“Pinisi”, literally referring to the rig and sails of the famed ‘Sulawesi schooner’, for both the Indonesian and international public has become the epitome of the Archipelago’s indigenous sailing craft. Construction and deployment of such vessels stand in the millennia-long tradition of Austronesian (‘Malayo-Polynesian’) boatbuilding and navigation that brought forth a broad variety of sophisticated watercraft, ranging from the outriggered boats that enabled man to migrate throughout the vast expanses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the massive ships encountered by the first European intruders into the Malay Archipelago. As in any maritime tradition, these practices involve sophisticated cognitive concepts that outline the three-dimensional form of a ship and its countless components as well as the advanced social organisation necessary to successfully build, operate and navigate trading vessels. Following centuries of mutual co-operation, the three communities now represent the pinnacle of the Archipelago’s boatbuilding and navigation traditions. In indigenous perception a ship’s hull is conceptionalised in the form of ‘plank patterns’ (tatta), i.e., comprehensive mental routines that delineate the configuration and assembly sequence of a hull’s planking, her inner strengthenings and the dowels holding planks and framing together. Deeply embedded into a series of rituals that complement the building process, these routines for many a traditional type of vessel define position, form and size of each plank, frame or dowel in a hull; for more contemporary ships the tatta provides an overall draught that can be adapted to changing constructional demands, thus facilitating perpetuation and enhancements.