Women on the boil in shipyard

In the shipyards of Table Bay Harbour, women are showing that they have every bit as much skill and strength to hold their own among the men who build 90-metre steel boats from scratch.

Cape Town - Not many little girls dream of being boilermakers. But in the shipyards of Table Bay Harbour, women are showing that they have every bit as much skill and strength to hold their own among the men who build 90-metre steel boats from scratch.

Damen Shipyards Cape Town is one of many Damen shipyards around the world, which produce almost every type of vessel, from military ships to pleasure yachts, tug boats to dredgers. In 2014, President Jacob Zuma announced Operation Phakisa - an initiative to grow the ocean economy. In line with this push to grow maritime industries, Damen opened a school which has trained 52 ship-building apprentices in the past four years. Of those, 10 were women.

“The ship building industry in the past was very male-dominated,” said Damen Cape Town director Sam Montsi - but the advantages of training women are already becoming evident. “The managers tell me the women are better welders; they are a bit more careful,” he said.

Aysha Gaffoor from Hanover Park started training at the apprentice school in 2012, and completed her final test through Northlink College in 2014.

“If you’re female, it takes a lot of courage to decide this is what you want to do, to be in a man’s world,” she said.

For Gaffoor, the moment came when she won the awards for best boilermaking and welding student in her first year of study. “That’s when I decided it’s what I want to do.”

Gaffoor is an only child, and her parents were concerned at first about her career choice.

“At first, my dad was sceptical about it, but after my awards he was okay,” she said.

“But every day he tells me to be safe.”

Now she is a professional boilermaker who helps construct vessels for Damen.

“We build the boat from start to finish,” Gaffoor said.

“As a boilermaker you build the skeleton, the plating. After that the welders come, then the carpenters and electricians.”

She is currently building the deck for a 50m fast crew supplier. It will take between 15 to 24 months to complete the ship.

“If you’re a soft person, this is not the job for you,” Gaffoor said.

“You must be able to handle blood and sore fingers. But if you have the guts, go for it.”

She is now mentoring new apprentices at the training school, and would one day like to become the training officer. One of her superiors at the shipyard, Amalia Morkel from Atlantis, is another woman forging ahead in a male-dominated profession.

Morkel studied mechanical engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and worked at Atlantis Foundry before studying further as a welding inspector and coming to work at Damen. Monsti said Morkel has excelled.

“Amalia’s an amazing person that she has gotten to this position,” he said.

“In terms of what she knows, she can go up against the best in the world.”

Morkel has been working the engineering fields for five years, and says there are worlds of work opening up to women that are far beyond the roles they have been limited to historically.

“Go out and see women in these fields, being welders and boilermakers. If you want to achieve something in life, you have to go for it.”

chelsea.geach@inl.co.za

Cape Argus