However, there are ways to keep their han asked addressing the onslaught of time, including a deal with the scarcity of wood, although there are periods of stuttering transforming the era of motor boats began to bloom in 1975.
One of the shipyard owner at Peninsula pinisi Bira, Andi Ahmad Nur (59), still remember stuttering Bira merchants anticipate the arrival of boat motor technology.
At that time many of us who are not ready to anticipate the demands of the market to make a wooden boat equipped with motor. Since then many Chinese merchants come to the ship owner. While many people are actually bankrupt Bira Peninsula, said Ahmad Nur in Bira.
Amid downturn, the boat from the village of Ara penggawa make a living by leaving the Bira. They pursue a more friendly market in Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Nusa Tenggara, a safe place with abundant timber and many consumers.
Bira Peninsula gloom continues to cruise pinisi archipelago from Makassar to Vancouver, Canada, in 1986.
In the exhibition in Vancouver in 1986, penggawa or pinisi maker Peninsula Bira show their expertise to make pinisi.
Haji Abdullah, a shipyard owner in Tanah Beru pinisi, was one of penggawa it. Exhibition visitors are amazed to see how we make pinisi, he said, laughing.
Pinisi are made with unusual way. In general, the ship made by assembling the skeleton first. Subsequent gastric wall or skin hull affixed to the bone.
However, makers pinisi make her keel, and then set the board for the board hull skin.
After the skin is so, we create new bone attached to the wall of stomach ulcers, said Abdullah.
Name Bira Peninsula as a producer of best pinisi back sticking out. One by one foreign person came to Bira, ordering artificial pinisi penggawa Ara, Lemo-Lemo, and Bira.
Shipyard owner was increasing, not only from the Bira, but also the Lemo-Lemo.
We, the Lemo-Lemo, before making the bow and stern of the ship. Because the role of our work in the middle, we were able to shift roles. Today people can become Lemo-Lemo shipyard owner, can be at once employed, could also go to sea, said Abdullah said shifting the division of labor's role in the Peninsula Bira.
In accordance with market demand and the times, the peninsula penggawa Bira had to innovate to create the engine room that can reduce engine vibration does not damage the ship for their wooden boat construction.
In the past we had to call a technician to install the motor boat. Now we've been able to install their own, complete with vibration dampening rubber machinery and other installations. Brand boat motors up to the buyer. Can Mercedes or Yanmar, or whatever brand, said Abdullah.
Until about ten years ago, shipyards elongated thatched huts of palm leaves crowded beach lined Beru Land and Land Lemo.
However, as more berbelitnya timber trade system, shrinking the number of shipyards.
Ten years ago, people had difficulty to see the beach because everything is covered with hundreds of shipyards. Now shipyard stay tens course, workers who used to live hundreds of thousands now, said Camat Bontobahari Andi Mattalatta.
Mattalatta also worried about the tradition of making pinisi in Bontobahari would evaporate. Many imported wood instead arrested. All department rules overlap. There should be a wood supply policy makers in Bontobahari pinisi. If not, can-can the expertise of people living pinisi Bontobahari make a historical record, said Mattalatta.
Now only four wood shipyards relatively regularly produce pinisi motor, which is owned shipyard Abdullah, Ahmad Noor, Haji Damang, and Haji Baso. It was limited to special order, pinisi cruise.
The shipping business of the people who will make a motor boat without a screen surely prefer ordering from outside the shipyard in Bira.
Ahmad Nur said, the lack of wood and shallow beaches on the Peninsula Bira limit the size of ships that can be made at Bira.
In fact, local knowledge they are actually allowed to make large-sized ships. Now the largest size of timber ships are made shipyard in Slippery Rock, South Kalimantan.
Wooden boats carrying capacity Slippery Rock shipyard could reach 500 tons. Actually, the author remains the Bira. That fact, in Bira no wood, while at Slippery Rock abundant timber, said Ahmad Nur.
Noor Ahmad has just completed the manufacture of three-pole pinisi largest ever made in Bira, Amira ship, measuring 42 meters long, 9 meters wide, and the high deck of the hull 5.25 meters.
Now he has to break first. It takes five to six months to find a timber big pinisi material.
Alas if we accept orders, while the wood raw material we do not get. Wood needs of many kinds. Meranti, teak, ironwood, confident, and wood gufasa, everything must be imported from outside the Bira. That's why many shipyards in order Bira reject the ship, said Ahmad Nur.
Smaller shipyards do anything to survive. Shipyard owned by Haji Jasi (80) in the Land of Lemo, for example, willing to work on fishing boats measuring about 10 meters long with a width of only 3.5 meters.
This order fisherman Jeneponto. This is not the ship will be equipped pinisi because no mast. Pinisi with large size requires a large timber, said Jasi.
That's how they deal with the times.
