The Prelude
June in Komodo, when the water settles to glass and the light runs long – the still window between seasons, as summer gets underway.
Our European office had flown into Bali to join the team there, and a fortnight on the water lay ahead. We do this twice a year: mornings aboard one yacht, afternoons watching carpentry take shape on a newbuild, meetings with owners we have known since before their boats had names.
Far from the brochures and the shoots, we learn a yacht at five in the morning, when the galley wakes before the guests; at eleven at night, when the crew talk among themselves; on the second day, when the service either holds or it doesn’t.
Here are two of the yachts we came home thinking about.
Vela
Vela is for the traveller who wants the wildest parts of Indonesia without giving anything up – hotel-grade comfort and design, carried into places hotels will never reach.
We sailed onboard Vela for two nights. She was conceived by an American engineer and built in South Sulawesi by the Konjo boatbuilders. She is owned by the team behind Nirjhara in Bali, which shows in the hotelier owner’s eye for textiles, fixtures and fittings. The two carpenters who shaped her hull still work on board.
On the first day, you notice the obvious: the sea-foam palette, the easy proportions of the saloon, the terracotta tiles made by hand in Ubud, the Hermès and Dedar fabrics in the cabins. The two master suites sit above deck with the ocean on three sides; the four below are cool and quiet, finished in teak.
Our Experience Onboard
We cruised to Sebayor on the first morning, deliberately outside the national park, for a check dive on a reef that was clear, current-free and entirely our own. The afternoon went to jet skis and seabobs; then sunset on the upper deck, islands turning to silhouettes on every side, and dinner set out on the sand as the last light left the water.
On the second morning we woke to the boat moving quietly through a pod of spinner dolphins. Some of the team hiked Gili Lawa Laut with no one else in sight; the rest dived Crystal Rock – sharks, turtles, eagle rays, the wall dropping away into clear blue – and then the famous Shotgun. A swim from a pink-sand beach in the afternoon, before the mixologist was left to invent the evening’s cocktails.
Vela’s truth is her crew. Bawa and Eka, front of house, anticipate without ever hovering. The chef is ex-Aman: a different smoothie each morning, lunch judged so it never overwhelms, homemade sorbets, a bar that rewards a little curiosity. The glassware was chosen, not bought. Flores coffee in Komodo, Papua coffee in Raja Ampat – the small proof that someone is paying attention.
Silolona
Silolona is for those who want Indonesia with its history intact – the boat that set the standard two decades ago, and quietly holds it still.
Silolona was the first of her kind. Built in South Sulawesi by the Konjo boatbuilders – whose craft, after generations of working ironwood and teak by hand, is now recognised by UNESCO – she launched twenty years ago and quietly set the standard the region has measured itself against since. She drew her lines from the trading vessels that once worked the spice routes. She still sails them.
Photographs do her no justice. The handmade hats waiting in the cabins, the illustrated maps left as gifts, the art the owner has gathered over years of moving through these islands – everything has a use, or a story, or was made by hand.
She is held by her crew. Many have been aboard since the early years, led by Goris, whose knowledge of the archipelago is the kind built by living inside it rather than studying it. He routes guests through the Spice Islands, Raja Ampat, and the corners of Komodo we send people towards rather than the ones we don’t.
Twenty years on, and kept like a yacht launched yesterday.
Speak with our team to begin planning your voyage.
