Coracora – 8th Century Bas Relief in Borobudor, Indonesia China Sea? The answer is the outrigger sailboat - called balangay in the Philippines, vaka in Hawaii, vawaka in Polynesia, and vahoaka in Madagascar. Prof. Adrian Horridge, in his paper The Austronesian Conquest of the Sea – Upwind (The Austronesians The built-up dug-out or planked canoe with an outrigger and sail has been the principal technology for survival and colonization for the sea-going peoples who spread over Island this from the present and presumed past distributions and structures of the canoes. With the ago and onwards into Polynesia. xxx. cargo and trading. The average size of the balangay was 15 meters in length and 3 to 4 meters in width, propelled by buri or nipa to India and Sri Lanka, and perhaps even as far as the coast of Africa in boats with outriggers.” Austronesians from the Moluccas started the spice trade with India and Africa more than 1,700 years before the Portuguese reached the Moluccas. 19. We know from the noted Chinese scholar during the Yuan Dynasty, Ma Tuan-lin, that in 982 AD the early Filipinos were already travelling to Canton to trade. In his book A General Investigation of the Chinese Cultural Sources, Ma Tuan-lin wrote about traders from the Philippines, which the Chinese at that time called Mo-yi or Ma-i. Ma Tuan-lin stated in his book, published in 1322 during the Yuan Dynasty and republished in 1935 in There were traders of the country of Mo-yi carrying merchandise to the coast of Canton [for sale] in the seventh year of Tai-ping-shing-kuo [of the Sung Dynasty, that is 982 AD]. § 7.