ZAKARIA THE BOAT BUILDER of RAI COAST

 

THE BOAT BUILDING EXPERIENCE of A SIMPLE VILLAGER

Zakaria Sendy (seated) with his family.

The front page of September 13, 1967 (copyright Post-Courier)

 

by BIG PAT

Searching into the past is timeless and expansive.

It can be mindboggling and exhaustive. The seamless march of time wanes memories, but if you are a history buff, therein lies the challenge of reliving a past memory.

Sharing these past events stimulates our memories and endears us with hopes of lessons to be learnt and hopefully, for the good of our country, ideas that can be reactivated.

At Papua New Guinea’s #1 newspaper, we are quite fortunate. Our library and archives dates back to the 1950s, a treasure trove of news, legends, anecdotes, yarns and pictorial happenings in colonial Papua and New Guinea up to modern day PNG.

Christmas 2020, on a beachfront of the hamlet of Malalamai on the Rai Coast of Madang province, a family gathered to celebrate the season.

The grand celebrant was an old salt named Zakaria Sendy. Now 87 years old, age may have wearied him, but not his memory. Like any old sailor, Zakaria still recalls the exuberance of his youth and relishes the days when hard work was the forte of the young men of Papua and New Guinea.

The days when respect and reverence for rigid work was foremost and when discipline moulded man who had very little education, but who had the resolve to learn, and turned them into leaders in their community.

Zakaria was one such man who underwent transformation from a simple villager to a master boat builder.

The front page of the South Pacific Post of Wednesday, September 13, 1967 appeared anything short of extraordinary.

It strutted its usual 5 story load. The difference was the front-page picture which showed a youthful young man from the Rai Coast etched in a happy smile, a builder’s pencil snuck behind his left ear.

His typical 'New Guinea' crew cut told of a man who was aware of his origins and knew where he was headed.

This was Zakaria Sendy’s moment of truth as a budding boat builder, perhaps the first Rai Coast man to assemble a modern six-ton motor launch.

A Lutheran Church faithful, Zakaria had been picked from obscurity by the chief engineer of Luships, The Lutheran Church owned and operated shipping firm, to undergo a 27 months boat building training course in Malaita in what is now Solomon Islands.

For a lapun, he still has great strength and zest for life. I was amazed by his enthusiasm for boats and his amazing memory. He knew dates, places and names of his friends.

“It was March 13, 1963 when I left Madang for Lae on a plane,” he told me. “There were five of us, myself, Bode Yagi from West Papua, Loloma Davis from Misima, Lolo Latumona from Panaeati and Michael Varpik from New Guinea Islands,” he recalled.

“We went to a boat building school in Malaita where we learnt to build wooden boats.”

Back in the fifties and sixties, churches like the Lutheran, Catholic and Methodists, were expanding their missions and were investing heavily on sea transport.

These missions needed young energetic men who could build seaworthy boats and crew these on missions into the remote islands and yet to be explored parts of the country.

That’s where the Lutheran Mission found a purpose for Zakaria, enrolling him at the Baitabag Technical School before sending him on a South Pacific Commission sponsored training course in the Solomon Islands.

On return Zakaria took on his tasks diligently and with great purpose.

“I had three young men as assistants, Luship ensured that I got all the wood needed to build and we got our accessories from Australia," he remembers. "I spent 20 years with Luship and I must have built well over 12 boats, these were all sold to locals."

The South Pacific Post newspaper noted on its front-page article that Zakaria's first boat was worth A$6,500. In today's PNG Kina, that would be about K17,300.

It was driven by a 26 horsepower Yanmar diesel engine. Except for the engine, everything was wood.

Sitting on the beach on Christmas Day, Zakaria pondered what were certainly challenging, fruitful days. Looking out to sea, he wondered where the locally built boats have gone.

"Nowadays, we have only fibreglass boats, I don't see any locally built timber boats," he recalled with great sadness.

"The boatbuilding industry is gone, it is sad that the government has neglected this once thriving industry which supported the coastal, island and the river people.

"Boats built by us were the lifeline for many remote island communities."

Old Zakaria says if the government is serious about the unemployment problem among youths, it should resurrect boatbuilding as part of vocational and technical training.

"We have too many young people, school leavers, dropouts, graduates with no jobs walking the streets, doing nothing useful, we need to harness them and make them useful," he said.

"We have so many forests that are being stolen by foreign loggers, we should cut our own trees and build boats. It is hard work but how else are you going to keep the youths occupied.

"Karkar Island, Long Island, Umboi, they need seaworthy boats, Manus islands needs work boats, Wuvulu needs boats, Milne Bay used to build a lot of boats, New Ireland and Bougainville, these people are suffering because no boats to serve Nissan Islands, Mortlock Islands.

"Government must introduce boat building as a separate technical and vocational course."

Indeed, wise words of a seasoned old boat man.