A pinisi is a type of rigging (the configuration of masts, sails and ropes or 'lines') of Indonesian sailing vessels. A pinisi carries seven to eight sails on two masts, arranged like a gaff-ketch with what is called 'standing gaffs' — i.e., unlike most Western ships using such a rig, the two main sails are not opened by raising the spars they are attached to, but the sails are 'pulled out' like curtains along the gaffs which are fixed at around the centre of the masts.
As is the case with many Indonesia sailing craft, the word 'pinisi' thus names only a type of rig, and does not describe the shape of the hull of a vessel that uses such sails.
Pinisi-rigged ships were mainly built by the Konjo-speaking people of Ara, a village in the district of Bontobahari, Bulukumba regency, South Celebes, and widely used by Buginese and Makassarese seafarers as a cargo vessel. In the years before the eventual disappearance of wind-powered transport in course of the motorization of Indonesia's traditional trading fleet in the 1970/80s, vessels using a pinisi rig were the largest Indonesian sailing ships.
Today, the word 'pinisi' is, often rather indiscriminately, used to name most types of wooden ships of Indonesia. The popular spelling 'phinisi' was an attempt to mimic the Indonesia pronunciation of the word, /pi:nisi/, first used to name Phinisi Nusantara, a motorized traditional vessel with such a rig that in 1986 was sailed from Indonesia to Expo 86 in Vancouver, Canada.
Being the best-known Indonesian sailing-vessel, 'pinisi' became the tagline for the 2017 inscription of "The Art of Boatbuilding in South Sulawesi" in the UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.'The Art of Boatbuilding in South Sulawesi'
Etymology and possible origin
The earliest mention, in both foreign and indigenous sources, of the term 'pinisi' that clearly refers to a type of sailing vessel from Celebes is found in a 1917 article in the Dutch periodical Coloniale Studiën: "... a small schooner rigged in European manner."Vuuren, L. Van 1917. 'De Prauwvaart van Celebes'. Koloniale Studien, 1,107–116; 2, 329–339, p. 108. Indeed, records of the use of European-type fore-and-aft rigs on indigenous ships of the Southeast Asia Archipelago only begin in the first half of the 19th century, and only in the early 20th century significant numbers of boats from Sulawesi were equipped with such sails.Liebner, Horst H. (2018). Pinisi': Terciptanya Sebuah Ikon; Memorial Lecture Dr. Edward Poelinggomang. Makassar: Universitas Hasanuddin; Until the mid-20th century, the Sulawesi sailors themselves referred to their ships by the term palari, the type of hull most suited for the driving forces of the pinisi rig.Gibson-Hill, C. A. (2009 [1950a]). 'The Indonesian Trading Boats Reaching Singapore.' In H.S. Barlow (ed.) Boats, Boatbuilding and Fishing in Malaysia [Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 23 (1)]. Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society: 43–69 [108–138], pp. 52f .
There is a wide range of local traditions claiming a much earlier origin for both the word 'pinisi' and the type of ship thus called, many of which, however, can only be traced back to the last two to three decades. The shipwrights of Ara and Lemo-Lemo, the second boatbuilding centre of the region, relate their proficiency in naval architecture (and, depending on source, creation of the first pinisiSee, e.g., Borahima, Ridwan et al. (1977). Jenis-Jenis Perahu Bugis Makassar. Jakarta: Proyek Pengembangan Media Kebudayaan, Direktorat Jenderal Kebudayaan, pp. 26f vs. Horridge, A. (1979). The Konjo Boatbuilders and the Bugis Perahu of South Sulawesi. Greenwich: National Maritime Museum, p. 10) to Sawerigading, one of main protagonists in the Bugis epic Sureq Galigo: To avoid the incestuous relation impending when he fell in love with his twin sister, Sawerigading is given a magically built ship to sail to a place where a girl looking like her is said to dwell; when he breaks his promise to never return, the vessel sinks; its keel, frames, planks and masts, washed on the shores off the three villages, were reassembled by the local people, who thus learned how to build and sail ships.E.g., Pelly, U. (2013 ). Ara dengan Perahu Bugisnya. Medan [Ujung Pandang]: Casa Mesra Publisher [Pusat Latihan Penelitian Ilmu-Ilmu Sosial, Universitas Hasanuddin], pp. 21ff; Saenong, M. A. (2013). Pinisi: Paduan Teknologi dan Budaya. Yogyakarta: Penerbit Ombak, pp. 11ff. It is of note that in the actual epic Sawerigading returns to his homelands, to, together with his new-found wife, eventually become the ruler of the underworld, and that the term 'pinisi' does not show up in any of the accessible manuscripts of the story.Liebner, Horst H. (2003). 'Berlayar ke Tompoq Tikkaq: Sebuah Episode La Galigo'. In Nurhayati Rahman and et al. (eds.), La Galigo, Makassar: Pusat Studi La Galigo, pp. 373–414. The names of the boats and ships contained in the manuscripts are waka(q), wakka(q), wakang, wangkang, padewakang, joncongeng, banawa, pelapangkuru, binannong, pangati, and lopi. The boat that brought Sawerigading to Cina (not China, but Tana Ugi, Ale Cina, at the eastern side of South Sulawesi) itself was called waka Wélenrénngé (boat made of Wélenréng tree), it's made of just one tree (dugout canoe), equipped with outriggers and outrigger floats. Perceivably, "the myth supports the people of Bontobahari in their dependence on boatbuilding as a way of life, [...] justify[ing] their monopoly" on the building of such vessels.Horridge, A. (1979), p. 10
Since the 1970s, a wide range of other explanations for the origin of the word 'pinisi' have been forwarded. These include that, e.g., a ruler of the Makassan polity of Talloq, I Mangnginyarrang Daéng Makkiyo, named thus one of his boats, allegedly combining the two words "picuru" (meaning "good example") and "binisi" (a type of small, agile and tough fish on the surface of the water and not affected by currents and waves). Another version states that the name pinisi comes from word panisi (Bugis word, means insert), or mappanisi (inserting), which refers to caulking process.Saenong (2013), p. 43 It is even claimed that the word derived from the name of the Italian city of Venice, where the sailors of the village of Bira traded spices and saw ketch-rigged vessels; or where schooner rigs were 'invented', thus lending the name to its Sulawesian version. None of these claims is supported by identifiable first-hand sources.
A conceivable anecdote of the origin of both the name and type of ship is based on a report by R.S. Ross, then master of the British East India Company's steamer Phlegeton, who on the occasion a visit to Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia, in 1846 witnessed a schooner built locally by "some of the natives [who] had learnt the art of shipbuilding at Singapore, and [were] assisted by Chinese carpenters",Anon. (1854). 'Journal Kept on Board a Cruiser in the Indian Archipelago.' Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia 8(7): 175–199 . that is speculated to have become the archetype for the Terengganu perahu pinas or pinis.Gibson-Hill, C. A. (2009 ). 'The Origin of the Trengganu Perahu Pinas'. In H.S. Barlow (ed.) Boats, Boatbuilding and Fishing in Malaysia [Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 26 (1)]. H. S. Barlow. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society: 172–174 [206–110] and Longuet, R. (2009). 'Update on Boats and Boat-Building in the Estuary of the Trengganu River, 1972–2005'. In H.S. Barlow op.cit.: 338–365. Malay traditions allege that this schooner was built on behalf of Baginda Omar, the Sultan of Terengganu (reigned 1839–1876), possibly either under direction or with considerable help by a German or French beachcomber who had "reached Terengganu, by way of Malacca and Singapore, in search of "otium cum dignitate",Gibson-Hill (2009 ): 172 to become the archetype of the 'Malay schooner': The Terengganu pinas/pinis, today carrying batten-lug sails, until the turn to the 20th century was commonly rigged as a gaff-ketch.Warrington-Smyth, H. (1902). 'Boats and Boat Building in the Malay Peninsula'. Journal of the Society of the Arts 50(2582): 570–586.
However, at around the same time, Dutch sources began to note a new type of locally employed sailing vessel registered by harbourmasters in the western part of the Malay Archipelago as 'penisch', 'pinisch', or 'phinis'(!);Interestingly, the first to reportedly use schooner-like sails on locally built hulls were various groups of local 'pirates': thus were, e.g., three vessels in Malay and 'Lanun' raiding squadrons roaming the waters off Singapore in 1836 "schooner rigged with cloth sails" (Logan, J. R. e. (1849–1851). 'The Piracy and Slave Trade of the Indian Archipelago.' Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia 3; 4; 5: 581–588, 629-536; 545-552, 144-562, 400-510, 617-528, 734-546; 374-582; 4, p. 402. by the end of the 19th century the use of such vessels apparently had spread to Bali, Kalimantan and Sulawesi. The word itself was possibly taken from the Dutch, German or French pinasse or peniche, by then the name for a rather unspecified small to medium sized sailing craftThe respective archival sources can be found in Liebner (2018). — the English 'pinnace' already in the 18th century named one of the boats carried aboard a war-vessel or a larger trading ship.
General description
The pinisi rig comprises seven to eight sails on two masts, i.e., three foresails (in Konjo, the language of the Bontobahari shipwrights, cocoroqThe /q/ marks the glottal stop, /ʔ/. For maritime terminologies of the area, see Liebner, Horst H. (1993). 'Remarks about the Terminology of Boatbuilding and Seamanship in some Languages of Southern Sulawesi.' Indonesian Circle 59/60: 18–44.) set over a long bowsprit (anjong), a main and main-topsail on the main mast (sombalaq bakka and tampaseqreq), mizzen and mizzen-topsail on the smaller mast aft (sombalaq ri boko and tampaseqreq ri boko), plus, mainly on older vessels, a mizzen staysail (parasang) between the masts. With sails set, a pinisi-rigged vessel looks like what in international sailing terminology is called a gaff- (or, less precise, schooner-) ketch: 'Schooner' because all its sails are 'fore-and-aft' sails, i.e., lined up along the centreline of the hull on two masts, with the two biggest sails being trapezoid and attached to 'gaffs' (the spars on the top of the sails); 'ketch', because the mizzen mast is not as tall as the main mast. When the sails are taken in, however, a major difference to most 'Western' ketches shows — the gaff is not lowered or raised with the sails, but is, with its claw stepped onto a piece of hardwood on the aft side of the mast, at around the crosstrees hung into a jackstay that runs from the mast cap to and through the gaff's peak, back to and through its forward end and then is fixed around the mast above the crosstrees. Main and mizzen sails, the canvas with the largest driving force, are run along the lower part of that jackstay, and set and taken in, somewhat like curtains, by a halliard, a downhaul and a number of brails.
There is no boom for the main sail, while a light spar holds the loose-footed mizzen. The gaffs are controlled by two pairs of vangs running both downward and to the fore. On the oldest documented vessels with a pinisi rig, the lower main mast is a tripod, with ratlines in form of small crossbeams between the two poles aft; on the newer ones a bipod is used, and ratlines are replaced by wooden ladders tied to the shrouds. Masts are generally stepped in tabernacles. The topmasts are attached with crosstrees and mastcaps in a rather 'Western' fashion; the bowsprit is flanked by planks that replace the sprit-shrouds and are interconnected by cross-beams onto which the forestays are fixed.