Liveaboard & Dive Phinisi Builder

A Liveaboard Is an Engineering Brief, Not a Look

A dive liveaboard for eastern Indonesia is defined by numbers before it is defined by teak. How many guests and crew? How many nights between fuel and water? What draft can the anchorages take? How big a tender and dive-deck operation? Those answers set length, tankage and the whole systems package. We start there, then let the phinisi’s traditional beauty follow.

Because we build to commission, the boat is tuned to your route and operation rather than to a generic charter template. That is the advantage of building rather than buying a liveaboard.

Spec Choices That Matter for Komodo & Raja Ampat

Range and tankage: the eastern routes run long between reliable fuel and clean water, so generous diesel and freshwater capacity plus a capable watermaker are not luxuries. Draft: shallow, current-swept anchorages reward a moderate draft and good ground tackle. Dive operation: a low, safe dive deck, tender davits or a dedicated dive tender, compressor and nitrox space, and a rinse-and-camera area shape the aft third of the boat. Comfort at anchor: stabilisation, quiet generators and real air-conditioning decide whether guests rebook.

Building New vs Converting a Hull

There are two honest routes to a liveaboard. A new build gives you exactly the layout and systems you specify, documented from the keel for classification. A conversion — taking an existing traditional hull and rebuilding it into a dive liveaboard — can be faster and suit a particular budget, provided the base hull is sound. We will tell you frankly which path fits your brief and your timeline.

Either way, this is build and conversion work. If your intent is to buy a finished liveaboard or to charter one, that sits elsewhere in the ecosystem; here we make them.

From Beach to Fleet

Boats built on this coast go on to work the best diving in the world. Some of the phinisi that start as a keel on the Tana Beru sand end up among the vessels in phinisi that went on to join the charter fleet — proof that a traditional hull, engineered properly, earns its keep in commercial service for decades.