Exploring the superyachting culture

It can be hard to sum up what makes superyachting so special to those who have not experienced its most special of moments. Ask your average person, and your average answer will likely include themes along the lines of luxury, glamour and wealth. But there is another side to superyachting, and it’s one that resonates far beyond the superficialities – for guests, superyachts create never-to-be-forgotten experiences that can be laden with cultural awareness, and for local communities and indigenous peoples they can create opportunity not only for economic benefits, but also for keeping traditions alive, for broadening cultural understanding, and for showing off their skills to the world.

Case in point: the Raja Ampat archipelago in the far east of Indonesia is a heavenly playground for those lucky few who get to experience its extraordinary gifts. It boasts more than 1,500 largely uninhabited islands strewn across an untouched sea, where you can explore for days in uncrowded bays and dive on unbelievable reefs. The biodiversity here is spectacular, with more than 1,500 corals and fishes in some of the clearest water on earth. “[The area] lived up to its reputation as the epicentre of biodiversity for marine life – I saw more varieties of coral and fish than anywhere I have ever dived,” recalled Don Feil, former captain of the explorer yacht Asteria, when I spoke with him after our own sojourn in the archipelago. “Not being divers or serious watersports enthusiasts, the [then] owner and his friends enjoyed the beaches where you could loll in the shallows. But I’d suggest that you don’t come here without taking advantage of the scuba diving.”

The lack of tourism, traffic and reliable charts mean encounters with other vessels are few and far between, and cruising and chartering is strictly regulated – most of the dive boats operating in the area are traditional Indonesian phinisis – and there are not but a couple of eco dive resorts ashore to offer back-up. It’s a place where – to quote Patrick Swayze’s line from the film Point Break – you lose yourself and you find yourself.

For some, the draw is even greater. The story of the late Patti Seery – an American expat who had travelled extensively before getting a taste of Indonesia and finding she didn’t want to leave – is a perfect example of cultural immersion and love. Her first awakening had come as an exchange student in Mexico, where she lived in a local village. “It was a simple life and I was really happy,” she said back in 2012. “This learning experience was one of the most important; it enabled me to feel at home just about anywhere. It developed my lifelong fascination with travel, and learning from local people about their traditions and way of life.”

She applied the same philosophy in Indonesia, and was adopted during her 40 years in the country by several tribes. At the turn of the millennium, she decided she wanted to run her own charter experience in order to share not only the stunning natural beauty of the Raja Ampat archipelago but also the customs, crafts and hospitality of its local people.

Her 50 metre yacht, named Silolona, was built on a beach in Sulawesi by Indonesian phinisi builders using traditional methods. Despite drawing up detailed engineering and design plans, she discovered that the boatbuilders couldn’t read them, usually building a boat they had merely visualised in their minds. The result was extraordinary, and since its launch Seery’s company Silolona Sojourns – now run by her son Tresno – has carried countless guests on the cruising and cultural experience of a lifetime. A decade ago, Silolona was joined by a sister, Si datu bua, and since then several more owners have been inspired to draw on the traditional expertise of Bira, Sulawesi’s boatbuilding hub, to create their own luxury wooden phinisi (and for a fraction of what it would cost to build a conventional superyacht at a conventional yard).

For the rest of us, though, the immersion into exceptional cruising grounds like Raja Ampat is its own reward. “For most visitors, a trip to Raja Ampat is a once in a lifetime experience,” Feil offered, “and Tresno’s contribution to the trip was paramount – he was our dive guide, interpreter, liaison with the locals and officials, navigator, and teacher of Indonesian etiquette. This is the place for someone who wants to get away from it all.” And also, it turns out, for someone who wants to delve deep into the embrace of another culture and enjoy the warmth of its passionate people and the wonder of their exceptional craftsmanship, aided by those who have taken the time to learn those cultures and who want to share the experience with others.

It circles back to that idea of what superyachting really is. What sticks from our own extraordinary journey to Raja Ampat is not luxury nor glamour nor artifice, but the lasting memories of the beaming smiles of Silolona’s Indonesian crew, the sharing of the experience with Asteria’s wonderful crew, the arresting beauty of the limestone karst islands and the water and the corals, the Indonesian soul that Patti imbued us with, a little more knowledge and understanding of what makes this place and that culture so special, and a first-hand view of how a handful of daring owners have elevated the tradition of building boats on a beach to a level of international renown.