Unsinkable Aluminium

Canoe "Keram Kitty " on the Sepik

ANEW type of vessel made its appear ance on the Sepik River, New Guinea, recently. It is an Indian war canoe made of aluminium, and is now christened “Keram Kitty.”

The canoe was manufactured by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Company in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA and was sent as a gift of the St. Agnes Mission Club in St. Paul to Father W. Saiko, of the RC mission at Keram River (a tributary of the Sepik).

Father Saiko comes from St. Paul and arrived in New Guinea in September, 1945.

At that time he was stationed in Wewak and he became champion truck driver of the district, logging 12,000 miles without accident.

When he was transferred to the Sepik, he appealed to his home town for an Indian canoe and it duly arrived at the end of July.

The canoe is 18 feet long, with a 3-ft. beam, and it draws only 3 or 4 inches of water, which makes it ideal for negotiat ing those creeks which are mostly swamp.

It weighs only 87 pounds, and could, therefore, if necessary, be transported from the Sepik River across the divide to the source of Papua’s Fly River by no more than two natives.

It has two built-in airchambers, which make it unsinkable; and if it does turn over it will right itself. It is wide enough to permit of a chair being erected in it, and stable enough to allow the traveller to work awav at a typewriter

while in transit-

“Mossie.”