Private luxury phinisi · Komodo · Raja AmpatTiare

Tiaré’s owners describe themselves as experts in architecture, engineering and cuisine, and as seasoned divers, and they took from 2013 to 2016 to build her: a two-masted wooden topsail schooner in the phinisi tradition, 45.6 metres overall and 36.5 metres on deck, with a nine-metre beam. Every living area, deck and cabin is made from antique teak salvaged from old joglo houses, a choice the owners say has helped reduce the use of Indonesia’s disappearing rainforests.

She is, in her owners’ words, ‘a boat for people who like diving’. Each diver has a station on the aft deck, beside two hot showers; two six-metre, 90-hp tenders carry six divers apiece, and a 4.5-metre dinghy is kept for snorkellers. Tanks are 12 or 15 litres, or 7 litres for anyone who wants less weight, filled with air or Nitrox 32. Groups are capped at four divers to a guide, every diver wears an ENOS rescue beacon, and photographers have a ten-metre camera table and a separate camera room with charging stations and a workstation.

Six cabins with en-suite bathrooms take fourteen guests: two doubles, two twins and two triples that sleep three adults or two adults and a child. The published crew list runs to seventeen, from a captain and two officers to three engineers, two chefs, two cruise managers who are also dive instructors, and a carpenter. She is sold cabin by cabin on a fixed schedule, priced per person plus park and port fees: Raja Ampat from late October to April, Komodo and Sumbawa from May to August, then Alor, the Forgotten Islands, the Banda Sea and Triton Bay into November. Whole-boat charters are arranged on request.