Phinisi yachts are the traditional two-masted wooden schooners of the Bugis people of Sulawesi, and no vessel type is more at home in South East Asian waters than a well-maintained phinisi working the Thai archipelago from Koh Poda. Six phinisi available for charter in South East Asia can be routed through Krabi and the Andaman islands, offering handcrafted Indonesian joinery, open-air sleeping decks, and the kind of unhurried passage-making that suits a destination where the journey matters as much as the anchorage. Each phinisi is an individual vessel, built by hand in a Sulawesi yard and fitted out to a specification that typically includes four to six en-suite cabins below, a covered deck salon, and a broad stern platform for diving, kayaking, and watching the sun go down over limestone. Crews are usually Indonesian, many from the same seafaring families that have sailed these waters for generations, and their knowledge of anchorages, currents, and fishing spots is a genuine asset. Charter rates for phinisi at Koh Poda run from 25,000 to 80,000 euros per week before provisioning of around 30 percent. The best phinisi book out months in advance for the November to April season, when northeast monsoon conditions provide steady sailing and the archipelago is at its most photogenic. A phinisi charter beginning at Koh Poda traces a route through some of the Andaman Sea’s most intact cruising grounds, anchoring in bays that the vessel’s shallow draft opens to guests that other types of charter vessel cannot reach.
