail). The arrow-like structure in the bow may have been an attempt to depict "barunastra". In 1574, queen  Kalinyamat of Jepara Sultanate attacked the Portuguese Malacca with 300 vessels under the command of Kyai Demang, which included 80 jong of 400 tons burthen and 220 kelulus, although with very little artillery and firearms. As the supplies were dwindling and the air corrupted by disease, Tristão Vaz da Veiga decided to arm a small fleet of a galley and four half-galleys and about 100 soldiers and head out to the River of Malaios, in the middle of the night. Once there, the Portuguese fleet entered the river undetected by the Javanese crews, and resorting to hand-thrown fire  bombs set fire to about 30 junks and other crafts, catching the enemy fleet entirely by surprise, and capturing ample supplies amidst the panicking Javanese. After 3-month siege, the Javanese retreated. François Pyrard of Raval (ca. 1578–1623) mentioned about a wreck of a Sundanese junk in Guradu, south Malé Atoll, Maldives. The ship was carrying all kind of spices and other merchandise from China and Sunda. On board was about 500 men, women, and children, and only 100 was saved during its sinking. The king of Maldives asserted that it was the richest ship conceivable. Pyrard thought it was  the largest ship he has ever seen, with the mast being taller and thicker than those of Portuguese carracks, and the top was much larger than those of Portugal. The Sundanese queen's parents were the owner of the junk, both were drowned in the sinking. The queen, which was only a child during the sinking, survived. The Dutch in the late 16th and early 17th centuries found that the Javanese jongs sailing in Southeast Asia were smaller than in previous centuries. Willem Lodewycksz noted that Bantenese junk had a capacity of not more than 20 "last" (40 tons). Willem  Lodewycksz's report on one of the jong he saw in Banten in 1596 reads: (Seated at the stern) were two men steering: Because (the ship) had two rudders, one on each side, not in the middle of the stern but tied to the ship with ropes (...). (These jongs) are their ships which they use to navigate the open seas to Maluku, Banda, Borneo, Sumatra, and Malacca. They have a bowsprit on the front, and near it a front mast, (and there is also) a mainmast and a mizzenmast, and from front to the back there is a structure like  a house, on which they sit protected from the heat of the sun, rain, and dew. At the stern there is a room which is only for the ship captain, (...), under it (inside the hull) is divided into small spaces where they store the cargo. They enter through the openings on either side of the ship. Decline. Anthony Reid argues that the failure of jong in battles against smaller and more agile Western ships may have convinced the Javanese shipbuilders that the large but less agile jong faced too much risk against the European style of naval battle, so the  ships they built later were smaller and faster. Since the mid-16th century the maritime forces of the archipelago began to use new types of agile naval vessels that could be equipped with larger cannons: In various attacks on Portuguese Malacca after the defeat of Pati Unus, they no longer used jong, but used lancaran, ghurab, and ghali. The jongs that plied the archipelago post-1600s were ranging of 20–200 tons deadweight, with a possible average of 100 tons, but there are still several of them ranging from 200 to 300 "lasts" burthen (about 360–400 to 540–600 metric tons burthen) in the  early 1700s. Production of djongs ended in the 1700s, perhaps because of the decision of Amangkurat I of Mataram Sultanate to destroy ships on coastal cities and close ports to prevent them from rebelling, in 1655. The disappearance of Muria strait denied the shipbuilders around Rembang-Demak access to open water. By 1677, the Batavia "Daghregister" reported that Mataram is lacking vessels on their own even for necessary use, and was very ignorant about the sea. After the 1700s, the role of the jong has been replaced by European types of ships, namely the bark and brigantine, built at local  shipyards of Rembang and Juwana (the former shipbuilding place for jong), such ships may reach 400–600 tons burthen, with the average of 92 "lasts" (165.6–184 metric tons). In 1856, John Crawfurd noted that Javanese shipbuilding activity still existed on the north coast of Java, with the shipyards supervised by Europeans, but all of the workers were Javanese. The ships that were built in the 19th century had a maximum tonnage of 50 tons and were mainly used for river transport. Replica. A small-sized replica is moored along the Marine March of Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore. In popular culture. Jong  is an Indonesian unique unit in Sid Meier's Civilization VI video game. However, the model used in-game more closely resembles a Borobudur ship than an actual jong.