PEARL RIVER DELTA, China — As Wong Kin-kao stands on the deck of the traditional Chinese wooden junk he is building in Shenwan, a cluster of fish ponds and factories in the Pearl River Delta of southern China, he shouts to be heard over the shriek of metalwork from steel ships that are being worked on nearby.
中国珠江三角洲——中国南方珠江三角洲的神湾是一个鱼塘和工厂聚集的地方，为了压过附近钢船上金属加工的刺耳声音，黄球叔站在这里的一艘他正在建造的中国古老木制帆船的甲板上大声喊着。
“It’s like a piece of art,” said Mr. Wong, a bronzed 54-year-old with stony hands and a quick grin, describing what he loves about the scimitar-shaped boats with the batwing sails that he so rarely gets to build.
“它就像一件艺术品，”54岁的黄球叔说起他喜欢这个形如弯刀、帆如蝙蝠翼的木船的什么时说，他有着古铜色的健康皮肤、一双坚硬有力的手和一个快乐的笑容。如今，他很少有机会造这种船。

A native of the delta region, Mr. Wong in 1982 swam for two hours from nearby Zhuhai, on China’s mainland, to what was then the Portuguese colony of Macau to escape China’s strict Communist government. Once there he set up an early incarnation of Yi Hap Shipyard, a builder of wooden junks, which symbolize the delta and the maritime culture that drove China’s early growth.
黄球叔在珠江三角洲土生土长，1982年，为了逃脱中国共产党政府的严格控制，他从附近的中国大陆的珠海游了两个小时来到了当时是葡萄牙殖民地的澳门。到澳门后不久，他成立了一个后来成为义和船厂的造船厂，专门制造古老的木制帆船，那是珠江三角洲航海文化的象征，曾驱动了中国的早期发展。
“Not many people are hand-making wooden junks anymore,” Mr. Wong said. “I wish more people would.”
“没有多少人用手工制造这种木帆船了，”黄球叔说。“我希望能有更多的人来干这个。”
Within the next few months, the junk, the Dai Cheung Po — also known as the Aqua Luna II — will unfurl its blood-red sails above its high stern and low bow and join its smaller sister, the Cheung Po Tsai, or the Aqua Luna I, already in Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, to offer parties and dinners.
再有几个月，“大张保”号木船（英文名Aqua Luna II）的血红色的风帆将在其高船尾和低船头上撑开，驶入香港的维多利亚港，她的姊妹号“张保仔”（英文名Aqua Luna I）已经在那里提供乘船派对和晚宴服务。
It is one of a few of these traditional ships with sails being made by one of the last remaining junk builders in China.
这艘船是由中国最后的古帆船制造者建造的为数不多的传统帆船之一。
“The building tradition is more or less moribund,” said Stephen Davies, a former director of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
“造船的传统或多或少已在走向灭亡，”香港海事博物馆前馆长戴伟思(Stephen Davies)说。
Yet the style remains traditional, “insofar as they are still doing what Grandpa did, and before him,” he said.
但样子仍然是传统的，“只要他们仍按照爷爷和爷爷以前的方法去做，”他说。
The new junk is made of Southeast Asian ironwood and teak and cost about $1.3 million to build. It was commissioned by a restaurant group in Hong Kong, which lies about 50 miles east of Shenwan on the edge of the delta where the river’s silty water turns ocean blue.
新的古帆船是用东南亚铁木和柚木制造的，造价约为130万美元。这艘船是受香港一家餐饮集团委托制作的，该餐饮集团位于神湾以东约80公里的珠江三角洲边缘，珠江混浊的河水在那里流入蓝色的海洋。
Also in Hong Kong is the Dukling, a classic, red-sailed junk that dates from 1955. It sank once and was recently refurbished. Since June, its owners have offered tours of Hong Kong’s waters, reflecting how junks today are used mostly for tourism and private parties.
香港还有一艘名叫“鸭灵”(Dukling)的红帆古典帆船，这艘船是1955年造的。它曾沉没过一次，最近重新清理装修过。自去年6月起，船主已用其为游客提供香港湾游览服务，反映了如今这种帆船主要作为旅游和私人聚会场所的用途。
They are three of only a handful of junks that remain in the delta, replaced long ago by stouter wooden fishing vessels without sails, speedboats and huge container ships.
它们是仍留在珠江三角洲的少数几艘帆船中的三艘，木制帆船在很久以前就被更结实的没有帆的木制渔船、快艇和巨大的集装箱船取代了。
The 19th-century pirate Cheung Po Tsai, or Cheung Po “the Kid,” who crisscrossed the delta pillaging and later joined the Qing dynasty imperial navy, sailed a ship that looked similar to his namesakes, though its sails may have been a yellow woven bamboo, not red. The red color is largely a flourish, Mr. Davies said.
十九世纪的海盗张保仔曾在珠江三角洲出没打劫，后来他加入了大清帝国的海军，他驾驶的帆船看起来与用他名字命名的帆船差不多，虽然他的风帆可能是用竹子编织的，是黄色、而不是红色的。戴伟思说，红色船帆在很大程度上是一种夸张。
The life of the delta is partly interlaced because of junks, which were once numerous with their fanlike silhouettes, trading down into Southeast Asia and up the coast of China.
三角洲的生活由于这种帆船而部分地交织起来，这种帆船的扇形轮廓曾在这个水域很常见，它们是中国与东南亚和中国海岸贸易的主力。
The junk — the word’s origins are murky, with Chinese, Malay and Portuguese cited as influences — may have assumed its iconic, curved hull and sails about 1,000 years ago, during the Song dynasty, though written records are scarce.
这种船在英文叫junk，该词的来源不详，据说有来自中文、马来语和葡萄牙语的影响，这种帆船可能在大约一千年前的宋代，就已经有了其标志性的弯曲船身和风帆，虽然来自那时的文字记载很少。
Captivated by the junk’s beauty, David Yeo, the founder and owner of Aqua Restaurant Group, commissioned a Hong Kong master boat builder, Au Wai, to conceptualize and direct the construction of the Aqua Lunas and to work with Mr. Wong in Shenwan. The first was launched in 2006, and unlike junks of the past, both are motor-powered, and their sails are decorative.
Aqua餐饮集团的创始人和所有者David Yeo被这种帆船的优美形状迷住，他委托香港造船高手Au Wai为“大张保”和“张保仔”做概念设计，并指导它们的建造，建造工作是与神湾的黄球叔合作进行的。“张保仔”是2006年建成下水的，它们与过去的帆船不同，都是电动的，它们的风帆只是装饰而已。
“He has made more commercial junk boats than anyone else in Hong Kong. He is a master of a true art form,” Mr. Yeo said in an email. “An art form that is sadly dying out in Hong Kong today.”
“他造的商业帆船比香港的任何人都多。他是一种真正艺术形式的高手，”Yeo先生在一封电子邮件中说。“这种艺术形式正可悲地在香港消失。”
Mr. Au’s life reflects the sweep of delta geography. He is unsure where he was born but knows his father was from Guangdong Province in China, through which the Pearl River runs.
Au先生的生活反映了三角洲的地理。他不知道自己在哪里出生，但知道他的父亲来自中国广东省的珠江流域。
Known as Ah Sin — the honorific and name translate as Dear Magician, for his talent — Mr. Au, 85, grew up poor in Hong Kong.
85岁的Au先生在香港的贫困中长大，因为他的才华，人们称他为阿辛，这是一个荣誉称呼，大致译为亲爱的魔术师。
In his boatyard on Hong Kong Island, in the eastern district of Shau Kei Wan, he points to photographs of wooden ships of all kinds that he has built since being apprenticed to an uncle at the age of 13: simple “walla-walla” motorboats and corporate junks that carry some design elements of the traditional junk but without sails.
在他位于港岛东部筲箕湾的船厂，他指着各种各样木制船的照片给记者看，这些都是自从他13岁给一个叔叔当学徒以来造的：有简单的“walla-walla”号摩托艇，也有为公司造的带有某些设计元素、但没有风帆的传统木帆船。
Beyond the wood shavings, the harbor glitters in the sun. Fishing boats draw up outside to deliver their catch to the next-door Shau Kei Wan wholesale fish market.
从木刨花堆远望，海港在阳光下闪闪发光。渔船停靠在筲箕湾附近的鱼类批发市场外，把打捞来的东西卸下来。
“I was very naughty as a boy, and no one could control me,” Mr. Au said in Cantonese, the local language. Barely a teenager, he sold fish on the streets.
“我是一个非常调皮的男孩，没有人能管住我，”Au先生用当地的粤语说。刚刚十几岁时，他就开始在街上卖鱼。
“I did what I wanted. So my family said, ‘You should look for a special skill,’” he said. “An uncle was the owner of a shipyard and also a member of the ship association.”
“我只做了我想要做的。所以我的家人说，‘你应该学一种手艺，’”他说。“有个叔叔是造船厂的业主，也是船舶协会的成员。”
His son, Au Sai Kit, works with him, but because his son has no children, the family tradition will probably end there.
他的儿子Au Sai Kit和他一起工作，但由于儿子没有孩子，他家的传统可能将不再传下去。
Hardly anyone in Hong Kong is willing to do manual labor, the elder Mr. Au said, so he has to look to places like Shenwan, where he and his son travel regularly to confer with Mr. Wong and his team of workers.
Au老先生说，香港几乎没有人愿意干体力活儿，所以他不得不到像神湾那样的地方去找人，他和他的儿子定期到神湾与黄球叔和他的工人们交流。
Building a luxury junk is a labor of love, Mr. Au said.
Au先生说，造一艘豪华木帆船是一种心甘情愿做的劳动。
“We take the wood piece by piece, fit them together in a curve, measure each piece and cut it,” he said. Copper nails are used to hammer the hull together. No other metal or artificial materials are used.
“我们把木料一块一块地按照曲线拼接起来，每块都是单独测量、单独切割出来的，”他说。船体是用铜钉钉在一起的。不使用其他金属或人造材料。
It takes about a year to build a traditional junk, Mr. Wong said.
黄球叔说，造一艘古帆船需要大约一年的时间。
Once junks were made from camphor wood and pine from next-door Fujian Province, said Mr. Davies, the former museum director.
曾任博物馆馆长的戴伟思说，以前，木帆船是用来自广东邻省福建省的樟木和松木制造的。
“They were simple to build. That was the genius of the hull design,” he said.
“它们很容易造。这是这种船身设计的独到之处，”他说。
But they had flaws.
但它们也有缺点。
“The hull is only joined together by nails, so you can’t have one high sail. You need low-stress rigging,” he said. “They had to keep adding sails to make the junk sail in a straight line.”
“由于船身只是用钉子钉在一起的，所以你不能用高帆。你需要用低拉力的索具，”他说。“他们不得不添加风帆，这样才能使帆船直线行驶。”
The idea of a Chinese junk has been romanticized, Mr. Davies said.
戴伟思说，有关中国古老帆船的东西已被浪漫化了。
“Junks were brutally hard work. The grunt work — it took 14 members of crew to work the sails. It was pure sweat,” he said.
“木帆船上的工作非常辛苦。需要14名船员来操作风帆，那是力气活。纯脆是流大汗的工作，”他说。
But Mr. Davies concedes that the traditional Chinese junk remains iconic.
不过戴伟思承认，中国传统木帆船的样子是标志性的。
“That sweep down to the bow, the fan in profile, with the masts that create this beautiful arc along the top. The fully battened, standing rigging. There is just a beautiful harmony in looking at it,” he said.
“那种高船尾低船头的形状，那种扇形的轮廓，还有顶端形成一条美丽弧线的桅杆。所有的船舱门都关上、牵拉船桅和风帆的绳索拉直的样子。看着它真是一种美丽和谐的感觉，”他说。