Indies Trader 4 "Off the Market", "quite busy"

As I initially heard from Evan at SurfThereNow in this post and from reader Rick Cameron last fall that Indies Trader 4 was for sale, no doubt a sign of hard economic times and a plunging stock price for Quiksilver. Nicknamed "The Death Star" by envious boat captains and their guests, Indies 4 has been the most extravagant way to cruise for surf in Indonesia and the Marshall islands, with a high top speed, luxurious ensuite cabins, helipad, and rates rumored to be between $1200-2000/person/day. However, the "recession" circumstances reported on earlier may have changed for the better.

In an exchange with Indies Trader representative Anthony Marcotti, I asked about the status and availability of Indies Trader 4. He noted that "[Indies Trader 4 is] off the market and quite busy… it has 5 charters this summer in the Mentawais."

Perhaps the owners could not get the price they wanted in the off season and decided to bite the bullet and run another season in the perfect waves off Sumatra.

Has " Indies Explorer " left the Mentawai charter scene for good?

Indies Explorer boat first caught my eye when featured in a surf video a while back. It's one of the largest and most recognizable charter boats in Indonesia, a Pinissi schooner over 100 feet long, bright white with two tall sailing masts. I saw this iconic boat at Thunders in August 2006. It was a small day of forgettable surf and 40 people were in the water groveling for some chest-high sets. Indies Trader 4 was also there, so we felt pretty smart that our groveling session didn't cost $1200/person/day.

About Indies Explorer, when I was looking for a Mentawais charter boat I was intrigued by the large size and relatively low per-day cost, but the boat holds 12 guests which was sort of a turn-off and the schedule didn't work out for the dates I had available. That day at Thunders I felt fortunate to have skipped since it looked like the boat didn't have much shaded common space with a view of the surf (always a precious commodity on surf trips). The sleeping cabins below decks all had ventiliation hatches in the middle of the main deck and the deck sloped up forward and aft, basically killing the most logical place for a picnic table, hammocks, etc. When we drove by in our dinghy there were also bits around the stern that looked kind of beat up and run-down. I scrutinized the other boats we came across as much as possible - there are only so many boats over there and I wanted to see what kind of shape they were in, did they pitch and roll a lot when anchored, etc. The truth is that some boats just look better on the internet and Indies Explorer is probably one of them. Using 6-year-old photos on the booking web site is one slightly deceptive practice - recent boat photos are always a good thing to ask for.

Anyway to make a long story short, I was thinking about all this because I recently learned that an overnight storm washed "a big white wooden sailboat" up on the beach in Padang. I don't think there are many other such craft near Padang besides Indies Explorer. For all the things that looked impractical about it you can'd deny the boat has soul. If anyone is thinking about going on Indies Explorer in 2008 or knows if it did in fact hit the beach drop me a line.