Starter Kit. Idea 39 of 500. Cluster 2
Watch an oruwa, the outrigger fishing canoe, being built by hand, then go out in one at dawn
The mechanism, from the book
The craft cannot be copied and the object can. In Europe people queue to watch glass being blown and then buy the glass.
The first step
Find a boatbuilder who still makes the oruwa by hand and a fisherman who would take visitors out at dawn. Agree a fee for each, and a safe limit on how many go in the canoe. Offer a trial to the guests of a nearby guesthouse: the building in the afternoon, the sea at first light. Paid bookings, and guests who come back to see the canoe finished, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- A visitor at a beach guesthouse who wants to see how the fishing canoes are made, and to go out in one.
- What leaves today
- The boatbuilder's craft earns only from the fishing fleet; visitors who pay to watch and to sail turn it into a second living.
Ask first
- Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. Ask whether a fishing canoe may take paying visitors to sea, and what it needs.
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a canoe trip for visitors must register as a tourist service.
Check before you spend
Confirm the canoe may carry paying passengers, life jackets for everyone, a check of the sea before each trip, and insurance for visitors.
Find out these three numbers
- What would a visitor pay to watch the building and go out at dawn?
- How many people can the canoe carry safely?
- How long does it take to build one oruwa?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"The next day there is a cooking course, or a batik workshop"
Each experience like this one is another reason for the visitor to stay a day longer.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.