The word pa is a suffix used in forming nouns designating persons from the object of their occupation or labor, equivalent to English -or/-er, so the meaning of palari would be "runner"[2].
Traditionally, the captain owns a small stern cabin 2 m in length and 1 m in height, under the deck planking.
Water is stored in jerrycans, drums, and pots and the crew lives primarily by rice.
Pajala is an undecked coasting boat which usually has a tripod mast carrying a single large tanja sail.
Palari hull, is built by adding more planks upwards the pajala hull about 2–3 feet (61–91 cm), adding an overhanging stern deck (called ambeng in Malay language), plus the construction of decking.
The hull is from pajala type, the rig is using a canted triangular sail in a tripod mast, with weight less than 50 tons.
A bowsprit and jibsail has been added, but it's still using a tanja sail on a single tripod mast.
[1]: 116 What pushed Sulawesi sailors to abandon the sombala tanja that has been used from the past for pinisi rig which is more European in nature according to Haji Daeng Pale is the ease of its usage.
One may go on board a pinisi from one end; walk over the decks of the vessels and get off at the other end; so that one may move from the south to the north of the island without stepping on the soil between"During World War II the Japanese forced Biran pinisi to load the necessities of modern warfare and many were sunk by Allied planes and warships.
When peace was restored, sailing ships were the only means of transport which could function without expensive spare parts which had to be imported from abroad and Biran trading revived rapidly.
[11] Because of the economy situation, new merchants could only afford to build lambo, smaller in size than the pinisi.
[10]: 219 Nevertheless, while before the war the biggest ships could load only about 40 tons, in the 1950s Biran sailors started to order ships of 100 tons and more and from 1960 on increasingly transported consigned cargoes owned by Chinese and Indonesian traders instead of bartering with commodities in East Indonesia.