Irony in Land of Seafarers

KOMPAS/RENY SRI AYU

Fishermen work together to launch a new boat onto the sea, a custom called annyorong lopi.

The phinisi is a unique and formidable schooner that originated in South Sulawesi. Its strength has been proven through journeys across the world’s seas.

“These days, because of a lack of orders, no one makes phinisi ships anymore. Most orders today come from foreigners,” 62-year-old H. Saleh of Tana Beru subdistrict in Bonto Bahari district, Bulukumba regency, South Sulawesi, said on Thursday (13/9/2018). Saleh was responding to this reporter’s question on where phinisi ships and builders could be found.

Kompas saw no phinisi ships since arriving at Tana Beru. Most of the vessels being built on Tana Beru’s shores were tour boats with round sterns and sharp bows. One tour boat was fitted with a sleeping compartment, a lounge, a bar and a kitchen, which was typical of tour boats.

Asdar Daeng, 70, and Jafar Kasim, 80, shared Saleh’s opinion. Fewer and fewer phinisi ships have been built since the 1990s. The schooner’s golden age was when two large phinisi ships were built and sent to Canada and Japan. The ships are currently on display in museums in the two countries.

Once, Saleh owned at least five phinisi ships transporting goods from Jakarta to Surabaya, Riau, Kalimantan and several other regions. Around 1986, he sold off his phinisi, as motorized boats were gaining in popularity.

Fortunately, two phinisi ships belonging to Scottish sailors docked at Tana Beru on that Thursday afternoon. The ships were on loan for a short cruise between Tana Beru’s fishing harbor and Bira as part of the opening ceremony of the 9^th Phinisi Festival in Bulukumba.

This Kompas reporter had the opportunity to go on the cruise and feel the extravagance of sailing on a phinisi with two broad maroon sails.

That same afternoon, the ship sailed with the wind. At full mast, the two sails helped the captain steer the ship and control its speed. The phinisi sailed slowly and in a zigzag pattern against the large waves and strong winds.

“When we sail against the wind, the ship has to zigzag. This is how we sailed the seas between the east and west monsoons. In the old days, we relied only on our knowledge of the stars, the wind, the smell of coral reefs and other natural signs to navigate,” said 55-year-old sailor Hasanuddin.

Craft

For Hasanuddin, Saleh and Asdar, the phinisi is more than a type of schooner. The phinisi also embodies a knowledge and craft of shipbuilding that comprises cultures, traditions, local wisdoms and community ties. Their captains are revered for their skill in steering the ship and navigating by the stars and other natural phenomenon.

In Bulukumba, phinisi shipbuilding involves the villagers of Ara, Tana Beru and Bira. Tana Beru village is a phinisi shipbuilding center, and most craftsmen come from Ara. The sailors of Bira are renowned as phinisi captains. This shipbuilding and seafaring culture gave Bulukumba its nickname of “Butta Panrita Lopi”, or “land of seafarers”.

This is among the reasons that UNESCO declared the phinisi schooner an intangible cultural heritage. Since the phinisi combines many cultural and traditional aspects, many Tana Beru shipbuilders refuse to refer to the tour boats as phinisi.

Usman Hamid, 50, is a shipbuilder from Ara who has devoted 33 years of his life building phinisi schooners. He said that phinisi shipbuilding involved traditional rituals from start to finish.

“Before installing the lunas [hull] of a phinisi, we perform a ritualistic prayer for the safety and glory of the ship. We make seven kinds of [traditional] cakes and place them [as offerings] on top of the lunas, along with coconuts, bananas, rice and palm sugar. After the ritual, we continue with our work,” he said. Once the phinisi is finished, the villagers all work together to launch the phinisi, pushing it along the beach to the sea.

Asdar said that when sailors prepared to sail on a phinisi during the east monsoon, a group prayer for their safety would be held on the beach. “The entire village would cook and eat together. When the sailors came home, everyone would join in a thanksgiving celebration and hold traditional performances,” he said.

Despite the relative dearth in phinisi shipbuilding today, the shipbuilders in Tana Beru and Ara can still use their skills. Orders constantly come in for tour and cargo ships, which cost from Rp 900 million (US$60,280.52) to more than Rp 5 billion.

On the one hand, the large volume of orders keeps the local shipbuilding industry alive. However, recent concerns have been growing that the villagers were nothing more than laborers.

In his closing speech of the Phinisi Festival on Saturday (15/9), South Sulawesi Governor Nurdin Abdullah said that he would order a phinisi schooner for research and tourism. The Bulukumba regency administration also made a similar pledge.

Restoring the golden age of the phinisi would likely involve many efforts. It is not entirely impossible that the phinisi may sail into the past in Butta Panrita Lopi, “the land of seafarers”.