NEWSVAGANZA

Phinisi is what Bulukumba people in South Sulawesi call the traditional wooden ship they build. This kind of ship has established since 17th century and currently has between 120-200 tons. Yet there is one which has 500 tons.


To build a big size Phinisi it is needed 50 years old wood while the smaller needs around 25 years old wood, said Bulukumba people. One of the woods chosen to build the ship is iron wood. Besides they will also commit a kind of ritual before starting building the ship, such as how they choose the woods and how they cut it down as well. Used woods, fallen trees and floating on water trees will not be chosen. And the time the ship finished to build, people will slaught a sacrificial animal, a bull for big ship and a goat for a small boat, before they fix the two sailing poles and the seven sails.

This ship spread widely outside the country. Some countries like Netherlands, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Singapore and Malaysia have sailed with this ship. They mostly use it as yacht. While in the country this ship mostly is widely used as fishing boat.

In 1984 a Phinisi named Nusantara with length of 125 feet, 26 feet width, 150 tons weight and 5-7 knots per hour speed was built, then left Indonesia to start an expedition crossing the Pacific to Vancouver Expo in Canada in 1986 as long as 11,000 sea mile. After that continued to San Diego USA for as long as 1,650 sea mile with the total of 67 days sailing. Returned to Indonesia in 1987 loaded on a Dutch-flag cargo ship due to problems got during staying abroad.

Meanwhile some years later another Phinisi was built in Bira Regency, Bulukumba. It had 100 feet length and  21.6 feet width with 5-7 knots per hour speed. The ship was prepared for another expedition so called The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2008-2009. The MDGs Marine Expedition sailed and visited 100 big and small islands inside the country. The expedition was divided into 10 trips with 30-35 persons each, consisted of ship crews, public facilitators, physicians, paramedics, journalists, document and reporting persons, technical and equipment team, security personnel and administration. The activities of the expedition were providing food, education, health aid, environmental aid, promoting strenghtening the role of women and facilitating multi-stakeholder partnership in every place they visited.