The world’s most commonly used boat–reinvented.

 The most fundamental boating requirement in the world, analysed, reevaluated, reimagined, reengineered, prototyped, tested, and refined: E-Wave introduces Wimbi. 

at working boats for fishing and transportation around the world, we always come across boats of an almost identical design. Be it in the Amazon basin, on the African lakes, on the Indian subcontinent or in East Asia – we see slim boats between 8 and 12 meters long, just about 2 meters wide and with a shallow draught. They carry up to 16 people or up to 2 tons of weight. In purely statistical terms, with estimates of over a million worldwide, this fleet of boat is probably the most common and most important means of transportation on the water.

The owners of the boats are people at the lower end of the income pyramid, whose boats are almost always their only source of income and therefore their livelihood. In developing countries, they are indispensable for fishing, transporting people and goods and connecting remote places. The importance of these boats goes beyond their immediate function. For their owners, they are a symbol of self-sufficiency and a connection to their natural habitats – without them, life on the water would be inconceivable.

And yet many of these boats are unsuitable for their intended purpose, as they are not seaworthy in the traditional sense. They are often built from inferior materials and offer hardly any safety in an emergency. Because their users often work in extreme conditions the number of casualties is high – but because they are in underdeveloped areas they are not included in any statistics.

The fishermen’s adherence to traditional boats is not a demand to preserve cherished traditions; rather, it is due to the lack of innovative and affordable alternatives. They are excluded from a boat as a professional and secure workplace, as is common in the industrialized world. Price also plays a significant role in this.

And yet, for decades, no professional approach has been taken to fundamentally analyze and optimize what is probably the most common type of boat in the world from a boatbuilding and economic point of view.

E-Wave GmbH, think tank based in Markt Schwaben / Bavaria, recognized and addressed this problem several years ago as part of their activities in East Africa. A study by E-Wave, which was co-financed by DEG, showed that on the Great African Lakes alone, more than 150,000 traditionally built wooden boats are mainly operated by fishermen – more than fifty-thousand on Lake Victoria alone.

These boats are often built from illegally harvested tropical timber, which is fundamentally unsuitable for boat building: the boats are too heavy, unsafe and inefficient due to their design; depending on the type of wood, they have a lifespan of only two to five years.

The iYacht company, a renowned company in the field of boat building, was brought in as an expert team for the study. The project was a challenge for the Hamburg boat builders, who usually deal with yachts and special ships. It was no less a task than redefining mobility on the water in the broadest segment. The aim: to create a new global standard boat design, as reliable and affordable as the Volkswagen Beetle – only on the water. A long-term cooperation was agreed to design the new boat and to accompany and optimize it from a boatbuilding perspective for its entire life.

After iterating extensively on-site with the traditional fishing boats, the idea of a new boat concept crystallized.  It was imperative to incorporate the traditions, requirements and experiences of the fishermen and to create a new, global boat. Accordingly, the boat was developed together with its potential customers and not just on a drawing board in Hamburg.  It was clear from the outset that a sustainable business model could only be developed if it fit the needs of the users. This led to challenging key requirements in the design specification:

• Minimum service life of 10 years with minimal maintenance costs
• Flexible interior for work and transport use with maximum interior space utilization
• Affordability – approximately U$ 3000 for a 9.2m boat
• Robust design for heavy-duty use in extreme conditions
• Suitability for e-mobility – emission-free operation with electric motors

It soon became obvious that there is no boat or boat production in the world that meets these requirements. On the other hand, the market and feasibility study clearly showed the need for new boats and confirmed that only local production is economically viable.

With these findings and initial solution approaches, E-Wave approached potential partners who were able to take on the challenge and had the courage to invest in new technologies in a developing country.

Roto-Moulding emerged as the key technology for the construction of the boats. By using this technology, it was possible to achieve an optimal cost position and make the boat affordable for its users. LLDP polyethylene was defined as the construction material for the new boats, a material that is fully recyclable and meets the requirements of the circular economy. A high proportion of recyclate was planned from the outset with the aim of achieving a quota of > 75%.  However, a boat of this size had never been industrially manufactured anywhere in the world and there were no suitable production machines for it.

With Roto d.o.o. from Slovenia, one of the most renowned roto-moulding manufacturers in Europe was won as a partner, which recognized the extraordinary opportunity and accepted the challenge. Rotos engineers designed a new type of machine concept with one of the largest rotomoulding machines ever built in the world.

 The Kenyan company Thames Ltd. came on board as a local industry champion and thus as the third partner. Among other things, Thames provides the local management and has the necessary production facilities in Kenya.

 In 2024, the three partners founded the joint venture Kewat Industries Ltd. with headquarters in Nairobi and a production facility in Naivasha. Today, Kewat has developed and commissioned one of the largest rotomoulding machines in the world to produce boats up to 10 meters in length from the fourth quarter of 2025. The construction of the boat mould alone took 6 months at a cost of almost half a million euros. The initial investment will be over EUR 3 million and is self-financed.

 The new boat type was named Wimbi, derived from the Kiswahili word for “wave”: a tribute to East Africa and its people, who will build the new boat for their region and for export worldwide.