On the seaward edge of Lamu Island, past the donkey paths and coral-stone alleys of the old town, a scatter of open-air boatyards has been turning raw mangrove poles and imported timber into working sailing vessels for well over a century. Matondoni, a small village a short boat ride from Lamu Town, remains one of the last places on the East African coast where dhow building survives as a living, hands-on craft rather than a museum display, carried forward almost entirely by memory rather than written plans.
The Bajuni Boatbuilders of Matondoni
Dhow building at Matondoni has historically been the domain of the Bajuni, a coastal community native to the Lamu archipelago with deep roots in seafaring and boat construction. Skills here pass from master craftsman to apprentice over years of hands-on work rather than through any formal schooling, and it isn’t unusual for a builder to have spent decades in the trade before being considered a genuine master, known locally as a fundi wa dhow. That apprenticeship model has kept the craft alive through generations even as motorised transport and imported fibreglass boats have chipped away at demand for traditional wooden vessels elsewhere along the coast.
Watching a boat come together at Matondoni makes clear just how much of the process still depends on memorised knowledge rather than documentation. Builders work without written plans or technical drawings, relying instead on measurements carried in the hand and eye, a method that produces boats as structurally sound as any built from a blueprint, provided the builder has genuinely mastered the craft. A single vessel can take months of steady work to complete, built slowly, piece by piece, with a level of care that reflects both the technical difficulty of the work and its cultural weight within the community.
From Apprentice to Master
Becoming a recognised fundi wa dhow is a slow process built on years of supervised work rather than a fixed course of study. Apprentices typically start with basic tasks, sourcing and shaping timber, learning to read the grain and strength of different woods, before gradually taking on more complex joinery and hull-shaping work under a master’s direct supervision. Only after years of this graduated responsibility does a builder earn the trust to lead construction of a boat from start to finish, a system that has preserved remarkably consistent standards of craftsmanship across generations without any centralised training institution behind it.
From Mtepe to Jahazi: A Changing Tradition
The dhow-building tradition on this stretch of coast has itself evolved considerably over the centuries. Early Swahili sailing vessels, known as mtepe, were built entirely without nails, their wooden planks stitched together with coir rope in a construction method that dates back centuries and reflected both available materials and the trading networks that supplied them. As the East African coast’s maritime economy grew more demanding, requiring sturdier, more durable vessels capable of longer voyages and heavier cargo, the jahazi gradually overtook the mtepe as the dominant vessel type, built with nailed rather than stitched construction and generally larger and stronger as a result.
Today, the vessels built at Matondoni and similar yards along the coast are mostly jahazi and smaller mashua fishing boats, both descendants of that shift toward nailed, more robust construction. True mtepe-style stitched boats have all but disappeared from active use, surviving mainly in historical accounts and the occasional museum piece, though the underlying philosophy of building by hand, by memory, and according to inherited technique has carried through largely unchanged from one boat type to the next.
Materials: Mangrove, Teak, and Imported Timber
Wood choice matters enormously in dhow construction, and builders at Matondoni draw on both local and imported materials depending on the part of the vessel being built. Mangrove poles, harvested from the extensive mangrove forests that line much of the Lamu archipelago’s coastline, have traditionally supplied structural timber for smaller components, while larger hull pieces and decking often rely on teak and other hardwoods imported from further afield, prized for their strength and resistance to the marine environment. Because mangrove harvesting carries real environmental consequences for coastal ecosystems, some builders have shifted toward greater reliance on sustainably sourced or imported hardwood in recent years, balancing the tradition’s material needs against the ecological pressures facing the archipelago’s mangrove stands.
Visiting a Working Boatyard
For travellers interested in seeing the craft firsthand, a boat trip to Matondoni from Lamu Town is one of the more rewarding half-day excursions available on the island, typically arranged through a local guide or boat operator. Visitors can walk the open-air yards where hulls in various stages of construction sit propped on wooden supports, watch builders at work shaping timber by hand, and, depending on the day, see a completed vessel being prepared for its first launch into the channel.
Because Matondoni remains a genuinely working village rather than a staged tourist attraction, visits work best with a bit of the same respect owed to any working craft environment: asking before photographing individuals at close range, avoiding stepping into active work areas without invitation, and recognising that a finished boat represents months of a builder’s livelihood rather than a simple curiosity. Many visitors combine the boatyard visit with a broader look at Lamu’s Swahili heritage; our guide to Lamu Island as Kenya’s Swahili cultural gem covers the wider old town and its UNESCO-listed architecture for travellers building a fuller itinerary around the island’s history.
Buying or Commissioning a Model Dhow
Alongside full-sized vessels, several builders at Matondoni and in Lamu Town itself produce smaller scale model dhows, built with the same attention to proportion and detail as their full-sized counterparts, sold as souvenirs to visitors interested in taking home a genuine piece of the craft rather than a mass-produced curio. Buying directly from a builder or a recognised local workshop, rather than a generic souvenir shop, ensures the money reaches the same community keeping the tradition alive, and it’s often possible to watch a model being finished during the same visit that produced it.
Tools and Techniques Passed Down by Hand
The toolkit used at Matondoni has changed relatively little over the decades, and much of what makes the craft distinctive lies in how few concessions it has made to modern boatbuilding technology. Adzes, hand saws, and simple measuring tools remain the core equipment, and shaping a hull plank to the correct curve is still done by eye and feel rather than with powered machinery. This reliance on hand tools isn’t a matter of the village lacking access to modern equipment so much as a genuine preference for methods that give builders precise, direct control over every cut and joint, something many fundi consider essential to producing a hull that will hold up to years of use in open water.
Caulking, the process of sealing the gaps between hull planks to keep a vessel watertight, remains one of the more specialised skills within the trade, traditionally done using natural fibre packed tightly into seams and sealed with a waterproofing compound. Getting this step right is what separates a boat that will serve a fishing family reliably for years from one that leaks and fails early, and it’s often one of the last skills an apprentice is trusted to handle independently, after years of proving competence in the less consequential stages of construction.
Dhow Culture Beyond the Boatyard
Dhows built at Matondoni don’t simply disappear into private use once launched; they remain a visible, active part of daily life across the Lamu archipelago, ferrying goods, fishing crews, and passengers between islands much as they have for generations. The Lamu Cultural Festival, held annually in the old town, includes dhow races that draw crews from across the archipelago, turning vessels built in yards like Matondoni into genuine competitive craft for a few days each year and giving builders a public showcase for boats they otherwise construct largely out of public view. For visitors whose trip aligns with the festival calendar, watching these races offers a rare chance to see locally built dhows pushed to their performance limits, sails full and crews working in close coordination, a different kind of spectacle from the quiet, methodical work of the boatyard itself.
Why the Tradition Still Matters
Dhow building persists at Matondoni not because it’s the most efficient way to build a boat in the twenty-first century, but because the craft remains genuinely embedded in the identity and economy of the community that practices it. Fishing families along the archipelago still rely on locally built mashua and jahazi for their daily livelihoods, and the skills involved represent a direct, unbroken link to centuries of Swahili coastal trade and seafaring that shaped Lamu long before tourism arrived. For visitors, a stop at one of these boatyards offers something increasingly rare on the East African coast: a chance to watch a genuinely old craft practiced exactly as it has been for generations, by people for whom it remains a living trade rather than a historical re-enactment.
Combined with Lamu’s dhow-based sailing routes and its wider Swahili architectural heritage, a visit to Matondoni rounds out a picture of the archipelago that goes well beyond its beaches and old-town alleys, connecting the boats still seen crossing the channel each day to the hands and workshops that built them.
