Hōkūleʻa in Bar Harbor, Maine

Hokule'a off Oahu. (Photo: Polynesian Voyaging Society)

Hōkūleʻa is a Hawaiian voyaging canoe in the midst of a multi-year voyage around the world. (We wrote about her previously here.) Launched in 1975, the double-hulled vessel is 62 feet LOA, with a beam of 20 feet and draft of 3 feet. Her hulls are cold molded, but she is considered to be a "performance-accurate" reproduction of the canoes that are thought to have been used by Polynesians to settle much of the Pacific, including Hawaii. Built originally to test theories about Polynesian seafaring techniques and technology, she has since become an ambassador of Polynesian culture and a campaigner for environmental awareness. There's plenty about the vessel, her mission, and her circumnavigation on the website of her owner, the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

We visited Hokule'a this weekend when she stopped in Bar Harbor, Maine. Because she was tied up to a pier with her rig stowed, we couldn't get a good view of what she really looks like, but we did go on board and took photos of some design and construction details. We also talked with Kaleo Wong, navigator on the most recent leg of the boat's voyage, about the mechanics of sailing a double crab-claw rig. (This is literally the first video we have ever done, so please be kind.) 

The blade of the main steering sweep raised from the water.

Lashings between one of the main cross-beams and one of the hulls. The boat is entirely lashed together. There are no mechanical fasteners.

Hokule'a carries two idols on the vertical projections at the stern. On the port side (the female side of the boat) is a female figure. 

On the starboard or male side of the boat is a male figure. Where the female figure has prominent eyes and can see, the male is blind. But he holds a disc that represents the wisdom of the ancestors. Between the two of them, they have the perception and knowledge to guide Hokule'a safely.

Kaleo Wong sitting atop the starboard berth enclosure. There are five or six berths on top of each hull, all in a line, under a narrow sloped tarpaulin "roof," with tarpaulin covers over the entry side as well. Kaleo's feet rest on the starboard steering sweep, which is not steerable: it can only be lowered or raised to change the boat's center of resistance.

The main (center) steering sweep, looking aft.

Another look at the main steering sweep, showing the lashings that hold it in place and serve as its pivot.

Two berths on the port side. There's just room to lie down, or sit up and place your feet over the edge. Accommodations do not look comfortable, and they're probably wet in bad weather. (This side was orderly. The starboard berths were a shambles of unstowed gear. Just sayin'.)

NOTE: We're obliged to Sym (5) and Ars Sonor for free use of the nice ambient music we used for the intro and outro of the video.

From Pacific Islands: Peabody Museum #7

Let's look at some more maritime-related objects from several Pacific cultures on display at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. (Earlier posts in this series on the Peabody looked at Baffinland Inuit, Aleut, other Alaskan Eskimo, and Chinook, Coast Salish, et al, other Pacific Northwest exhibits, and a large stitch-planked monohull canoe from the Solomon Islands.)

This canoe model from New Zealand was collected prior to 1850. Its origin is probably Maori. The base of the hull appears to be carved from a single log, as would have been the real canoe that it represented. It measures approx. 108" LOA. (Click any image to enlarge.)

Elaborately carved stern decoration on the Maori canoe model. 

Bow decoration on the same model. The carved washstrakes are stitched to the dugout hull, and a black half-round batten is captured by the stitches. On a real canoe, some kind of vegetable fiber and mastic would have been placed beneath the batten to make the seam watertight.

The museum has an impressive display of adzes from various Pacific cultures, most with stone blades. The adze is the primary tool for dugout canoe construction.

This side-hafted adze from the Carolina Islands has a blade of sea-turtle bone and bindings of twisted coconut fiber.

This adze from Kirapuno, New Guinea, has a reversible stone blade held in place with nicely woven rattan binding.

Navigation chart from the Marshall Islands, made of the midribs of palm leaves, shells, and hibiscus and banana fibers.

Collected prior to 1903, this model Philippine double-outrigger sailing canoe has a squaresail rig, a dugout base and trifurcated ends, with two of the horns at each end turned up sharply. The outrigger floats are attached directly to the straight outrigger booms, placing the floats quite high -- possibly above the load waterline.

The struts on this Hawaiian double canoe model (wa'a kaulua) curve up between the hulls before passing through the washstrakes just above the gunwales of the dugout bases. Naturally-grown, curved timbers were used on real canoes. The curvature raises the struts above some splashing waves.

The unadorned simplicity of this single-outrigger Hawaiian paddling canoe model clearly identifies it as a workboat for inshore fishing and/or transportation.  

Whereas the two previous canoe models from Hawaii were representational, this delicately carved canoe-shaped effigy vessel from Indonesia probably had a ceremonial purpose. 

Composite fishhook of bone, fiber and wood. The display card says it's from the "Sandwich Islands": one wonders why the museum chose to use this antiquated name for Hawaii. A leader is bound to the shank of the hook, the bindings tightened by an inserted wooden wedge.

Hawaiian Double Canoes

Two types of boats were prevalent in pre-European-contact Hawaii: the single-outrigger canoe and the twin-hull, or double, canoe. Outrigger canoes were far more numerous, performing most everyday functions such as fishing, personal transportation, and local trade. The larger, more expensive double canoes were owned by the social elite and were used for war, ceremony, deep-sea voyaging for larger-scale missions of trade or exploration, and to display the owner's prestige. 

Three double canoes visiting Capt. James Cook on his third Pacific expedition. The sailing canoe holds several dozen crew and passengers, including "Tereboo, King of Owyhee, bringing presents to Captain Cook." (Click any image to enlarge.)

An average-size double canoe of the mid-19th century was about 48 feet (14 m) long and 6'7" (2 m) in beam, with each hull being about 1'7" (0.5 m) wide. Far larger ones existed, though: Capt. James Cook's third voyage to Hawaii (1776-80) reported the largest as being 70' LOA with a 12' beam. The longest ever recorded was 108' LOA: since all double-canoe hulls were carved, dugout-style, from single trunks, this would have required a pair of extraordinary trees. Complements of several dozen were probably typical, although crews as large as 120-140 men were reported. 

King Kamehameha's canoe, from a drawing by Admiral Paris. Note six full cross-booms, a partial boom at the forward end of the platform, the mast step (which does not sit atop a cross-boom), and the bowsprit.

Compared to modern twin-hull vessels, Hawaiian double canoes were quite narrow, with a typical length:width ratio of 7.2:1 or 7.3:1. By keeping the hulls close and the cross-booms between them short, wracking forces that would tend to break the structure apart were minimized. A cargo platform, which was fastened to the cross-booms between the hulls, was necessarily narrow, restricting the canoe's carrying capacity. In the average-size canoe mentioned above, the platform was a bit over 32' (10.4 m) long and averaged only about 1'7" (0.5 m) wide. Although the distance between the hulls was about 3' (0.9 m), the platform could not span that entire width: space had to be left between each hull and the platform so that the crew could paddle on the inboard sides of the hulls. 

A cross-section of an almond-shaped hull. The cross-brace (3) is held in sockets on the inside of the hull, and provides an anchor for the heavy lashings that secure the cross-boom (4). (The lashings are poorly drawn: it's impossible to tell how they terminate or where their lower ends lead.) This boat is unusual in having two washstrakes.

The hulls were most often carved from native koa, a.k.a. Hawaiian mahogany (Acacia koa), although Oregon pine, which occasionally showed up as driftwood, was used to make the largest boats. The hulls were symmetrical and as close in size and shape to one another as possible. On most hulls, the sides were usually fairly straight, transitioning rather quickly at the bilge to a rounded bottom, although some hulls had a somewhat almond-shaped cross section. During carving, cleats were left standing proud some inches below the top edge of the dugout hull to serve as fastening points for spreaders, which served mainly to anchor the lashings for the cross-booms. 

The fairly rough model shows the double-curved cross-booms that were typical of later canoes. Compare to the straight cross-booms in the line drawing above.

The booms, which ranged in number from as few as 3 to probably more than 6 for the largest boats, rested atop the upper edge of the dugout hull and passed through the bottom edge of washstrakes, which raised freeboard by several inches. Older canoe examples mostly show straight cross-booms, with later ones having booms that curve upward amidships, raising the cargo platform higher above the water. These double-curved timbers were gotten from branches of the hau tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus). 

A double-rabbeted joint between the hull (b) and the washstrake (a:). The exterior of the hull is at the bottom of the illustration. The sennit lashing (c) is almost entirely protected on the exterior.

The lower edge of the washstrake was rabbeted to fit over the upper edge of the base (i.e., the gunwale surface of the dugout hull), with the outer edge of the washstrake extending a bit wide of the base. Sometimes the upper edge of the base was also rabbeted. Lashings of sennit held the washstrakes to the base, with holes bored so that very little of the lashing was exposed on the exterior. 

Elaborately carved end-pieces extended the washstrakes on each side and curved into the horizontal to form end-decks. The smaller spatulate terminal in (a) was typical of most double canoes; the larger device in (b) was more prestigious. 

The washstrakes were cut off square at the ends. They were continued into the ends of the hulls by carefully-carved pieces that transitioned from the vertical into the horizontal plane to serve as end-decks and ended in vertical, spatulate terminals. The two mirror-image pieces which closed in each end were lashed together along the hull's centerline. 

This model was made under Admiral Paris's supervision, but according to Haddon and Hornell, it contains several mistakes. Note the straight cross-booms, "ram" ends that extend beyond the washstrakes (unlike the line drawing); rigging details of forestay, shrouds, mainsheet, and a line bending the upper end of the sprit toward the masthead.

A single, fixed mast was stepped on the center platform, and while it would have been stronger to place it directly above a cross-boom, this was not always done. (Some early reports stated that the mast was stepped in one of the hulls, but this was apparently not the norm. It may have been an expedient when two single-hull canoes where fastened together to form a temporary double canoe.) The boom – really a sprit – was fastened at a sharp upward angle near the base of the mast, and a cord was used to bend its upper end in toward the masthead. Masts were supported by backstays, shrouds and, in at least some cases, by a forestay to a short bowsprit. A single sheet was fastened about mid-way up the sprit. The sail had a crab-claw shape and was made of woven matting. Lengths of matting were also used to cover the hulls in rough weather, with holes left for the paddlers, who sat on thwarts. 

Propulsion paddle (a) and steering paddle (b)

Paddling was the preferred form of propulsion in almost all circumstances: indeed, with the mast stepped so far forward, sailing would have been problematic in any but a downwind direction. Propulsion paddles, carved from single pieces of koa, were about 5' (1.5 m) long, with large blades and no grip. Steering paddles were substantially bigger in all dimensions and had a T-grip. All paddlers in each hull paddled on the same side. A rapid pace was maintained, and on a signal from a "stroke" paddler in the bow (three raps with his paddle against the hull), all paddlers would switch sides.

For more on Hawaiian double canoes, see our previous post on the reproduction voyaging canoe Hokule'a.

(All images and the majority of content for this post are from Canoes of Oceania , A.C. Haddon and James Hornell.)

Models in the Madrid Naval Museum, Part III

This final series of photos from a recent visit to the Museo Naval de Madrid looks at models from the Pacific region other than China and the Philippines, which we covered in the two previous installments. (Also included here are a couple of full-size canoes, not from the Pacific.) As before, the captions are rough translations of the Spanish exhibit cards, followed by my own comments (if any) in parentheses. Click any photo to enlarge. 

This photo and the next two: Parao (19th C.), Mayalan warship

(Interesting slanted shields fore and aft to protect the gunners and helmsmen. I wonder if they were sheet iron.)

Parao (19th C.), Malayan merchant vessel. (The term "parao," which also applies to both the previous and the following models, evidently doesn't describe a particular hull type or the usage of the vessel.)

Parao (19th C.), Moluccan warship model made from cloves

Piragua (19th C.), Pacific Ocean; fishing and passenger carriage on rivers and bays

Tambil (19th C.), Singaporean pleasure boat

Piragua with outrigger (19th C.), Hawaiian fishing canoe. ("Piragua" is another ambiguous term, apparently referring to boats with narrow, canoe-like hulls that may nevertheless be very different from one another.) 

(unknown. I failed to record the exhibit card. Chinese sampan?)

Canoe from the forest of Betancu, Rio Sinu Province of Colombia (1862): 15M LOA, 1.13M beam. Presented to Queen Isabel II of Spain. (A 49' 2" dugout -- that requires some big tree!)

(Unknown. I could not find an exhibit card for this large dugout canoe. Note the difference between the bow of this canoe and the previous one.)

(Same canoe as previous photo.)

Model Hawaiian Canoes

Hawaiian sailing canoe model by Jeremy Reyes.

I was contacted recently by Jeremy Delos "Romes" Reyes, a Hawaiian wood carver and high school carpentry teacher whose interest in Hawaiian outrigger canoes has taken him in at least two -- possibly three -- interesting directions.

Taking part in Maui's annual Festival of Canoes, he and his shop class build a full-size single-outrigger dugout canoe, as described here.

At the other end of the size spectrum, Romes builds model canoes. Working at a scale of 1:12 (i.e., 1 inch = 1 foot), he builds both full models and "wall" models -- essentially a half-hull model of the main hull with an outrigger attached (maybe we should call this a 2/3-hull model?). Although the photos on his website are rather small, it appears that he does very nice work.

Along with sailing canoes, Reyes seems to devote special attention to modeling racing (paddling) canoes. Looking at the arms on this fellow, it wouldn't surprise me if actual canoe racing represents a third expression of his interest in Hawaiian outrigger canoes.

"Romes" Reyes

The Hawaiian Double Canoe Hokule'a

Hokule'a is without a doubt the most famous Hawaiian double canoe in existence. After a rough start beset by political and personal conflicts that nearly wrecked the project, she has gone on to complete many impressive voyages, the last one in 2007. Owned by the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS), she serves as an icon of native Hawaiin culture and a training platform for teaching traditional navigation and seamanship.

Hokule'a had her start around 1973, when Ben R. Finney, an anthropologist with an interest in the settlement of the Pacific islands, decided to scale up from a smaller, self-funded double canoe on which he had begun his investigations of the type. As described in his book Hokule'a: The Way to Tahiti, his original motivation was primarily scientific: to test whether the double canoe type had sufficient windward sailing capability to have made feasible the intentional colonization of the Pacific from west to east. This was in contrast to countervailing views that the colonization was either unintentional -- a result of unplanned drift voyages by castaways -- or that it had occurred from east to west, starting from the South American continent. (This latter theory was promoted by Thor Heyerdahl.)

Finney and his early partners founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society to help organize and fund the project but, according to Finney, the organization and the project were hijacked by nativist Hawaiians who wanted to use the canoe to promote Hawaiian cultural identity. Finney felt that the two objectives were almost entirely incompatible, and his book concentrates mostly on the resulting conflicts. (He acknowledges, however, that his narrative is quite one-sided.) The book is a tale of a terribly-managed project that just barely managed to fulfill its original goals in the face of tremendous personnel problems. Along with insubordination, there were fistfights and threats of mutiny.

Somehow, the Polynesian Voyaging Society turned the situation around later, and Hokule'a has clocked more than 32,000 sea miles on a half a dozen voyages, visiting most areas of the Pacific, mostly on cultural missions. (A circumnavigation is apparently in the planning stages!) Finney's name is hard to find in any context on the PVS website: he doesn't appear to be currently associated with the PVS, and it wouldn't surprise me if he dropped out immediately following the first awful voyage and has been placed under a taboo by the organization. PVS seems to be almost exclusively concerned with using the boat as a way to champion cultural identify -- there is very little about serious science on their website.

(In addition to the PVS website, much information on Hokule'a may be found on Wikipedia, although the article appears to hew closely to the PVS orthodoxy and gives little credit to Finney.)

The boat itself is unusual and impressive. The PVS calls her a "performance-accurate" replica, meaning that she is believed to perform like the traditional boats she resembles. Construction-wise, however, she's quite different. The hulls are cold-molded, with several intermediate bulkheads, rather than carved from single huge trunks. (PVS has subsequently built another canoe, Hawai'iloa, from huge Alaskan cedars -- about as close to the original construction as is possible at this time, since Hawaiian koa logs of the necessary size are no longer obtainable.) Steering is done with steering oars, which do not pivot side to side; direction is controlled by simply lowering the oars into the water or raising them out of it. With an LOA of 62'4" and beam of 17'6", she is much narrower than a modern catamaran of the same length but in keeping with the traditional configuration, which was narrow "due primarily to the limited ability of the wooden cross-pieces and coconut fiber lashing to withstand the phenomenal stress the ocean imposes on a widetrack double-hull craft," according to Tommy Holmes in The Hawaiian Canoe.

Her original rig was a very modest 540 square feet of sail area on two crab-claw (spritsail) masts, which gives her performance on the order of 3 or 4 knots upwind, and 5 or 6 downwind . She is capable of tacking to within 70 or 75 degrees of the wind -- comparable to the pointing ability of square-rigged ships -- which, based on the results of the first voyage, from Hawaii to Tahiti, was sufficient to have allowed double canoes to have indeed colonized Polynesia in an intentional effort of exploration and settlement.

(All images in this article from PVS website.)

Hawaiian Canoe Ladders

Another item gleaned from The Hawaiian Canoe, by Tommy Holmes:

Pre-European contact Hawaiians living on headlands without access to gently sloping beaches used canoe "ladders" as a means of launching and landing their boats. This was made necessary because Hawaiians relied on the sea for the bulk of their protein -- in other words, if you couldn't launch your fishing canoe, you did without protein almost entirely. Holmes writes that "No other culture has ever been known to overcome the problem of providing boat launching and landing capabilities from a wave-lashed cliff-bound shore."

The canoe ladder was a kind of slipway built along a sloping rock or series of rocks -- always on a headland, and never in a cove or inlet. Looking much like a regular climbing ladder (or a series of them joined end-to-end), the canoe ladder consisted of a pair of parallel poles up to about 30 feet long, with "rungs" up to 12 feet wide spaced anywhere from a few inches to a few feet apart. The upper sections of ladder were tied into holes bored right into the rock. The lowest section was tied only at its upper end, essentially hinged at the top so that the lower end floated with the level of tide and waves. This lower section was installed when needed, and removed at the end of the day when the last canoe had been retrieved. From photos in the book, it appears that ladders were sometimes quite steep -- maybe as much as 20 degrees from horizontal.

In exchange for a share of the catch, helpers on land would assist the canoe's crew in launching and retrieving from the ladder. The canoe's captain would call the shots, judging the waves and deciding when to go. In both launching and retrieving, the canoeist would attempt to go when the wave was at its highest -- when landing, to bring the boat as high up the ladder as possible and prevent subsequent waves from disturbing the landing; when launching, so that the boat would be drawn as far as possible from the rocks when the wave retreated.

In some landing circumstances, the crew would jump out of the boat just before it made contact with the ladder, leaving the steersman in the stern and the helpers on the ladder to grab the boat. Although Holmes doesn't explain why, it would appear that the crew's extra weight in the boat might have presented a problem in these instances. The notion of jumping into surf below rocks just as a wave is coming in is a bit frightening, but so is the whole notion of landing a dugout canoe in this manner, for the boat, the crew, and especially for the helpers on land who had to stand by as this wooden missile, weighing several hundred pounds, rushed toward them on the face of a wave.