Dream Boat to Sail Asia's Ancient Trade Route to Africa

Most visitors to the world's largest Buddhist temple, the Borobudur stupa in central Java, probably never notice the five intricate stone engravings of eighth-century ocean-going ships.

Scattered among the monument's 1,460 weather-beaten stone relief panels that narrate tales from Buddhist scriptures, the largest is only about 50cm high and 70cm wide.

But these illustrations have inspired a London fund manager to realise a decades-old dream and re-enact how Indonesian mariners established trading routes with eastern, and possibly also western, Africa more than 1,200 years ago.

Philip Beale, 42, quit his job with Morley Fund Management and had a replica of the Borobudur boats built in the Kangean islands, some 60 miles north of Bali.

With a crew of 14, he plans to follow the route of the Javanese pioneers and sail the 'Borobudur Ship' from Indonesia to Madagascar, round the Cape of Good Hope and finish in Ghana, where there is evidence of first millennium Indonesian influence.

The maiden voyage, from the Kangean islands to the north-eastern tip of Java, is scheduled to begin today and the adventure proper should start in the middle of August. The crew hopes to celebrate New Year's Eve in Accra.

'It all started when I was in Indonesia in 1982,' said Beale, a former naval officer. 'I saw the engravings of the ships. I knew about the Indonesian influence in Madagascar and eastern Africa and so put two and two together.'

Beale's idea to create a replica of the ship and sail to Africa as a 'voyage of celebration of what they achieved' stayed on the backburner until two years ago, when he met Nick Burningham, a specialist in South-East Asian maritime archaeology who has built several replica vessels.

Burningham describes the Borobudur ship as 'the most speculative reconstruction' he has ever worked on, with little more than the five reliefs to act as a design.

After scouring the Indonesian archipelago, they found Assad, a rotund boatbuilder in his 60s who never went to school, in the Kangean islands. He had never seen a plan or design of any ship in his life, so Burningham built him a model and everything was done by line of sight and guesswork.

The result is a 19-metre-long vessel with a width of four metres and a depth below the waterline of one and a half metres, with two rudders, three masts and sails made from traditional koroco.

Burningham, who advised Assad throughout the five months of construction, is impressed. 'She has an elegant and proud look,' he said. 'She rides the water like a lioness.'

He and Beale named their boat Lallai Beke Ellau - Run With The Sun - as that is the direction in which they will sail.

Lallai Beke Ellau's crew are not recreating every aspect of the ancient voyage. Their navigational equipment includes GPS and other satellite technology, radios and a forward-looking depth finder.