BUILDING BOATS

In our first 6 days of operation it became apparent that repairing salvageable boats would be the most beneficial course of action to take while we worked on getting an operable boat yard up to speed and to secure further funding for purchasing large amounts of timber for the building ahead.

Salvaging usable wood from a destroyed boat.

We arranged to bring in the salvageable boats to make the needed repairs to get a few of the relatively fortunate fishermen back on the water as quickly as possible. Out of as many as 300 longtail boats said to have been operating in Nam Kem before the Tsunami, only 21 of the boats belonging to the small, independant fishermen have been identified as being repairable. 15 of these boats were brought to our yard and the others are waiting for Tsunami clean up work to progress enough to create a clear path to their boats so that they can be moved. Repair work began Feb 10, 2005 and repaired boats started launching on March 2.

We also received our first significant donation of cash for timber around March 2 as we approached the transition time for switching over to building new boats. With serious money in the bank account for the first time we were able to shop for large-lot pricing on timber and located a great source for boat building supplies that now brings the cost down considerably. Since we have almost no administrative costs to consume financial resources (all staff positions are volunteer positions - In fact, staff members have been some of the most regular financial contributors) we are able to produce boats at a cost that is below the cost local fishermen would usually pay for them!