http://www.boatinternational.com | April 2016OWNERS’CLUB
PHOTOGRAPHS: HARDY EMERY PHOTOGRAPHY; ISTOCK; MR PORTER
Above: Some of Dunia Baru’s
20-strong Indonesian crew
hard at work on the phinisiBelow: Dunia Baru’s cruising ground
includes Padar island, part of
Indonesia’s Komodo National Parkpresident of the Wilson brand, and he pulled
that client in for me. In our first year we had
a $10 million turnover.”
It was also in 1992 that Robba got his
own yacht, a nine metre Tartan 30 that had been
owned by his uncle. He replaced that with a 12
metre wooden lobster yacht, his first wooden
boat. “I learnt a lot in that time,” he smiles, “in
particular making sure they don’t leak!”
Robba moved permanently to Indonesia
in 1998, having opened his first factory in
Jakarta the year before. “Around the turn of the
millennium Indonesia was a pretty scary place,
but we persevered and, in 2002, we made
a decision to move to central Java, where we
built a rather large factory that opened in
2003.” PT Sport Glove Indonesia’s output now
spans the gamut of gloves, from golf, running,
riding and cycling to military gloves, work
gloves and gloves for the oil and gas industry.
His manufacturing and quality assurance
background has honed Robba’s eye for detail,
which is evident as we sit forward in Dunia
Baru, his beloved phinisi. The intricacy of the
woodwork that surrounds us balances neatly
with the solid heft of her construction, butQUICKFIRE
Mark RobbaSPEED OR STYLE?
Style
CHAUFFEUR OR CHEF?
Neither. I drive
myself and love to cook
IDEA OF LUXURY?
Top quality food
FIRST THING YOU PACK?
Sandals
HOW MANY WATCHES?
I don’t own one
FIRST BOATING MEMORY
Capsizing in a Sunfish dinghy
FAVOURITE BEACH?
Nantucket
FAVOURITE CAR?
Toyota Land Cruiserher build is a story of frustration, joy, learning
and experience that spanned eight years in
total. “I remarried in Bali in 2005 and was
looking for something to do when my family
came over for two weeks,” he says, “and
I thought going for a cruise on one of the
traditional phinisis would be great.
“At the time I was planning on building
a villa in Bali but decided instead to build
a boat. I had heard you could build a phinisi
for around a million dollars and I thought
it would take about two and a half years. My
son was a high school sophomore so the idea
was that the boat would be finished in time
for his graduation. His indoctrination into
Indonesia was going to be a year-long sail
through the country.”
It quickly became apparent that Robba’s
calculations had been off – on all fronts.
“I didn’t give it as much thought as I probably
should have,” he admits. “What I find is
that there are a lot of great people in the
marine industry but not a lot of people
who want to talk about the true cost of
anything. We negotiated with a guy who
had built another famous phinisi. We agreed77