1. The Making of the Polynesian Water Vessel
By: Rita Panapasa
For decades scientists, sailors,
and people all over the world
have been amazed of the
architecture of a Polynesian
water vessel. One of those boats
is the Hawaiian double canoe
named the Hokule’a.
Living space of the Hokule’a deck
is about 40 feet long and 10 feet
wide, which totals to 400 square
feet. The Hokule’a is said to be
very impressive and is believed
to perform just like the
traditional boats that it
resembles. However, in terms of
construction it is very different.
The hulls are cold-molded,
including several intermediate
bulkheads, rather than carved
from single huge trunks. 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", it 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 wide trackdoublehull craft," published by Tommy
Holmes in the Hawaiian Canoe.
Its original rig is very modest
540 square feet of sail area on
two crab-claw (spritsail) masts,
which gives it performance on
the order of 3 or 4 knots upwind,
and 5 or 6 downwind. It 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 explore and
eventually settle.