Museum opens series of maritime exhibits

Afri-Kola. The name alone is intriguing enough to be displayed in a museum, but what sounds like a soft drink consumed in Nairobi or Johannesburg was actually a vital means of transport for the colony of British Honduras. Janelle Chanona has the story.

Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This morning, the Museum of Belize proudly unveiled the newest addition to its collection, a model of the passenger and cargo vessel, the Afri-Kola.

Launched in October 1922, the Afri-Kola was commissioned by the Chavannes family to transport travellers to coastal destinations and inland ports as far as Orange Walk.

Charles “Buster” Chavannes
“It is hard to imagine that at one time in this country the only way you could get to any of the southern cities or any of the northern cities was by water.”

According to Charles “Buster” Chavannes, riding his grandfather’s seventy-five foot long boat was always an adventure.

Charles Chavannes
“We had a soft drink, my grandfather used to produce a soft drink, we were in the bottling business at the time, and one of the flavours was a kola flavour, kola from the African kola nut. And he just liked the name and taken from the soft drink, he named the boat the Afri-Kola.”

“The Afri-Kola could do about eight to nine or ten knots, depending on the load she had. Remember she was always heavily loaded transporting cargo back and forth.”

Janelle Chanona
“That sound like towing speed, you used to throw your line over the back?”

Charles Chavannes
“Lee bit faster than towing speed, but every now and again behind Caye Chapel dem bwai used to throw out a hand line and pull up a barracuda or something.”

“We served three meals anytime you travelled, the bunks were comfortable, the state rooms were not extra large, but they were comfortable. And there was always a good breeze blowing, so you could sit down on the outside or on the upper deck and enjoy the ride.”

The model on display at the museum was built to scale by the now ninety year old Simeon Young Jr. Almost nine decades ago, it was Young’s grandfather and uncle who crafted the real Afri-Kola.

Simeon Young, Jr., Built Afri-Kola Model
“Everything is imagination from photographs and things and then it’s my father and my uncle that built this boat so I had the instinct of the boat and I love it. We went to San Estevan and took a picture from a house, because the man used to like the Afri-Kola, when the boat come with passengers, so he give us a picture of the Afri-Kola. So you have to say it’s a hundred percent correct the boat.”

The model version of the Afri-Kola was first displayed at the Maritime Museum located above the Belize City Marine Terminal. But poor visitor attendance at that location encouraged curators to team up with the Museum of Belize, Old Belize, and the Fisheries Department to create a rotating exhibit. Every three months, a different model boat will be displayed at the Museum and the Fisheries Department, with the bulk of the collection on permanent display at Old Belize.

Lita Krohn, Museum Director
“I think our boat builders and the maritime, we focus so much on the reef, we’ve forgotten the people involved, the boat builders, the fishermen, all the people that went into this.”

The next model boat to be exhibited at the Museum of Belize will be the famous Heron H. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.

According to Buster Chavannes, following the construction of the old Northern Highway in the 1930s, the Afri-Kola was sold to a group of Belize City businessmen who refitted her. The most recent information about the vessel is that she was used to transport cargo between the Mexican city of Vera Cruz and U.S. ports.