KSSS has been undertaking several worthy and laudable programmes to help the fishermen who have been destined to earn their livelihood by venturing into the perilous sea. During the earlier periods, most of the fishermen used outdated and old technologies for fishing which did not bring them a good harvest of fish. With a view to providing upgraded modern fishing technology to the small scale fishermen, KSSS established the Boat Building Centre in the coastal village of Muttom. The most successful activity of the Boat Building Centre was its plywood boat project. The Centre successfully introduced the marine plywood boats with “stitch and glue” technique, which helped the Centre to earn reputation among fishermen. The introduction and spread of marine plywood boats among the artisan fishermen was acknowledged as one of the most successful attempts at transfer of technology in the artisan fisheries sector. This was not an isolated attempt in technology transfer, but was part of a larger process of intervention among the artisan fishermen.

Objectives of the Boat Building Centre

• To provide technical assistance to fishermen on offshore fishing
• To manufacture and supply good quality fishing boats to fishermen at reasonable prices
• To undertake research to upgrade the fishing gears of fishermen

Research and Development
The Boat Building Centre has been continually working on new boat models. The plywood model boats introduced by the Centre required higher maintenance cost. Even a small leak in the hull will require removal of the deck resulting in very high cost of maintenance. Through its continuous research, the Centre found out the advantages of introducing the FRP version of fibre glass boats. The Centre has eventually replaced the plywood as the building material by fibre glass due to the following advantages.

• Fibre glass boats are light weight and easy to handle in beach landing
• It is faster and reduces fuel expense considerably
• The boat is much stable in water and less slamming and reduces maintenance cost
• It is much safer when operated in deep water and also suitable for off-shore water with higher load carrying capacity.
• These boats provide a good platform for a wide variety of gears, live-bait tank and on board preservation of catch with ice box, which contributes higher income to fishermen.
• The fibre glass boats need much lesser maintenance cost as patch work was easier to undertake.

The fiber glass boats are well received by the fishermen.

Challenges

• Over a period of time several boat building units have surfaced and there is tough competition among them
• The Boat Building Centre has not been able to upgrade its capacity in tune with the market demand due to lack of resources.