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A phinisi with tanbark sails crossing open water past a volcanic island

Traditional build

Wooden and Traditional Phinisi Construction

Ironwood keels, teak decks and joinery cut by hand, in the yard where the method has been passed down.

Start Your Project
Length overall, customisable
20-45m
Beam, customisable
5-10m
En-suite cabins
2-10
Build programme
10-18mo

In short

We build traditional wooden phinisi in Labuan Bajo using ulin, teak and merbau, hulls shaped by hand to methods carried down through generations of Konjo and Flores shipwrights.

  • Ulin ironwood keel and frames, teak decking.
  • Engines, generators and navigation to your preferred brands.
  • Traditional hull, current safety and systems standards.

The materials

What Goes Into the Hull

Traditional does not mean approximate. Each timber is chosen for a specific job on the vessel.

Ulin Ironwood

Keel and structural framing. Dense, and it does not rot.

Teak

Decking and exterior joinery, for wear and for weather.

Merbau

Planking and structural work where hardness matters.

Hand Joinery

Cut and fitted on site rather than shipped in as panels.

Specifying the Vessel

Everything below is yours to choose. We build to the specification, not to a catalogue.

01

Dimensions

LOA 20 to 45m, beam 5 to 10m, drawn to your requirement.

02

Propulsion

Mitsubishi, Yanmar or Doosan main engines to your preference.

03

Generators

Yanmar or Kubota, sized to the systems aboard.

04

Navigation

Garmin, Furuno or Raymarine electronics.

Construction runs 10 to 18 months, covering design, sustainable material procurement, the build and sea trials.

Building here is generally more cost-effective than Bali, because the shipbuilding communities, the raw timber and the craftsmen are all in the same place rather than shipped to it.

Sustainably sourced hardwood being worked into a phinisi hull

Generations of Expertise

The people building your hull learned the method from the people who taught them, and it has been refined at sea rather than in a design office.

That shows up in the way a phinisi sits in the water and in how she handles a swell, which is difficult to specify on paper and impossible to fake.

Modern engineering sits behind it: structural calculation, safety equipment and systems that meet current standards.

Standard Specification

Hull material

What we build
Ulin, teak, merbau
Customisable
Yes

Decking

What we build
Teak
Customisable
Yes

Length overall

What we build
20m to 45m
Customisable
Yes

Beam

What we build
5m to 10m
Customisable
Yes

Main engines

What we build
Mitsubishi, Yanmar, Doosan
Customisable
Client preference

Generators

What we build
Yanmar, Kubota
Customisable
Client preference

Navigation

What we build
Garmin, Furuno, Raymarine
Customisable
Client preference

Cabins

What we build
2 to 10, en-suite
Customisable
Yes

Ranges above are what we regularly build to. Anything outside them is a conversation, not a refusal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Specify Your Hull

Send us length, cabin count and how you plan to use her. We will come back with a specification and a build programme.