(Togo First) - In a small workshop in Agoè, Patient Pouwereou Bodjona welds together the hull of a steel canoe for a new client. In a country where wooden boats dominate the waterways, the 30-something entrepreneur is betting on a different material, recycled steel. Since founding Bo-Bateaux in 2016, he has been trying to build a local boatmaking industry rooted in innovation, sustainability, and resilience, though financing and regulation remain major hurdles.

The idea was born of tragedy. In 2011, Bodjona learned of a boat accident on Lake Togo that killed 36 people when a wooden canoe capsized in strong winds. “I saw it on television and thought, why not design safer boats?” he recalls.

Though he holds a degree in German, Bodjona has no formal training in marine engineering. His path has been built through self-teaching, trial, and error. “As a kid, I made small cars, toys, and little robots,” he said. That curiosity eventually led him to explore boat construction after observing a nearby water basin. “These basins should make us money, not cost us money,” he said, envisioning new uses in tourism and recreation.

In 2014, his project won recognition at the Forum of Young Togolese Entrepreneurs (FJETS), securing funding to build his first prototype , a wooden canoe. “It worked, but not for long,” he said. The experience convinced him to switch to steel, which he began mastering in 2016. To work with his new material, Bodjona took a 41-day training in arc welding and earned a professional craftsman’s card. “That’s the only formal training I’ve had,” he said. The rest he learned by watching YouTube tutorials and practicing. “I even built my own welding machines,” he adds proudly.

His workshop, where three boats are currently under construction, is modest but busy. Working mostly alone slows production, yet since 2018, Bo-Bateaux has produced 12 vessels, including 10 steel canoes and two unsinkable prototypes. “You can flip them any way, and they’ll still float,” he said. Steel boats, he argues, offer greater durability than wood. “When a wooden canoe cracks, you have to pull it out of the water for a week to dry before repairs. With steel, a welder fixes it at sea.” In 2024, Bo-Bateaux generated 5 million CFA francs ($8,000) in revenue, mostly from service contracts with the National Agency for Sanitation and Public Hygiene (ANASAP), which uses its boats to clean and dredge urban water basins. “It’s a decent income when there are contracts,” he said, though the company remains unprofitable.

Selling the boats is harder. “Buyers want to see before they pay. It’s like a car, you test it first,” he explained. But building display models requires capital he doesn’t have. “If we don’t have money to make them, no one will buy,” he said.

Bureaucracy is another obstacle. Registering a single boat costs about 830,000 CFA francs, a heavy burden for a small business with limited turnover. “We come with an innovation, but the system doesn’t know how to handle it,” he said.

Funding is another challenge. “Grants helped us start, but they don’t make a business sustainable. We need to earn money from real products and services,” he said. A costly setback in 2018, when two boats were washed away during heavy rains, taught him to rethink design. That incident led him to develop the unsinkable model and even train in scuba diving to retrieve submerged vessels. “It wasn’t a failure, it was a lesson,” he said.

Bodjona now sees opportunities in tourism and artisanal fishing. “People dive in our coastal waters; there’s potential for leisure and marine tourism,” he said. Yet he laments the lack of awareness among young Togolese about the blue economy. “This sector is worth billions, but somehow we’ve been kept from seeing its potential,” he said, calling for more education and public support.

He hopes the government will ease regulations for young firms. “Authorities could test startups like ours for six months or a year, giving us some flexibility to grow,” he suggested. He also advocates for reserving certain market segments for local entrepreneurs. “Foreign investors have their place, but some niches should be protected for youth-led businesses,” he said.

For now, Bodjona continues to weld and assemble his steel boats in his small workshop, preparing new orders and seeking authorization for public demonstrations. His story reflects both the struggles and promise of industrial innovation in Togo, self-taught expertise, a growing market for local technology, and a drive to turn the blue economy into a source of national pride and opportunity.

Ayi Renaud Dossavi