When Diego Riveros arrived in the Mentawais 17 years ago to start a surf camp, he immediately identified a major flaw in the business model prevailing around the islands. The primary mode of transportation was – and largely still is – wooden boats sourced from the archipelago’s gigantic, centuries-old trees. But the wood that takes hundreds of years to grow in the islands’ forests, only produces a boat that lasts several years before another ancient tree must be felled to build another.
According to Riveros, a 45-year-old Colombian national who married a Mentawai local and founded Mentawai Surf Camp, the situation has grown more dire in recent years. The southern and middle islands in the chain are running out of trees large enough to produce such canoes and are now turning towards the larger, northern island of Siberut for their lumber, where such trees are also becoming more scarce.
“If you go into the village and start asking people, they’ll tell you how things have changed,” said Riveros. “Before it was easy to find a boat. Now it’s hard. Before it was easy to buy a big tree. Now you have to go deeper into the forest.”
“I was absolutely devastated by how they were using these wooden canoes,” continued Riveros. “I was learning everything about how they use the wood, the coral, and the sand (for construction). I thought, no way this is happening. But it’s normal here because there is no other alternative. There are no programs to regenerate forests and the number of land camps, resorts, and Airbnb properties is rapidly increasing.”
Riveros notes that the boats are the lifeline to a surf camp and financial success or failure can hinge on their upkeep. A dugout canoe quickly degrades due to oxidation, abrasion, and termites, resulting in a shelf life of just three to five years on average. Discarded boats can be found scattered around the island chain, rotting away on the paradisiacal beaches.
However, Riveros, using the same entrepreneurial attitude that landed him on his feet in the Mentawais 17 years ago, is brainstorming and implementing a potential solution: locally-built fiberglass boats.
Through years of R&D with his local crew and business partner, Riveros’ team was able to create the first high-quality fiberglass boats produced on the islands. The first batch of three 6.4-meter boats was already sold and delivered to Kandui Resort.
The cost of a fiberglass boat is at least double that of the locally sourced wood canoes, but, according to Riveros and his clients, the longevity and sustainability of the fiberglass boats make it the superior decision both financially and environmentally.
“We sold the first boat to the owner of Kandui Resort as his personal boat and he was absolutely amazed,” said Riveros. “It changed his life. He immediately told the resort to buy the next two boats. They started measuring the data and even after one week they realized the (reduced) petrol consumption and everything was already a go. So all that money that you’re saving on petrol, you can actually put into something different. You start making your camp more sustainable, especially because those boats are actually going to last a lot longer.”
The price of a fully built wooden boat, depending on if you are getting the local or foreigner price, roughly goes for the equivalent of USD $4,900. The first batch of 6.4-meter fiberglass boats, which take 25 to 30 days to produce by Riveros’ team, were sold for USD $9,800. If properly maintained (a service Riveros’ team also plans to offer clients), the fiberglass boats should last for 20 to 30 years, as opposed to the three to five years the wooden boats last on average. The lighter build also leads to, as he mentioned, improved fuel efficiency. And there is the added bonus of design that prevents flooding during heavy rains. A common problem that surf resorts have faced in the Mentawais is torrential rain that lowers boats down in the water and floods the engines.
Riveros’ team is currently working on producing a larger model fiberglass boat that is nine to 10 meters long, which he estimates will sell for around USD $25,000.
The concept of using fiberglass boats in the Mentawais is not entirely a novel idea. There are foreigners who purchase fiberglass boats in the nation’s capital, Jakarta, and bring them to the barrier islands. But that doesn’t benefit the local economy, which is one of Riveros’ main selling points in establishing a Mentawai production facility.
Riveros thinks that the locals adopting the boats will be key to their increased use. He hopes that once the locals try them out for a few months and vouch that they are durable and can handle storms, that other locals and surf camps around the islands will adopt them as well.
Riveros’ has a conviction that the fiberglass boat business will take off and change the island. And it’s clear to see where his confidence and dedication comes from: with three children of his own, all of whom have Mentawai heritage, he has an especially vested interest in the long-term sustainability and health of the islands’ ecosystems.
“I’ve been working on alternatives for years to offer a choice that no one was offering,” concluded Riveros. “And the reason I do this is that my kids have grown up here in the village of Peipei, attended school here, and surfed with many guests from our camp and other camps. I would like to make the best decisions for their futures by adding a choice to be able to own safe, fast, and durable boats here in the Mentawais.”