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Ya, pinisi … I too was arguing about it when the idea came up – yet, ‘phinisi’ is the nowadays’ tagline for traditional Indonesian boat-building and sailing, and for not only the Indonesian public comprises anything wooden afloat with -or even without, as it so often seems!- something like a pole and a little wind-catching fabric on it. It took a long time to explain to the people in charge what a pinisi actually is, and even more so that it is much less the hybrid pinisi, but the overall knowledge that had given birth to such a ship that should be turned into a World Heritage … the padewakang Jeffrey mentioned was part of that.
I posted the original applications, as accepted already a year ago, at https://web.facebook.com/horst.liebner.1/posts/10213298522631343 – and there it will become clear that the main point in what is now an Intangible World Heritage is the sophisticated blueprints for a ship, the ‘tatta’; to say it in plain and unprecise words, the knowledge of conceptionalising the construction of a ship as a puzzle of planks and dowels, each of which has a predetermined shape and position in what famously is ‘the most complex artefact routinely produced prior to the Industrial Revolution’. This approach is contradicting Western naval production, where since at least the 15th century a ship’s hull is outlined by a framework of, ya, frames, the ‘ribs’ of a ship.
The only historic vessels of such workmanship that as yet have been studied in detail, the Nanhan/Cirebon Wreck of the 10th century and 12th-14th century Butuan ships, appear to have been built following a concept not too much different from the one that could produce a padewakang, patorani or pinisi – and it seems that these approaches stem from the Austronesian -and thus, eventually, ‘Indonesian’- contribution to our World’s maritime heritage, the outrigger craft, thus evidencing an unbroken tradition of at least 3000 years of naval construction. It was this kind of vessels that during the first millennium BC criss-crossed the South China Sea and the Western Pacific Ocean; that throughout the ensuing centuries were met with by Greek merchants in India and described by Chinese harbour officials; and that reportedly could be so huge, that a Portuguese carrack of the 16th century ‘didn’t look like at ship at all’ if facing them in battle. And did you know that the most modern fast sailing ship designs of ‘Western’ make, the catamaran and trimaran, copy their concept from the latter, truly genuine Austronesian ‘invention’? …
Sadly, these traditions presently are on the very verge of being sidelined by modern ship-building materials and techniques – and, yes, the ever-rising demand for such modern vessels. And right here was the snag in the application: It proved difficult for the Indonesian authorities to produce enough evidence re their efforts in guarding this millennia-old heritage, so that the application was postponed until more substantiation for their determination in guarding a technical tradition that they themselves had hardly heard of could be given. Now a World Heritage declared by UNESCO, it thus now is up to us all to guard it – first-off-all, by more and more detailed research, and, I dare say, at last place this heritage onto the place where it belongs.

I filmed with an Australian mercenary who called himself ‘Steve’ with the Karen Guerrillas, in the battle for ‘sleeping dog hill’ in January 1992. Is this Dave Everett? It was pretty insane frontline footage — the first I ever filmed in a career of 25 years. He saved my life twice that day…

I believed the picture here belongs to my friend, Thomas Tham and I would like to know if the rights were given to use the picture.