Drifting Son

A fleet of Polynesian double-hulled sailing canoes, including the Gaualofa of Samoa and Faafaite of Tahiti, is welcomed into Hilo.

From today’s Honolulu Star Advertiser:

A fleet of seven Polynesian-built double-hulled voyaging canoes with an environmental mission sailed into Hilo on Thursday.

Crews representing 14 island nations voyaged from New Zealand.

A welcoming ceremony is scheduled at Hilo Bay from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday for crews on the voyage called “Te Mana o te Moana” — “The Spirit of the Sea.”

The crews hope their trip will strengthen ties to Hawaii, where a renaissance in canoe voyaging was ignited with the successful Hawaii-Tahiti sail of the Hokule‘a in 1976, supporting the assertion that Polynesians were able to use Pacific island way-finding techniques to sail thousands of miles.

The voyage is meant to bring attention to mounting threats to the environment in the Pacific, including plastic pollution, overfishing, rising sea levels and fossil fuel and sewage contamination, according to the website of marine enthusiast group Okeanos — Foundation for the Sea, which is producing a film documentary of the voyage to Hawaii.

My request for fathers day was to spend the day at Bayfront Beach in Hilo to check these canoes out and do a little playing of our own with boats and friends.  Should be a good time.  I’ll try to get some good pics of the boats…

More about the voyagers and a tracking map here:  Pacific Voyagers

Having developed this fascination for sailing years ago, I can’t believe that only today did I have my first ever step into a sailboat! And not only that, but my first launch, my first day of singlehanding, my first tacks, and my first beach landing. Only thing missing was my first capsize, but I came dang close. Maybe next time. Which will probably be tomorrow, because this stuff is awesome!

I managed to pick up an older Topper 13, which is similar in class to a Laser or Sunfish if you are familiar with those models. It’s basically a simple, unsinkable beginner’s boat made out of roto-molded plastic like a kayak. I downloaded the manual from the Topper website and read it several times, paying particularly close attention to the sections on ‘how to sail’. I may not know much about sailing yet, but- that just seems important. I also got very worried about how my eventual first attempt would turn out. I was afraid I would get the thing launched and then get tangled up in the rigging before I could catch the wind and crash back to to the beach in a huge embarrassing mess. There were a lot of different lines and pulleys and things with crazy names and I was feeling confused, so I though I would rig the boat up as best I could at home and do a little driveway sailing. As I began to compare directions in the manual to the way things looked on the boat, I realized the previous owner had made a few changes. Fortunately, it appeared he had pretty much removed anything with complexity, or weird names. Sheets, blocks, shackles, and cleats had been tossed aside and essentially replace with some cord and a knot. For you more experienced sailors, the sail is essentially permanently mounted to the mast, with the masthead crane bypassed and the tip of the sail tied to the top of the mast. The outhaul was eliminated in favor of one spring clip on the end of the boom, which is clipped to the grommet at the end of the sail after you unfurl it from around the mast and stretch it to end of the boom. The downhaul and kicking strap assembly was removed and tossed aside with contempt. What is left, is one simple line (which we call a sheet, apparently) which runs from the end of the boom to a block (pulley) on the traveler, which then goes down to a plastic cleat thingy. That’s what I got. But when the guy said it was “basically ready to sail”, he meant REALLY basic! But- being the trusting sort, I believed him and so- I put the thing together on the beach at Hilo bayfront and shoved it into the water…

Breakwall bound in Hilo Bay

…and I went sailing. You have no idea how happy it makes me to say that. After years of longing and dreaming and wondering, I bought a cheap-ass little jury rigged old boat and I went sailing! You should have seen the smile on my face when I shoved it out onto the water passed the little breakers and realized I didn’t have to wonder how to start sailing- it just happened! The wind snapped the sail around until the line was tight and the boat started moving- and I smiled. I looked around in wonder at the water starting to rush by the side as I picked up speed and I wasn’t paddling, and there was no motor noise- it was just magical.

I was able to spend about two hours sailing around Hilo Bay. Oddly enough, we had slight offshore winds today, and I launched on the windward side of the bay. I knew straight away that I’d better figure out how to tack if I wanted to get back to my launch point, but figured I could just move the truck if I had to land further downwind. So straight away, I started making a few tacks, getting a feel for how that worked and quickly built up confidence. Then, I went for it, sailing straight out to the tip of the breakwall (a good mile plus), with a few tacks here and there for good measure, and it was exhilarating. It’s a simple thing to get a feel for the wind- the boat responds instantly to gusts and lulls and with one hand on the tiller and one on the (sheet?) you quickly learn how to react to wind. I can see that these things will become second nature, but you really can’t stop paying attention for too long without risking losing control. Naturally, one of the things I want to do with a sailboat, is troll a line or two, and that will definitely take some practice. But practice for that equates to simply going fishing- so, I’m on it!

I managed to do some long tacks back to the inside of the bay and land exactly at my launch point near the truck, and felt quite proud of myself. I’ve gained enough confidence for sailing in the bay to get my boys out tomorrow with me, and am thrilled to insert sailing into their childhood. And learning to sail now comes just in the nick of time, as I’ve finally received my shipment of marine plywood for the sailing canoe I will soon start building. This is going to be fun.

Recently a couple of adventurous sailors on a huge sailboat, got rescued by an even huge-er sailboat, that just happen to have two things the couple desperately needed:  40 gallons of diesel and a highly trained crew of skilled sailmakers.  According to the media release:

The Coast Guard and the crew of a good Samaritan vessel assisted the crew of a sailboat 900 miles southeast of Hilo Friday after the ship’s sails frayed and fuel began to run low.

Coast Guard search and rescue watchstanders from the Honolulu’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center received a distress call at 7:40 a.m. Friday via satellite phone from the captain of the 43-foot sailboat Kehaulani. The 66 year-old captain and a 63 year-old woman were the only crew aboard the sailboat.

The captain estimated the vessel had two days of fuel remaining and would likely be 475 miles short of their next scheduled port-of-call on the Big Island.

Meanwhile, just by chance…

The captain of the 134-foot steel brigantine, Robert C. Seamans, was 150 miles away and quickly responded to the distress message. He established communications with the Kehaulani crew and coordinated a rendezvous location.

The crew of the Robert C. Seamans met the sailboat at 8 a.m. Saturday and provided 40 gallons of diesel fuel and successfully repaired the broken sail.

How lucky could you get?!  This is no ordinary ship, but rather (according to the Wiki)…

Brigantine Robert C. Seamans in Honolulu Harbor

she is one of the most sophisticated oceanographicresearch and sailing school vessels ever built in the United States complete with hydrographicwinches, bathymetricequipment, biological and geological sampling equipment, wet/dry laboratory and a computer laboratory.

Nice!  When my sailboat gets torn to shreds in the open ocean, I want a really big boat with a state-of-the-art workshop and a crew trained in traditional sailing methods standing nearby.

I’ll see if I can get a shot of the boat when they arrive here, and try to touch them in the hopes that some of their luck will rub off on me…

I don’t really know that much about sailing yet, really, but I can recognize that the early voyages undertaken by early polynesians are nothing short of amazing. “We, the Navigators” is a bit of a tough read to slog through, but one name that sticks out in your mind as the most important link to that ancient legacy, is Mau Piailug, the navigator on board the first sail of Hokule`a in 1976.  Largely through him, the art of sailing a simple, double-hulled canoe across a wide expanse of sea is not lost.

Bon voyage, Mau.

Honolulu Star-Advertiser article

Mau Piailug on the beach at Satawal, with a star compass in the sand (June 1983). Photo courtesy of the photographer, Steve Thomas.