THE masulas are a family of boats now used exclusively for fishing. Masula seems to be a European term for the sewn boat of India's east coast, which is known as padagu in Tamil and padava in Telugu. The European name may have originated from the town of Masulipatnam, now known as Machilipatnam.

Masulas are old-fashioned fishing boats stitched together with coir rope. Flat-bottomed and finely sterned, the boat is built without frames and the sides are held together by crossbeams. Metal fastenings simply join stem and stern posts or strengthen the rail to the gunwale. Otherwise, the entire boat is fastened with coir rope.

There are three types of masulas -- the Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa types. They are very similar, with only minor structural and rowing variations. The Andhra Pradesh masula has a more pronounced keel and one type is equipped with a sail.

But the practice of sewing planks for the boats is common all along the coast. Planks are bound tightly, with wadding under the rope. When the wadding gets wet, it expands, forcing the planks tighter together. Sewing the planks enables the boats to be dismantled during the monsoon.

The actual sewing, with a doubled coir rope and a large blunt needle, is done by two people. Sewing patterns differ and both the single web and the double web are employed. The crisscross method to hold down fibre is exclusive to Indian sewn boat-building techniques.

Eric Kentley, the curator of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, says that the masulas are used principally for shooting a beach seining net. Though beach seining is simple, it is labour intensive. The boat is launched and rowed in a large semi-circle while the net is shot. The boat is in the water for only half an hour, but the entire operation takes about three hours and as many as 30 people are required to haul in the net. The overall fish catch, too, is small.

As a family of boats, the masula displays both advancement and degradation. With the decline of beach seining, the boat has virtually disappeared from the traditional seawaters like Machilipatnam. Yet Andhra Pradesh has developed a small masula that might still be floating around after all the seiners have gone.