KARACHI: In cold cloudy weather I entered the fish harbor area, everyone seemed busy in their work, someone was busy making fishnet while others were ready in their boats to leave for fishing in the sea. Like many other workers, a 45 years old Abdul Sattar was also busy building a boat at the boat building yard in Ibrahim Hyderi.
Ibrahim Hyderi is an old fishing harbor on the coastal area near Karachi, with a population of approximately 150,000 people.
“The world has gone on fiber and fiber boat is easily available at a low rate, but the wooden boat is still a favorite in our region”, said Abdul Sattar.
“It takes more than 3 months to complete a wooden boat, at least 6 artisans and helpers work on a single boat”, Sattar added.
He further said that boats ranging from 23 to 36 feet cost from Rs2m to Rs5m. A single worker earns more than 800 rupees per day.
These Pakistan-made wooden boats are also exported to Iran and other countries, it requires a lot of effort and great efficiency to build a boat and also have the pressure of deadlines”, said Muhammad Umer, another boat builder.
These boat builders are experts in their work, wooden boat building work has great demand locally and abroad.
The modern technology and machinery had made easy work for them, they can easily work with the help of new electrical wood cutting machines.
Workers have memorized their methods of boat building, they do not have need of any pictures, graphs or specific frames.
According to data collected from Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum (PFFF), there are 700 to 800 workers working on wooden boat building.
The writer is a freelance multimedia journalist. He covers politics, social, environmental issues and feature stories. He tweets @RanaMalhiRM and can be reached at [email protected]