SIBU, Dec 24: All that Patrick Gani wishes for Christmas is to be able to complete and deliver the many orders of his replica of tugboats and express boats to enthusiasts.
The order for the replica of the items keeps piling up and he is rushing against time to make them.
Hs customers come from most parts of the country which include Terengganu, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur, Limbang, Bintulu, Miri, and Kuching.
“From March until now, I have already sold off 25 replicas of tugboats and the number of orders is still increasing,” he said.
A replica of his tugboat with a size of 2ft in length costs between RM600 to RM650 while a 3ft express boat fetches RM750.
A carpenter of a furniture shop, Patrick is only in the business on a part-time basis.
“I have a 9am to 5pm job at a furniture shop. I only make them during night time from 7.30pm when I am free including weekends,” he said.
He needs to spend one month to make two tugboats.
His workshop is the car porch of his family’s home in Sungai Bidut, near here.
He has made a niche in the business just not long ago, though.
It was only during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period from March 18 to May 20, that he started to try his hands making these boats.
He felt restless with nothing to do.
One day he chanced upon an Indonesian promoting his replica of riverine crafts on Youtube.
‘The video of that Indonesian on Youtube was a good start for me. However, I could only learn the basic thing from him. I used my imagination and capitalized it with my carpentry. From many trials and errors, I finally made a breakthrough,” said Patrick,30.
His repertoire includes making landing craft and ferries.
His crafts have a 90% resemblance to the original one.
“My crafts are tailored made. Some buyers would send in the design of their boats for me to make. The other group would buy according to my design,” he added.
Patrick asserted that the price of his masterpiece is reasonable as it is not easy to make them.
Moreover, he is also using a costly solid wood imported from Austria which I bought from a shop here as material for the boats.
His customers usually go to his house to collect the boats when they are ready for fear of damage during delivery by courier service.
Looking back, Patrick feels that if not because for the MCO, he would not be in the business.
The sales of a replica of boats have provided him with a good source of extra income. -DayakDaily
