Glimpses of Traditional Boatbuilding in Goa (Part II) by Johan Roque
Chapora
Chapora is a small village on the northern coast of Goa, well hidden under the tall palm-trees. A small asphalted road brought me and my hired Vespa to the fishing harbour of Chapora. It laid far in a creek, well protected from the waves of the open sea. Against the modern quay and further out in the creek, modern fishing boats were moored and anchored together with simple dugouts and small wooden boats. Since the quay was not large enough to receive all the bigger boats, the dugouts and the smaller boats were used as a transport method to get from the shore out to the ships that were anchored in deeper water. Once again, a mixture of old traditions and modernism. The natural creek was still not suitable for deep-going ships and the use of dugouts was therefore still essential.
Within a stone's throw from the quay, on the beach, a large amount of fishing boats had been pulled up to be repaired, stripped or abandoned. Here, there and everywhere on the beach, one could see dugouts, plankboats of different shape and size and bigger motorised fishing boats. Some of them had been totally stripped of and laid there exposed to the sun, like skeletons in the desert, with cracked keels, bottom frames and stems. The boats that were waiting to be repaired or saved for their still usable wooden parts, had been raised up and sheltered with the help from logs and woven palm-tree leaves. Dispersed on the beach, one could also see pieces of wood, splinters, nails, stains of spilled tar, fruit waste and logs of different sizes. A few holy cows walked freely on the beach looking for edible stuffs thrown by the boat builders.
In the middle of this seemingly sad boatyard, a group of boatbuilders were cheering up the dark atmosphere by building a brand new fishing boat. The shining light-brown wooden colour of the future boat was enchanting. I went there and introduced a discussion with three boatbuilders, sitting on the ground near the ship, carving a large amount of new wooden tree-nails. I tried to find out about the different materials they used for building a boat, but because of their limited knowledge in English, the answers were very brief and sometimes incomprehensible. I went on my own among the boats to look for interesting ethnographic details. Anyway, the scarce information the boatbuilders succeeded to reveal says that they were using any kind of wood available for the building of this ship. Mango tree was one of them. The packing material was tar mixed with some kind of wool. The bottom hull of the ship and some strakes had been recycled from an older unseaworthy ship. Otherwise, the timbers were sawn and carved by hand and the planks fastened with large iron screw-bolts.
While walking around on the boatyard, I tried to find some outriggers like the ones mentioned above. I didn't find any, and hoped that the boatyard at Betim would reveal some. Here in Chapora, mainly modern motorised fishing boats were built and repaired. But, except the many dugouts laying around, there was an interesting wooden boat that must have been build according to old traditional methods. It was an open and a bit worn out plankboat. It was about ten meters long, the planks had been sewn up by lashing and the sewing hole plugged in with tree-nails. The boat was entirely built in sewing technique and had upright stems, fore and aft.
by Johan Roque MA student at the University of Southampton http://www.abc.se/~m10354/bld/goa.htm
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