In his fifties and with hardened facial features Hadourni stands in a large workshop at the Anfoushi shore in Bahri area (west of Alexandria) holding a wooden chainsaw as he constructs a miniature version of his life’s work.
Muhammad Mahmoud Qassem, known as Hadourni, has been manufacturing ships, fishing boats, barks and yachts for 37 years. He started at the age of fourteen and has continued until today because he loves his profession, he says.
In his fifties and with hardened facial features Hadourni stands in a large workshop at the Anfoushi shore in Bahri area (west of Alexandria) holding a wooden chainsaw as he constructs a miniature version of his life’s work.
Muhammad Mahmoud Qassem, known as Hadourni, has been manufacturing ships, fishing boats, barks and yachts for 37 years. He started at the age of fourteen and has continued until today because he loves his profession, he says.
Hadourni was raised in the same area where he works, amid the scent of the sea and amongst boatmen, fishermen and carpenters who work with him in shipbuilding.
He arrives at his workshop at seven o’clock every morning. Then he cleans the remaining timber and sawdust, sprinkles water in order to “bring forward good and blessing onto the ground” as he says, and continues working on the boats he began the previous day.
The craft
“I’m illiterate”, Hadourni says. He learned the profession from his uncle when he started working in his workshop. Hadourni fondly remembers the first boat he manufactured was when a naval officer accidentally saw him working in the workshop and admired his work, then one day he came in and requested Hadourni to make a small fishing boat for him and inquired about the cost. “Five thousand pounds”, replied Hadourni promptly, and the officer agreed. Hadourni then built a boat that impressed the officer. “This man has had a great impact on my life because he encouraged me to work and gave me the first opportunity to prove my skills”, said Hadourni.
Hadourni explains that the first step of his job is to prepare the engineering drawings, stressing that he draws them alone without any aid from experts or an engineering office. A good drawing, from his point of view, comes “by experience and art and does not need education or certificates.” The second step is to prepare the necessary materials – mostly timber and iron – to begin the execution.
He says that the use of timber alone reduces the degree of safety, thus its price is cheap, contrary to iron, which increases total cost. After that, he hires a “plumber, painter, mechanic, ironsmith, electrician and carpenter” to install various parts.
Hadourni explains that building a boat takes 6-12 months according to the owner’s resources; pointing out that the cost of a yacht starts from half a million (US $81,000) up to about 18 million Egyptian pounds (US $3 million); assuring that the cost of an iron fishing boat reaches L.E. 600 thousand (US $98,000 while the cost of a wood one reaches L.E. 130 thousand (US $21,300) and indicating that he has manufactured more than 20 boats and ships throughout his life.
A life’s work disappears
Hadourni remembers that his first daily wage was 25 piasters in addition to 10 piasters for lunch, i.e. two pounds (US $.33) a week. His income increased gradually until it reached L.E. 100 thousand ($16,300) a year, but this has changed since the revolution.
Work has almost stopped due to the confused economic situation.
The unusual recession that hit the market forces him to now manufacture small ornamental boats and sell them to tourists at L.E. 40 (US $6.50) to earn a living.
Hadourni says that a Libyan businessman had contracted him before the revolution to make a small yacht at L.E. 500 thousand (US $82,000), and the man paid him L.E. 10,000 (US $1,638) as an advance. Since the revolution, however, the Libyan has not showed up or contacted Hadourni, who says this is just one of many cases.
The future of the profession
Hadourni says there were as many as two thousand shipwrights who worked at the port before the revolution, but this number has decreased gradually to no more than one hundred.
He says that most of his colleagues were affected by the revolution, so they quit and now work now as fishermen.
“What will carpenters do after the circumstances accompanying the revolution have destroyed the profession they have been brought up in and thousands of families with them? They can only seek other jobs to make a living and raise their children”, Hadourni said worriedly.
