JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Before the tsunami devastated the remote islands of Simeuleu and Nias just off the west coast of Sumatra, they were only known to a faithful and fanatic group of surfers who came for the spectacular big surf.

But it’s these same tumultuous waters that have hamstrung relief efforts for the islands, where destroyed docks and washed out roads have left humanitarian workers with the daunting task of getting supplies to stranded communities.

A couple of experienced American mariners decided to contribute their skills and know-how to the effort, and found a ship – a sailing schooner from a bygone era – that could tackle the job in this rough stretch of Indian Ocean.

“She’s a very agile ship,” Robin Engel, of Tampa, Fla., says as he climbs aboard the Maruta Jaya, a 900-ton windjammmer being loaded with aid supplies at Jakarta’s chaotic Tanjung Priok port.

After the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that killed 129,000 people and left at least 300,000 homeless in Sumatra’s northern Aceh province, Engel and a friend, Ray Williamson of Camden, Maine, set up the Windjammer Relief Effort to provide logistic support for aid groups operating in the region.

Grass-roots fund-raising in Camden, a sailing center that is home to dozens of schooners, generated enough cash to charter the Maruta Jaya and set up an organization that has been officially recognized as an international tsunami relief agency.

Engel, who operates a marine tourism business in Indonesia, and Williamson – whom Engel describes as a “tall ship freak” who operates schooners out of Camden – are using the windjammer to assist aid groups in getting help to Nias and Simeuleu as well as shore towns in Aceh that are inaccessible by road.

The waters in the region are considered particularly treacherous for navigation, because the prevailing east winds blowing in from the Indian Ocean can generate huge waves and because the earthquake lifted many of the coral reefs near the islands. It is those reefs that create the long consistent waves that make the area a paradise for adventurous surfers.

“The ship has a shallow draft that can get in into coastal waters that regular cargo ships can’t reach, and she’s big enough to safely sail in the very rough waters off western Sumatra,” Engel says.

Large sailing ships are not uncommon sights in Indonesian waters. Government statistics show wooden sailing vessels carry about three-quarters of inter-island trade within the sprawling, 3,000-mile-long archipelago. But most are small and ill-equipped to handle rough seas.

The three-masted Maruta Jaya is a perfect cargo transport for the monsoon conditions soon to prevail in the region. It was designed in the 1980s in Hamburg, Germany, as a prototype of a new class of merchant vessels for Indonesia.

Representatives of two international groups working in Aceh, Save the Children and CARE, recently joined Engel to supervise the loading of their cargos into the ship’s hold.

“For us the most important thing is to get supplies to the final recipients quickly and cheaply,” said Goran Todorovic, a Montenegrin who is a CARE logistics coordinator in Aceh. “This ship perfectly fits the bill.”

After the initial rush to get emergency supplies to northern Sumatra, the cargos are now changing, with more emphasis on reconstruction materials, said Fadly Pateha, captain of the windjammer and its crew of 17.

The experience with the Maruta Jaya has motivated Engel to pursue the idea of establishing a permanent “Asia Aid Ship” that would be available for rapid deployment to deliver emergency cargos to coastal communities hit by natural disasters.

“While governments can dispatch aircraft carriers and hospital ships to these areas, there is not a single civilian cargo ship in all of Asia dedicated to relief aid,” he says.