Annai Vailankanni College of Engineering (AVCE) students and staff built a scale down model boat with the technical support of South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies (SIFFS) at their Boat building and Research Centre, Veli, Trivandrum. The base design of the boat was prepared by Mr. Renju, a Naval Architect from International Shipping Bureau (ISB) The Six feet length boat with good wheel house, fish hold, kitchen, toilet, water tank, fuel tank, facilities for storing fishing equipments, separate place for crew resting, lights, signal lights, provision for keeping GPS, Fish finder, CC Cams, indicators etc.The work was supervised by the members of the Association of Deep Sea Going Artisanal Fishermen (ADSGAF). This boat is named as “APJ KALAM MODEL BOAT” after the great scientist Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
The boat operation was demonstrated on the 14th of November, 2015 at the Ananthan Bridge, Nagercoil in the presence of general public ADSGAF members, students and others. The demo was lead by Mr. Maria Victor, Correspondent, and Prof. Rahul of AVCE.Students-Kumanan, ThamizhSelvan, Deepak, AjithKumar, Siva, Aju, Maria Priston and Jino were the active participants of this project.