The Fat Canoe by John Welsford. Text and images courtesy of ABET Designed for 5hp, with a sail for reaching and running and narrow enough to paddle the prototype was sponsored by the McLean Shire Council in Australia. The people chosen by the UN Fisheries and agriculture officer as recipients had come close to starving without the boats that were their means of providing for the village (these had been destroyed by armed militia during the conflict in Timor). There are no seabirds in East Timor, all of the eggs for several generations had been eaten, there are no small animals, no edible plants left and no shellfish. All eaten. While for lack of a boat and fishing equipment, an ocean teeming with fish could not be harvested.      Mark III Mk 1 was designed for a 5ph motor, Mk11 was for a 10 hp motor and that was altered further to produce a Mk111 suited to a 15hp motor. There were several hundred 15 HP short shaft Yamaha outboards in a UN store somewhere and all of those were commandeered for the program. An Australian sponsored boatbuilding school has turned out dozens of these simple workhorses, and more importantly they have trained quite a team of locals who can build a whole lot more. They can be found all around the coast, and they are worked night and day by teams of villagers who own and operate them on a share basis. She will carry more load, faster on less horsepower than anything that I have ever seen. She is stable enough to stand up in, has enough capacity for a pile of people or gear, and is still light enough to be manhandled. The East Timorese use these boats to chase Tuna many miles offshore in the tradewinds swells as well as inshore fishing. The design is particularly suited to estuaries and swamps, tidal flats and inlets. Shallow places and fast currents, beaches and sandbars where the shallow boat with her protected motor will perform at her best.

			Mark I on trial (5hp model)

			Neo-Curragh - Emergency Fabric Covered Boats Over 250 of these rapid assembly kit boats were built and used after hurricane damage in the Caribbean and South America. The concept is not intended to be used as a long term solution for fishermen but rather as the ideal boat to have stored ready for deployment after either hurricanes or tsunamis cause the loss of large numbers of existing boats. The design is very cheap and quick to build and needs very little power to drive it. When inverted on the beach the light weight hull can provide a family with basic shelter although this aspect of the design is not likely to be of much importance in the Mentawais. Fabric canoes are proven technology popular in Northern Europe, Russia and North America where portage is important. In the Mentawais this kind of boat could be stored in kit form on ridge top emergency bases ready for deployment post tsunami. This would enable communities to mount rescue missions in the critical hours after a tsunami to retrieve victims who were isolated or washed out to sea. The boats would later give the communities some autonomy to be able to bring the injured to larger towns where they could then secure aid supplies and return to their villages. This kind of self sufficiency is more likely to save lives in the critical hours and days after a large tsunami than much more expensive and slower moving aid by NGOs or the military.

			Ply 'Vallam' or 'Houri' Another new boat design constructed by stitch-and-glue methods is the ply vallam (figure 1.10). Traditional vallams are dugouts made from large mango trees. Having narrow hulls with limited stability, they are almost impossible to sail windward except in very light winds. Ply vallams are wider at the gunwale than traditional boats and have increased stability. This permits the fishermen to sail in any direction with increased safety, thus boosting their fishing potential. Cheaper than the traditional craft, it has been well accepted by fishermen. Many ply vallams are now in service at Quilon, Kerala State, South India.