The Grande Dame

There is a particular pleasure in a boat that has been loved for a long time. You feel it the moment you step aboard Silolona: in the shine on the teak handrails, in a crew that moves around the deck without needing to look, in the sense that everything has been put where it is for a reason and has stayed there because the reason was good.

She was launched in 2004, the first of the luxury phinisi. Twenty-two years on, she is no museum piece.

Built to Move

Silolona is fifty meters long with a ten-meter beam, a long and powerful hull built by hand in ironwood and tropical hardwood to Germanischer Lloyd's standards. Her owners give her cruising speed as ten to twelve knots, quick for a wooden phinisi of her size, and on a crossing it shows. She does not wallow. She cuts through.

She was built as a sailing ship, and her family still uses the rig. Near shore especially, the company prefers sail to engine wherever conditions allow.

Kept, Not Restored

Wooden boats do not stay beautiful on their own. In February 2020 Silolona went into a planned three-month refit, timed before the world closed down, and came out, in Tresno Seery's words, in top shape. He has said maintenance of both family boats is something they take exceptional pride in, and that being so close to the design lets him work with the crew to keep the ships right, technically and aesthetically.

That is the difference between a boat that is restored every so often and one that is kept. Silolona is kept.

A Crew That Stayed

The company Patti founded is owner-operated, and Tresno describes it as a close-knit extended family business. You can see it most clearly in the crew. All seventeen are PADI certified, and many have been aboard for more than a decade, some since the beginning.

On a long-running boat, that continuity is the luxury guests notice without naming. The captain knows the anchorages from twenty years of seasons, and knows which ones to skip when the swell is wrong. The chef remembers what you liked at dinner. The cruise director has walked into the same villages so many times that the welcome is personal. Being aboard feels less like a charter than like being taken in by a family that has been doing this together for a very long time.

A Day Aboard

A week in Raja Ampat might begin with three tenders running divers and snorkelers to the sites of the Dampier Strait at first light. Lunch is on the main deck, at tables that convert to daybeds once the plates are cleared. The air-conditioned teak saloon, with its panoramic windows, is there for the hottest hours. The spa offers Balinese and Thai treatments, in the cabins or in the spa itself, and a yoga instructor can join the voyage.

In the evening the art Patti collected over a lifetime catches the last light in the saloon, and dinner is served on deck under the stars.

The Grande Dame

Every fleet has one boat that sets the measure. For years, as the luxury phinisi grew from one boat into an industry, that boat was Silolona. She has since been joined by many others, some larger, some newer, all owing something to her.

She has not been replaced. She has simply been joined, and she carries her years the way the best things do: well kept, still moving, and surrounded by people who would not want to be anywhere else.

Silolona is available for private charter through Indo Yachts. Her yacht page has her suites, seasons and itineraries.