FeaTURe
BY aNT WIllIaMS
Aluminium for Africa?
There is a growing awareness of the environmental impacts of products used by boaters and
especially those in the safari industry. Aluminium can be considered a “green” product.
M
y quest over the last few months to acquire a new boat has
led in all sorts of directions. I touched on it briefly in the
Editor’s Comment of the last issue, weighing the pro’s and
con’s of big and complicated versus basic and simple. Fond memories
of a particular little 10' boat I once owned nudged my mind in new
directions and I wrote “It was ugly, and had a long pointy nose that
made fishing two people for any period decidedly uncomfortable. A
little hand-control bass motor and single light car battery were all the
accessories needed, and quite adequate for its intended use.” I had
actually bought the boat simply to acquire the trailer which I had
other uses for. But the boat was so simple and easy to use, we spent
many rewarding hours on little dams a few minutes from home eking
out the last light from summer afternoons. As I remembered in that
Editorial “... it was all made possible by that little boat, its simplicity
and need of little more than to be dragged from the garage and taken
fishing every now and again, made it more valuable than I realised
back then.”
As with all things, there are other considerations. Size equals
weight, which means the need for adequate power to drive it. Bigger
trailers, more maintenance - the balancing act begins. My recent
wonderings through Botswana and Namibia really opened my eyes
to a new world of boating. Aluminium construction is not something
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we see much of in my home country of Zimbabwe. A vibrant and
long established fibreglass manufacturing industry almost precludes
aluminium boats. But in Namibia and more so Botswana aluminium
seems to be the material of choice