The Return of the Sewn-Plank Boat

For almost three centuries, fishing families in the coastal district of Maradel built their boats without a single nail. Instead, the planks of each hull were stitched together with cord twisted from coconut fibre, and the seams were packed with a paste of tree resin and crushed shell. The resulting vessels, known locally as tolvas, were light enough for four people to carry up a beach, yet flexible enough to bend rather than crack when they struck a sandbar. By the 1970s, however, cheap fibreglass hulls had arrived from the city, and within a generation the craft had almost vanished. When the maritime historian Ines Parvani visited the district in 2009, she found only two men still able to build a tolva, both over seventy.

Parvani's first aim was simply to record what they knew. Over eighteen months she filmed the builders at work, measured every plank and made detailed drawings of the stitching patterns. She soon realised, though, that much of the builders' skill could not be captured on paper. The tension of each stitch, for example, was judged by the sound the cord made when plucked, and neither builder could describe this in words. "A drawing tells you where the holes go," Parvani later wrote, "but not how the boat should feel in your hands."

This led to a second project. In 2012, with funding from a regional cultural foundation, the two elders agreed to take on six apprentices, all young people from local fishing families. The apprentices were not paid a wage, but they received free meals and a share of the income from any boat sold. Progress was slow: the first boat took eleven months to finish, and two apprentices left within a year to work in the nearby port. Those who stayed, however, had become skilled enough by 2016 to teach others themselves.

Demand for the boats has come from unexpected sources. Few local fishermen have returned to the tolva, since fibreglass boats require less maintenance and last longer. Instead, the main buyers have been diving schools, which value the boats because they make almost no noise in the water and do not disturb marine life, and a coastal museum that commissioned three boats for display. A small number of visitors also pay to attend week-long building courses, which provide the workshop with a steady income during the monsoon season, when fishing is impossible.

Not everyone considers the revival a success. Dr Tomas Elund, an anthropologist who has studied the district, argues that a boat built for tourists is no longer a working craft but a performance. Parvani accepts part of this criticism but points out that the building techniques themselves remain unchanged. The greater threat, she believes, is the supply of materials: the particular hardwood used for the keel now grows mainly in protected forest, and the workshop has been forced to experiment with substitutes that have not yet been tested at sea.