Teaching carpentry and boat building
The Flipflopi carpentry and dhow-building lessons are mainly taught by traditional craftspeople.
If you want to offer similar training, it’s important to have access to well-equipped workshops and skilled experts. The topics we cover are described below.
Tools and maintenance
Even if students already have some carpentry experience, make sure they know how to safely use and look after all the tools in your workshop.
Measurements
It might seem basic, but it’s important to check that students can read and understand different types of measurements. In Kenya, both metric and imperial units are used, along with traditional units specific to dhow building. Your area might have its own local systems too.
Carpentry basics
We focus on hands-on learning in joinery, lathing, and carving. It’s helpful to split students into small groups so they can take turns using the machines and tools. Start with simple tasks, like copying a design on the lathe or measuring and cutting a basic joint.
Carving (extra)
Carving is a very traditional skill on Lamu Island carried over from generation to generation. Carving tutorial coming soon
Boatbuilding / Naval architecture
In Lamu, traditional dhows are a central part of life, so our boatbuilding lessons focus on these vessels. The content is quite specific to the dhow and its importance in the local context.
- This content is very specific to dhows and the Indian Ocean region, so you may need to adapt it to your local context.
- Covers the origins, development, types, and uses of dhows.
- Ideally taught in a local maritime museum — we partnered with the Lamu Museum to deliver this session.
- It’s a good opportunity to introduce learners to different types of boats and their parts.
Dhow – types, parts and functions
- Walk around a local boat yard and ask students to identify what type each boat is.
- Point out and name different parts of the dhow – structural, rigging, and decorative.
- If you’ve already covered this before, use it as a revision activity.
- Sketch the parts in the order they’re built and ask students to draw their own version in their notebooks.
- You can use a dhow parts poster like A1-Jahazi parts.pdf as a reference (it shows 46 parts, but there are many more!).
Dhow – building process
- Start with a basic overview of how a dhow is built – this could be shown using a simple sketch or a video (for example, we documented our canoe process in this video.
- For hands-on learning, get students to build a small dhow model if time and materials allow.
- Boatbuilders should guide them closely through each step of the process, adjusting the scale depending on what’s realistic for your training.
Materials
When you’re building a dhow from non-traditional materials, like plastic instead of wood, it’s important to understand how each material behaves. Wood, fibre, plastic and metal all respond differently to water, stress and long-term exposure to the elements. Some may flex, some may corrode, and some may become brittle over time. These differences need to be understood, tested, and built into your design – from the shape of the hull to the choice of fastenings and coatings. It’s not just about swapping one material for another – it’s about adapting your approach so the boat stays safe, strong, and seaworthy.
Design Spiral
Boats and ships are designed using a process known as the Design Spiral – a step-by-step method that has developed over many decades of shipbuilding. Rather than following a straight path, the Design Spiral is an iterative process. This means the designer revisits key decisions multiple times, gradually refining the shape, size, materials, and performance of the vessel at each stage.
At the heart of the spiral is the goal of balancing different factors – such as buoyancy, strength, speed, cost, and materials – so the final design meets both technical requirements and the needs of the people who will use it. This approach is especially useful when working with new or non-traditional materials (like recycled plastic), as it allows space to test, adapt, and improve the design as you learn more about how those materials behave under stress and in water.
Watch this informative lecture by Simon Benson, Flipflopi’s naval architect and associate lecturer at Newcastle University.
