A diving cruise through Indonesia is one of the few remaining adventures one can dream of. Our luxury liveaboard Tambora is new and unique in its concept and approach towards embarking on this adventure. Welcome on board, and find out why Tambora!

Design and construction of a ship involve a large number of decisions and trade-offs. Our luxury liveaboard Tambora has been designed, engineered and built from scratch around five core themes.

— 21st Century Luxury & Amenities
— Old World"s Charm & Style
— 1st Class Safety Features
— Lowest Possible Carbon Emission
— Custom-designed and built for Scuba Diving

Decisions on major design elements, or choices of equipment, material and color, have been taken bearing these themes in mind. They are at the very heart of what we stand for.

21st Century Luxury & Amenities

Tambora proves that sailing and cruising on a traditional, beautiful wooden schooner does not mean compromises in terms of creaturely comforts.

Tambora offers all luxury and amenities that you can imagine. At the same time, she makes away with many shortcomings frequently encountered on a dive liveaboard.

Noise – as such, or as a consequence of excessive vibration – can seriously spoil life on board. Noise has also been proved to contribute to fatigue and seasickness. Tambora has been designed and built to keep excessive noise under control:

— Throughout the entire vessel, separating walls have been soundproofed with noise absorbing materials. This helps mitigate noise, as well as guarantee the privacy of our guest suites
— Engine room bulkheads are extra thick to absorb engine noise
— Similarly, all ceilings and decks have been soundproofed to mitigate step noise
— Tambora’s power train employs a flexible coupling to reduce vibration and thus structure-borne noise
— Her five-blade propeller is made of a special, very stiff alloy, minimizing internal vibration of the blades which are a key source of structural noise
— All engines under deck sit on flexible, shock-absorbing mountings
— Our “silent” water-cooled air conditioning system does not need noisy radiator fans

Among the natural luxuries of travelling at sea is enjoying the breezes when sitting out on deck. Conversely, inside a vessel, and especially under deck, temperatures can be too hot for comfort. Wherever possible, Tambora has been designed to mitigate this:

— All ceilings and decks have been thermally insulated, to prevent the rooms underneath from heating up under the intense tropical sun
— Tambora’s hull is kept in white color and hence reflects sunlight. As trivial as it sounds, this makes a huge difference to temperatures inside!
— All guest suites as well as the large salon feature individually controllable air conditioning

Old World"s Charm & Style

Tambora has been built by traditional boat builders on the island of Sulawesi, in the centuries-old tradition of a wooden Phinisi. The design and materials used guarantee immense strength and resilience of all key structural elements, especially the keel, hull and decks. Slight adjustments have been made to the original design, which is geared rather for cargo ships ferrying goods and commodities across the Indonesian archipelago, as compared to a modern liveaboard carrying passengers. Among others, they include a double keel and relatively smaller beam, to minimize rolling of the vessel in heavy seas.

She has been entirely constructed out of Sulawesi iron wood and chosen Javanese teak. While her hull has been painted white, the superstructure, decks and roofs have all been finished with a view towards preserving the natural beauty of the teak wood. All decks and the salon rooftop feature teak parquet flooring. This way, the rustic charm and warmth of a traditional wooden vessel could be preserved. All guest suites and rooms on board have been designed by a renowned Indonesian interior designer, and built-to-design by an experienced interior architect. Guest suites are well appointed and tastefully designed in a perfect blend of traditional Indonesian motifs and modern functionality.

The traditional Phinsi-style arrangement of the sails has been kept unchanged. Experiencing Tambora under sails, with a good wind blowing, is an amazing sight and a great way to travel through the Indonesian islands.

Great care has been taken to optimally combine the space and atmosphere on deck with the activities of liveaboard diving. Our dinghies are equipped with customized racks to store diver’s gear in between dives; tanks do not need to be carried back and forth but can be re-filled directly on the dinghies. At night and during longer legs of sailing, all gear is stored away from the elements in the dive station. No dive gear is left sitting around on deck.

1st Class Safety Features

Tambora proves that traditional design and today’s advanced safety requirements combine well. Great care has been taken during planning, design, and outfitting of the vessel to minimize potential safety hazards. And this focus on safety continues all the way through daily operations.

Tambora’s design and construction specifications meet or, in most instances, comfortably exceed the requirements as laid out in the construction manual for wooden sailing motor yachts (“Pedoman Konstruksi Kapal Layar Motor”) by the Indonesian classification bureau, PT. (Persero) Biro Klasifikasi Indonesia.

Tambora carries the full range of IMO (International Marine Organization)-conform safety, communication, and navigation equipment. Throughout the vessel, in each room and space under deck, a 24V DC emergency system provides back-up lighting, just for the extremely unlikely case that all four marine power generators should fail at the same time. All windows on deck are made of 10mm strong tempered glass.

Two potential sources of fire include open fires inside the vessel, and under-sized, poor electrical wiring where cables heat up and eventually start burn. Tambora has a strict “no open fire” policy. Smoking is strictly prohibited inside the vessel, at all times. There are no dangerous gas-fired stoves in use, and there is no LPG on board. Rather, all cooking, grilling, and baking is carried out on electrical cooking hubs and ovens of the latest German design and make. Fuel for the dinghies is stored in a separate, complete sealed compartment. All electrical wirings are carried out in over-size marine-type shielded cables that will not heat up even under the highest electrical currents.

Our guest cabins and common facilities are all of a size that allows our guests to move about the vessel unobstructed. There are no narrow gangways and staircases, or rooms so small that one invariably bumps into a wall or piece of furniture upon any movement. Ceiling heights are a comfortable 2.20-2.50m throughout the vessel. The large, comfortable dive platform on the backboard side of the vessel is only three easy steps down the vessel’s main deck.

Special care has also been taken wherever people might slip on a wet floor: all outdoor areas feature special non-slip finishing. In addition, the teak parquet covering the outside deck area is profiled longitudinally in beautiful Indian rosewood, giving your feet grip as well as a massage with every step! The lounge deck on the salon rooftop has latitudinal indentations, in addition to the longitudinal profiles, and the resulting grid structure is pleasant and safe to walk on. And, the dive station and all bathrooms aboard the entire vessel feature special non-slip flooring. And finally, we start off every cruise with a dedicated safety briefing, to make sure everybody’s accustomed with the vessel and will enjoy a safe time aboard.

Lowest Possible Carbon Emissions

For the time being, there is no way to operate a ship like Tambora without burning fossil fuels – by the ships’ main engine, to thrust the ship forward when there is not enough wind, and by its auxiliary engines to generate the electric power required to illuminate rooms and cabins, keep food fresh, prepare meals, fill dive tanks, and many others. While the usage of diesel cannot (yet) be avoided, we have gone to extreme length to keep it as low as possible. This means lower carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It also means no need for fuel surcharges.

Tambora’s propulsion system has been engineered for maximum fuel efficiency. At the heart is a new, genuine marine engine, which is significantly lower on fuel consumption. The five-blade propeller has been custom-designed and fabricated from a special, stiffer alloy, minimizing power losses due to both internal vibration and unnecessary slip.

The electrical system, too, has been designed end-to-end with a view towards maximum fuel efficiency, including:

— A range of genuine marine and industrial power generators with different output, allowing us to always choose the most suitably sized engine under different load conditions
— Capacitor banks to smooth power needs and curb peaks
— Over-sized marine cabling throughout the entire vessel, resulting in lower distribution losses
— The exclusive usage of power saving lighting throughout the entire vessel; searching for a conventional light bulb is a futile exercise on Tambora!
— The thermal insulation of all decks and ceilings, and the usage of a white, reflecting paint on the outer hull above the waterline, avoids the vessel’s interior from heating up too much under direct sunlight, so that air conditioners do not need to run so hard to keep temperatures comfortable