Fourteen villages, hand-carved sails, and a downpour that should have ended the day before it began — until the crowd built shelter out of tarps and tree trunks and waited the sky out.
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Kids don’t start by building a jong from scratch. They start by watching one take shape — the wood, the sail, the outrigger — then assemble their own, session by session, until the wind takes it out of their hands for the first time. This year the program grew past its original 20 funded spots, as more kids from the village asked to join.
See how kids join the program →“You need to keep your heart clean.” — Zakir
Every race since the first one in 2013, from Utara season to Selatan season, village by village and year by year.
The youth program: how local kids join, what a session looks like, and how to sponsor one.
Essays, interviews, and press coverage — and the book still being written.
Every photograph, organized by year and by subject — portraits, action, craft, and ceremony.
The full story behind these pages: meeting Zakir on the beach at Teluk Bakau, what a jong actually is and what it asks of the person who sails one, and years of races, seasons, and a community built one boat at a time.
Read more about the book →
Jong School
Planet Samudra
