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Labuan Bajo Boat Builders
Hulls in frame on the west Flores shoreline with the Komodo grounds beyond

The region

Flores Yacht Builder, East Nusa Tenggara

Wooden phinisi, expedition boats and day-charter hulls built on the west coast of Flores, beside the timber, the labour pool and the Komodo grounds the boats will work.

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Vessel classes built on Flores
4
Hull lengths across the order book
15-50m
Resident shipwright crews, year-round
12mo
Delivery distance to the charter grounds
0km

In short

Building a yacht on Flores puts the yard beside its timber supply, its labour pool and the Komodo charter grounds where most finished boats will work, an alignment no other Indonesian build region offers in one place.

  • East Nusa Tenggara hardwood reaches the yard gate without inter-island freight or a handling premium.
  • The Komodo fleet maintenance cycle keeps shipwrights, caulkers and marine electricians resident rather than seasonal.
  • A hull launched on Flores enters service the week it passes survey, with no delivery passage to fund.
The west Flores coastline where the yard slipways meet the tide

Yacht Building in East Nusa Tenggara

The boatbuilding story of East Nusa Tenggara is younger than the one in South Sulawesi, but it has grown quickly for a straightforward commercial reason: the boats are needed here. The Komodo National Park charter economy runs on wooden liveaboards and day boats.

Every season more owners choose to build where the fleet operates rather than commission a hull a thousand kilometres away and sail it over. Our yard grew out of that demand, combining a Manggarai workforce and Flores timber with build supervision drawn from the long Bugis and Konjo tradition.

The result is a build culture particular to Flores: traditional backbone and planking methods, modern systems engineering, and close attention to how a boat behaves in the currents of the park. The Linta Strait is our sea-trial course, not an abstraction on a chart.

Order book

What We Build on Flores

Four classes cover almost every commission that leaves the slipway, each with its own engineering logic.

Custom phinisi · 25-50 m

Two-masted wooden schooners for private owners and charter operators, and the core of the yard order book.

Liveaboard yachts

Multi-cabin boats engineered for three to seven night park itineraries, with tankage and crew spaces sized to match.

Expedition vessels

Longer-range hulls for eastern-Indonesia routes, reinforced for passages well beyond the park boundary.

Day-charter boats · 15-20 m

Open-deck and cabin workhorses of the Komodo day trade, built to high-cycle commercial standards.

Choosing a Flores Yacht Builder: What to Check

Not every slipway on the island runs to the same standard, so apply the same due diligence you would to any yard. These are the checks our own clients run against us, and we would rather answer them at the first meeting than after a deposit.

  • See the timber store

    Structural ironwood should be documented, seasoned and stored under cover, not bought reactively mid-build. Ask for the sourcing paperwork before contract.

  • Confirm slipway capacity

    Check the yard can handle your hull length and ask specifically how a boat of that size gets launched.

  • Ask about the surveyor

    Find out which surveyor the yard works with and at which stages surveys are actually booked, not just promised.

  • Weigh after-delivery support

    A builder whose own refit desk sits beside the charter fleet can honour a warranty in practice, not only on paper.

If a yard hesitates on any of the four, that is information. A build is a long relationship, and the questions get harder to ask once money has moved.

Frequently Asked Questions

Talk to a Flores Yard Directly

Tell us the intended use, guest count and budget band. We will come back with an indicative specification, a build programme and the checks you should be running on us.

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