By Jonathan Howery
April 7th, 2015
Humans have been sailing for long periods of time. It is a means of harnessing a power and using it for transportation. The first sailing to Hawaii emerged in ancient Polynesia over 1,000 years ago. These Polynesians could sail and navigate by wind currents, ocean currents, and find islands by just using constellations in the night sky. Vessels started with sails attaching to large canoes. These sailing canoes were built from island resources such as plaited leaf sails, island woods, and organic webbing. The manned paddled sailing canoes explored the massive Pacific Ocean. Although the journey between Hawaii and the South Pacific ended several centuries before the arrival of Europeans, no clarification is found in the Hawaiian Oral history. The appropriation and development of lands in the South Pacific demanded the full attention of ruling chiefs. This left little time for traveling, as a ruling chief who went on a long expedition always risked returning to find his lands and wives taken by another chief.
As long distance sea travel waned, changes in canoe design shifted from small canoes to larger canoes. For chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian Islands, paddling replaced sailing as the leading power means. Never certain when hospitality might turn, a chief wisely traveled with bodyguards. These bodyguards could launch a raid, fight a battle, or secure retreat to the canoe. In order to make a quick getaway, notwithstanding wind conditions, his bodyguards could work as paddlers. Paddling provided great freedom of mobility. Sails were no longer needed for working upwind. Paddlers of a chief's canoe were highly trained.
One version of an ancient story says that as a canoe was embarking on a voyage to Hawaii, a spirit announced his desire to go along. Informed by the chief that there was no room, the spirit leaped from shore to a small projection, which he noticed at the stern, and rode there. That projection become traditional in Hawaiian canoes, some say as a place where an invisible but benevolent ancestral spirit (aumakua) can ride. It was in these canoes that Hawaiian chiefs met Captain Cook and the early European traders in the late 18th century.
Europeans admired the skilled craftsmanship of the islanders using simple tools of stone and bone. Chiefs enjoyed showing off and when the Cook expedition arrived off Kauai n 1778, the king came out in a canoe in which all aboard were dressed in feather capes and sang songs of new visitors. As Vancouver came to anchor at Kealakekua Bay, in Kona, on the Big Island in 1793, King Kamehameha came out to formally greet him with eleven large canoes. In the later 1900s people in Hawaii sought to bring back their native skills in sailing, just using the tools of the earth and no electronics. Thus the Hokulea was constructed out of the old ways of building a sailing canoe. Then the team sailing had succeeded after 30 days of sailing from Hawaii to Tahiti just using the ocean, wind, and stars.
Experience sailing on one of the amazing Hawaii tours we offer on Hawaii DIscount. Enjoy your vacation here in the lovely Hawaiian Islands.
Loa’a wale lā!
April 7th, 2015
Humans have been sailing for long periods of time. It is a means of harnessing a power and using it for transportation. The first sailing to Hawaii emerged in ancient Polynesia over 1,000 years ago. These Polynesians could sail and navigate by wind currents, ocean currents, and find islands by just using constellations in the night sky. Vessels started with sails attaching to large canoes. These sailing canoes were built from island resources such as plaited leaf sails, island woods, and organic webbing. The manned paddled sailing canoes explored the massive Pacific Ocean. Although the journey between Hawaii and the South Pacific ended several centuries before the arrival of Europeans, no clarification is found in the Hawaiian Oral history. The appropriation and development of lands in the South Pacific demanded the full attention of ruling chiefs. This left little time for traveling, as a ruling chief who went on a long expedition always risked returning to find his lands and wives taken by another chief.
As long distance sea travel waned, changes in canoe design shifted from small canoes to larger canoes. For chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian Islands, paddling replaced sailing as the leading power means. Never certain when hospitality might turn, a chief wisely traveled with bodyguards. These bodyguards could launch a raid, fight a battle, or secure retreat to the canoe. In order to make a quick getaway, notwithstanding wind conditions, his bodyguards could work as paddlers. Paddling provided great freedom of mobility. Sails were no longer needed for working upwind. Paddlers of a chief's canoe were highly trained.
One version of an ancient story says that as a canoe was embarking on a voyage to Hawaii, a spirit announced his desire to go along. Informed by the chief that there was no room, the spirit leaped from shore to a small projection, which he noticed at the stern, and rode there. That projection become traditional in Hawaiian canoes, some say as a place where an invisible but benevolent ancestral spirit (aumakua) can ride. It was in these canoes that Hawaiian chiefs met Captain Cook and the early European traders in the late 18th century.
Europeans admired the skilled craftsmanship of the islanders using simple tools of stone and bone. Chiefs enjoyed showing off and when the Cook expedition arrived off Kauai n 1778, the king came out in a canoe in which all aboard were dressed in feather capes and sang songs of new visitors. As Vancouver came to anchor at Kealakekua Bay, in Kona, on the Big Island in 1793, King Kamehameha came out to formally greet him with eleven large canoes. In the later 1900s people in Hawaii sought to bring back their native skills in sailing, just using the tools of the earth and no electronics. Thus the Hokulea was constructed out of the old ways of building a sailing canoe. Then the team sailing had succeeded after 30 days of sailing from Hawaii to Tahiti just using the ocean, wind, and stars.
Experience sailing on one of the amazing Hawaii tours we offer on Hawaii DIscount. Enjoy your vacation here in the lovely Hawaiian Islands.
Loa’a wale lā!