Today I came upon an interesting post and some great pictures courtesy of the blog VazahaGasy and author Ruth Frost. The post outlines the author’s experience watching the building of a traditional Malagasy fishing boat. It is a quick read,clearly an interested,observant,non-boatbuilder’s take on the process. No matter –she gives a sense of construction techniques,materials,and dimensions. Most importantly,then,she takes lots of photos. Bravo!

View a full slide show of the building process or a slide show of the launching (which looks like a fascinating communal exercise). I think the end-result is a fairly handsome boat (great paint job),though it looks like what was once a sailing craft is now destined for an outboard. Practical,but I’d like to see how these were rigged.
Location:Antsiranana,Madagascar
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Thanks for picking up my post.
To clarify –the boat is designed for sail and outboard (up to 40hp). I will update post in next couple of days to show with both attached. I am an interested observer because the boat builder is my partner –and I was out on the boat yesterday using just the sail and she handled beautifully.
Post now updated (on http://vazahagasy.wordpress.com) to show finished boat with sail. Follow links to boat building photos to see the boat in action under sail but with motor attached.
[...] – the rig Posted on December 5th,2007 Thanks to Ruth from the blog VazahaGasy for picking up my last post on her partner’s building of a traditional Malagasy fishing boat. She updated her pictures to include a few of the boat under [...]