Ke Alahou, Volume I, Number 4, 1 February 1980 — HOKULE'A SAILS AGAIN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOKULE'A SAILS AGAIN

Hold on to the course! Hold on to the coursel Continue On! by Wayne Washburn, Maleolm Naea Chun ame Duke Wise

In early March the Hokule'a will again set sail in hopes of reaching first landfall somewhere near Tahiti. Crewmen and scientists will eoncentrate efforts on th*e process, and methoas, whieh may have been used by the ancient Polynesian navigators. Without first voyage demonstration to the modern world two imp@rtant findings. First, was that navigation by the stars without use of modern navigational instruments ean be successfully used when travelling between Tahiti and Hawaii. Second, a Polynesian double-hulled eanoe with- : out keels or deep centerhoards is able to sail to windward, and thus maintain planned course. For the present voyage celestial navigation will onee againbe of primary importance. Where the first voyage shpwed that celestial navigation was possible, the presēnt will pay particular . attentjon to the recording of the thought process of the navigator. Dr. Will Kyselka of the Bishop Museum Planatarium, and an assistant to the project, cited an incident involving a highly skilled non-instru-ment navigator fro3l Satawal, Mau Piailug. Onee caught in a storm for three days, Mau was unable to sail or use celestial markers for assistance. After the storm, though his course direction had heen turned around many times, Mau miraculously found his way hpme to his tiny atoll of Satawal. Dr> Kyseika suggested that maybe there are maps within some of the more skilled nayigators minds. He mentioned that pigeons are said to find their bearings in flight by being able to sense the difference magnetic fields given off by certain structures. Using the chsnges in magnetic fields the pigeons are able to draw a mental map and find their way home. Did the Polynesians possess this ability or something w r hich would enabie Ihem to find Tahiti and Haw r aii with regularity? Gaptaining the voyage down will be Gordon Piianaia. Navigating for the trip will be Nainoa Thompson, There to assist Thompson will be Mau Piailug, the navigator from the 197Q voyage. Crew member Steve Somsen will be documenting th navigation process. This will be done by conferring with Nainoa and Mau and theu orally recording it through the use of a tape recorder. Hopefully this will shed inore light on the Polynesians navigationaJ thought process, The Ishka» a sailing vessel captained by .\lex Ja£kobenko with assistence £rom his wife Elsa will follow some distance behind Hokule a. Dr. Kyselka will be on board to study and docunient the route of the Hpkule'a usiiig modern navigational instrume»ts and charts. On eompleiion of the voyage the two styles of navigatiou willhe compared for scientific value< Mweh has been designed. for departurs because it is the season that tunds tp favor the

northeast tradewinds whieh are important for the first half of the voyage. Like the 1976 voyage the eanoe will travel southeasterly for about 1000 miles, Onee "easting" is accomplished winds blowing from the southeast will be used to rēach first landfall or Tahiti from a windward approach. This "easting" is important in that not enough movement in that direction might cause them to sail west of Tahiti and miss the islands completely. Certain safety features have been added to the eanoe in order to avoid swamping problems encountered in previous inter-island trips. The gunwales and hatches ha ve been raised lohelp prevent water seepage into the hulls. Also on board will be six hand pumps, a radio and flares. The radio will be used to notify the Hokule'a's escort boat in case of an emergency. Certain sections of the hulls will contain inflated rubber. In the event that the hulls

are accidentally smashed these will enable the eanoe to remain afloat. Although non-instrumental navigation is the paramount research project of this voyage, other projects are being encouraged on a smaller scale. One of these is to fish using traditional types of fishhooks to learn how they were used. This hopefully will also provide a supplement to the crew's diet by adding fresh fish. While conducting the fishing experiments crew members will record how the differences of fishhooks: design, material and size; the speed of the eanoe; the types of fish caught and other factors affect fishing in the deep sea. These fishhooks are being faithfully eopieel from authentic fishhooks under the supervision of Sam Ka'ai of Kaanapali, Maui. Ancient fishhooks were made from materials such as shell, coral, turtle shell, dog and humanbones and evenhard woods.

In 1964, Drs. Kenneth Emory and Y. Shinoto of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, found a Tahitian one-pieee fishhook at Maupiti in the Society Islands. ljiey proposed a theory that this type of fishhook is the same as found in various sites in Hawaii. After its initial introduction they beiieve it became a major type used by the aneieni Hawaiians, Today, other anthropologists are not as certain if Tahitian migrations caused the popularity of this fishhook, but nonetheless, the experiments conducted by crewmembers of the Hokule'a should provide some information that may help the on going research in finding eommon links between the ancient Hawaiian society and the Southern Polynesians. With a crew of fourteen, the Hokule'a is scheduled to depart from Hilo on the first favorable day after March 2. ,