Pinisi boat history: Ara, Lemo-Lemo and Bira, from the first pinisi of 1906 to today

By Pinisi Boat Editorial Desk

The history of the pinisi boat starts, on the usual dating, around 1906, when shipbuilders of Ara and Lemo-Lemo are thought to have built the first Sulawesi pinisi for a skipper from Bira. The rig belongs to a far older Austronesian boatbuilding tradition. It carried Buginese and Makassarese cargo for decades, gained engines in the 1970s and 1980s, and UNESCO inscribed the craft in December 2017.

How old is the pinisi boat?

There are two honest answers, one for the rig and one for the tradition behind it. The rig goes back to the date Wikipedia gives: the first Sulawesi pinisi is thought to have been built in 1906. The tradition is far older. UNESCO places the pinisi within a millennia-long Austronesian tradition of boatbuilding and navigation.

Those statements fit together once you remember that pinisi refers to a rig. A particular way of setting sails on two masts can be recent while the skills of the people using it go back much further. So when a page says pinisi boats are thousands of years old, it has merged the two. When it treats 1906 as a precise launch date, it has dropped Wikipedia's hedge.

Who built the first pinisi and who sailed it?

Three villages appear in the founding account. Shipbuilders of Ara and Lemo-Lemo are said to have built the first vessel for a skipper from Bira, so from the very start the craft crossed community lines. More generally, the ships were mainly built by the Konjo-speaking people of Ara, in Bontobahari district of Bulukumba, and by people from Bira, Lemo-Lemo and Tana Beru.

The sailors were often someone else. Wikipedia says the ships were widely used by Buginese and Makassarese seafarers as cargo vessels. Keep that split between makers and users in mind: the sailors in this account are Buginese and Makassarese, while the builders are Konjo speakers. Our page on the schooner name takes up the labels.

UNESCO's 2017 decision document gives a different list, naming Tana Beru, Bira and Batu Licin as contemporary boatbuilding centres. Batu Licin does not appear in the historic list above, while Ara and Lemo-Lemo are missing from UNESCO's list. Neither source explains the difference, and we would not read a decline into an omission.

Did the hull or the rig come first?

The sources give no clean order, though the oldest type they list was raised from an existing hull form, the pajala. Wikipedia describes three general types carrying it. The palari is the older, with a curved stern and keel, raised from a pajala hull, with twin quarter rudders and a low foredeck called the salompong. The jonggolang arrived in the mid-20th century and was built high from the start. The lambo became the favoured form for motorised vessels.

Only the jonggolang gets even an approximate date here, so the sequence should be held loosely. Still, the pattern is useful to historians and buyers alike. A vessel's rig and hull have separate histories, and a claim about one does not settle the other. The hull design guide describes each form in more depth.

What did pinisi carry during the cargo decades?

Inter-island freight. Timber from Kalimantan to Java is the example on record, with traditional ports such as Sunda Kelapa in Jakarta and Paotere in Makassar on the routes. By the time motorisation arrived, pinisi-rigged vessels stood as the largest Indonesian sailing ships. This is also the part of the story with the fewest figures attached. Our sources give no fleet totals or sailing-era tonnages. The cargo ship page gathers what can be stated about the working vessels.

What changed when engines arrived?

Capacity grew and the name stayed. During the 1970s and 1980s the trading fleet was motorised, and the resulting vessels became known as Perahu Layar Motor, or PLM. Average cargo capacity rose to about 300 tons. A PLM completed in Bulukumba in 2011 reached 50 metres by 9 metres, with a capacity of about 500 tons, and was still described as pinisi-rigged.

The engine thus did not close the story of the rig. It did, however, change what the word had to cover. A vessel that could motor no longer had to depend on its sails, and the distance between name and practice began to grow.

How did the pinisi reach a banknote, Vancouver and UNESCO?

Three separate events put the vessel in front of a wider public, and two of them can be dated. The pinisi appeared on Indonesia's 100-rupiah banknote; our source does not give the series year, so we leave it out. In 1986 a motorised traditional vessel named Phinisi Nusantara sailed from Indonesia to Expo 86 in Vancouver, Canada. That voyage also produced the ph spelling, an attempt to mimic Indonesian pronunciation. The spelling guide follows that thread.

The formal recognition came in December 2017, at the 12th session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, among 33 elements inscribed at that session. Under Decision 12.COM 11.B.13, the element titled Pinisi, art of boatbuilding in South Sulawesi joined the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The title is worth reading closely. It honours a skill held by people, and no ship is named in it. The UNESCO page explains what the inscription means.

What is happening to the tradition now?

Two developments run side by side. The first is a shift in use. Wikipedia notes that the word is now often used for most types of Indonesian wooden ship, including charter and dive vessels marketed as phinisi. Lamima, at 65.2 metres and delivered in 2015, shows how far the guest trade has taken the form. It was built on the beach at Bira and Ara, two of the places in the founding account of 1906.

The second is strain on the craft itself. A summary of a UNESCO periodic report, which we have yet to read in the original, lists these threats:

• Fewer young people entering a labour-intensive craft
• Rising costs
• Scarcity of quality timber
• Pressure from modernisation and commercialisation

The guest trade may support the builders even as it changes what they build. Our sources do not measure that balance.

What are the short answers on pinisi history?

When was the first pinisi built?

It is thought to have been 1906. Wikipedia credits shipbuilders of Ara and Lemo-Lemo working for a skipper from Bira, and words it as a belief, so treat the year as approximate.

Where do pinisi boats come from?

South Sulawesi. Historic building is tied to Ara, Bira, Lemo-Lemo and Tana Beru, with Ara in Bontobahari district of Bulukumba Regency.

Did pinisi boats always have engines?

No. Engines came with the motorisation of the trading fleet in the 1970s and 1980s, which produced the Perahu Layar Motor.

Is the pinisi on an Indonesian banknote?

Yes. It appeared on the 100-rupiah banknote.

What did UNESCO recognise in 2017?

The art of boatbuilding, not one vessel. The element, Pinisi, art of boatbuilding in South Sulawesi, was inscribed on the Representative List at the 12th session in Jeju.

Which sources support this page?

Dates and descriptions below are as published when last checked in October 2026.

• UNESCO: Pinisi, art of boatbuilding in South Sulawesi
• UNESCO: Decision 12.COM 11.B.13
• UNESCO: Thirty-three elements inscribed on the Representative List
• UNESCO: 12.COM decisions document, December 2017
• UNESCO: periodic report on the element
• Wikipedia: Pinisi
• CharterWorld: 65 m traditional phinisi completed
• Boat International: Lamima

How do I reach the desk?

If you hold a source that corrects a date on this page, send it to the desk on WhatsApp at 6281139414563 or at bd@juaraholding.com.