Originally appeared on the March 27, 2015 issue of BusinessWorld. Posted late because I only just discovered that this story came out last year. Click here for the original article and more photos
By Jennee Grace U. Rubrico
Terengganu’s understated charms
Posted on March 27, 2015
SCULPTING a section of wood that will form part of the hull of a 50-foot boat, the shipwright says that the vessel, when completed, can travel the seas for up to a century.
“It is made of cengal,” the man, whose withered face makes it difficult to ascertain his age, declares through Syed, our tour guide and translator, as he dusts off wood shavings. “Yes, (it will last) up to 100 years.”
The boat maker from Pulau Duyong (Mermaid Island) in Terengganu cannot tell us what makes cengal (pronounced che-nguhl) special. But Syed, a staff member of the local campus of Malaysian university UCSI who used to work for the tourism board, says that the hardwood, endemic to Malaysia’s forests, has been the timber of choice of the state’s shipwrights for generations.
Duyong Boatyard builds yachts and fishing boats, the shipwright says as he takes out pictures of the vessels they completed over the years. It takes a year and a half to build a big vessel, three months for a small one.
Patrons pay a premium for their work. “The price of one fishing boat is 800,000 ringgit,” Syed says, adding that a yacht can go up to 5 million ringgit. The shipwrights build the boats one at a time.
Two relatives join the boat maker at the dry dock. He mentions that the shipwrights of Terengganu build boats from memory and do not use plans. The trade, he says, was learned from their fathers and passed on to their sons.
Nowadays, orders come in trickles. The artisans say that only one other family still makes boats on the island. “They are closed right now, because they don’t have projects.”
The boat maker from Pulau Duyong (Mermaid Island) in Terengganu cannot tell us what makes cengal (pronounced che-nguhl) special. But Syed, a staff member of the local campus of Malaysian university UCSI who used to work for the tourism board, says that the hardwood, endemic to Malaysia’s forests, has been the timber of choice of the state’s shipwrights for generations.
Duyong Boatyard builds yachts and fishing boats, the shipwright says as he takes out pictures of the vessels they completed over the years. It takes a year and a half to build a big vessel, three months for a small one.
Patrons pay a premium for their work. “The price of one fishing boat is 800,000 ringgit,” Syed says, adding that a yacht can go up to 5 million ringgit. The shipwrights build the boats one at a time.
Two relatives join the boat maker at the dry dock. He mentions that the shipwrights of Terengganu build boats from memory and do not use plans. The trade, he says, was learned from their fathers and passed on to their sons.
Nowadays, orders come in trickles. The artisans say that only one other family still makes boats on the island. “They are closed right now, because they don’t have projects.”
