The sail-plan consists of elliptical sails made flat with bamboo inserts, permitting them to sail well on any point of sail. The junk is easy to sail, and reasonably fast. The rigging is very simple, because bamboo is very strong, and thus fewer ropes are needed. Classic junks were built of teak with multiple water-tight compartments, accessed by separate hatches and ladders. The largest junks were built for world exploration in the 1200s, and exceeded 150 meters in length.
Junksails have much in common with the most aerodynamically efficient sails used today in windsurfers or catamarans, although their design can be traced back as early the 3rd century CE.
Classic junks were built of teak with multiple water-tight compartments, accessed by separate hatches and ladders: similar in structure to the interior stem of bamboo.
In 1661, a naval fleet of 400 junks and 25.000 men led by the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (Cheng Ch'eng-kung in Wade-Giles, known in the West as Koxinga), arrived in Taiwan to oust the Dutch from Zeelandia.
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