I once learned about a very ancient boat that was made with layers with wooden pegs that pegged the layers together so that when the pegs expanded when wet they secured the layers together even better. The boat was wonderfully sea worthy and would last for much longer than ships built after it. I tried to search on the web for info about the technique and ship but can’t find anything about it.
http://www.orrvweb.com/wp-content/uploads/WhitePaper/Philippinestradingships.pdf
To save you time, scroll to p. 260 of the pdf