Voyaging
Ocean crossings that were not races, and the oldest thread in the subject. Hōkūleʻa, the double-hulled canoe launched in 1975, and the revival of wayfinding by star compass, swell and bird, learned from Mau Piailug of Satawal. Māori waka, the dhows that ran the monsoon between the Gulf and East Africa, junks, and small boats making passages nobody asked for. The largest part of this archive, because it is the best documented.
Part of Sailing
269 moments in this segment.
- - First European drawing of Maori canoes, 1642. Made by Isaack Gilsemans, artist on Abel Tasman's expedition, at what is now Golden Bay in New Zealand, during a violent encounter between the Dutch ships and Māori in December 1642. The key marks the ships Zeehaen and Heemskerck at left and right, and the canoes that came out to them. It is the first European image of Māori.
- - New Zealand war canoe drawn on Cook's first voyage. A drawing titled New Zealand War Canoe from the British Museum's collection of work by A. Buchan, S. Parkinson and J. F. Miller, made in the countries visited on Cook's first voyage of 1768 to 1771. A white dog with dark spots sits at centre right.
- - War canoe challenging Cook's ship. Titled New Zealand War Canoe bidding defiance to the Ship, from the British Museum's collection of drawings made on Cook's first voyage, 1768 to 1771. A man stands with both arms outstretched holding a mere, the short Māori club, and a white dog sits in the middle of the canoe.
- - Tongan tongiaki seen by Tasman in 1643. A Tongan tongiaki with a bonito fishing canoe in the foreground, engraved after a drawing made during Abel Tasman's voyage of 1643 and reproduced by A. Dalrymple in 1770. The tongiaki was a large double canoe, and this is among the earliest European records of one.
- - Canoes of Tolaga and Bream Bays, engraved 1827. A hand-coloured plate by Edmond François Paris and Laurent showing canoes of Tolaga and Bream Bays in New Zealand, with plan and profile views, a triangular sail, a close study of the sail, and carvings from prows and sterns. It was published in the atlas to Dumont d'Urville's voyage of the corvette Astrolabe, 1826 to 1829.
- - Early depiction of a Maori canoe from Tasman's journal. An engraving after one of the earliest European records of a Māori canoe, drawn on Abel Tasman's 1642 voyage. Tasman never landed in New Zealand and the drawings made from his ships are all that the expedition brought back of the vessels it met.
- - Maori canoe prow from around 1860. A tauihu carved in wood and haliotis shell in New Zealand around 1860, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The prow board is fitted to the front of a waka taua and its spirals are cut right through the timber.
- - Carved detail of a Maori canoe prow. A second view of the same tauihu, made in Aotearoa around 1860 in wood and haliotis shell and held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The shell inlay marks the eyes of the carved figures.
- - Maori canoe prow, wood and haliotis shell. A third view of the circa 1860 tauihu in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection. Prow boards were removed and stored ashore when a canoe was not in use, which is why so many survive without their hulls.
- - Maori poling a canoe through rapids, about 1880. An oil painting by John Philemon Backhouse, who lived from 1845 to 1908, showing a man poling his small canoe past a fern-covered cliff on the Waipa River. Backhouse wrote on the facing page about the difficulty of getting canoes upstream.
- - The Waikato River painted by Kennett Watkins. An oil painting of the Waikato River by the New Zealand artist Kennett Watkins, who lived from 1847 to 1933. The Waikato was the main canoe route into the interior of the North Island.
- - Carved war canoe prow with feathers. An intricately carved nineteenth century Māori canoe prow decorated with feathers, illustrated in John White's The Ancient History of the Maori, published in Wellington between 1887 and 1891. Feathers were fixed to the prow board for ceremonial use and removed afterwards.
- - Prow of the war canoe Tokiatapiri. An intricately carved nineteenth century prow from the Māori war canoe Tokiatapiri, illustrated in John White's The Ancient History of the Maori, published in Wellington between 1887 and 1891. White's six volumes plus a volume of illustrations were printed by the Government Printer and recorded carvings that in many cases no longer survive.
- - Waka taua photographed for a 1906 travelogue. A war canoe illustrated in Emerald Hours in New Zealand, published in 1906, a travel book by the English visitor Alys Lowth. Books of this kind carried the first widely circulated photographs of waka to readers outside New Zealand.
- - Canoe on the Whanganui River, 1906. A man sits in a long canoe at Otuwhakakaireau on the Whanganui River in New Zealand. The river was a working highway for canoe traffic deep into the North Island, and photographs like this one were made for the Bain news collection.
- - Departure of the six canoes from Rarotonga. Kennett Watkins painted the traditional account of the canoes leaving Rarotonga for New Zealand, dated by the tradition to about AD 1350. The work is held in the Auckland Art Gallery.
- - Departure of the Six Canoes from Rarotonga, 1906. Kennett Watkins painted this oil on canvas in 1906, showing the traditional departure of the six canoes from Rarotonga for New Zealand, dated by the tradition to AD 1350. It hangs in the Auckland Art Gallery.
- - The Legend of the Voyage to New Zealand. An oil painting by Kennett Watkins, held in the Auckland Art Gallery. Watkins painted the settlement voyages as history painting, at a time when the canoe traditions were being recorded in writing for the first time.
- - Carrying canoes over hurdles, 1913. A Māori woman taking canoes over hurdles, from a scanned book photographed by Josiah Martin. Portage over land between waterways was ordinary practice, and small canoes were carried rather than sailed round.
- - Carved canoe prow, before 1935. A New Zealand canoe prow in the Oceanic collection of the Historisches Museum Bern, recorded before 1935. Swiss and German museums acquired substantial Pacific holdings through nineteenth century trade and mission networks.
- - Fishing canoe and war canoe in a museum hall. In front is a waka tete, a fishing and general travel canoe with its hull hewn from a single log. Behind it stands the war canoe Teremoe, whose 54 foot hull was cut from one totara log and which took part in engagements on the Whanganui River during the New Zealand Wars of 1864 to 1872.
- - Hokule'a arrives in Honolulu from Tahiti. The canoe reaches Honolulu in 1976 at the end of her first voyage to Tahiti and back. That passage was the point of building her: it demonstrated that the route between Hawaii and Tahiti could be sailed and navigated without instruments, and it began the revival of Pacific wayfinding.
- - Crew member John Kruse shares memories of Hōkūleʻa's historic arrival into Papeete, Tahiti in 1976.. Crew member John Kruse recalls Hokulea's arrival at Papeete on 4 June 1976, when about 17,000 Tahitians came to meet the canoe. The reel carries 1976 footage of the landfall. That reception is what turned an experimental voyage into a regional movement.
- - National Geographic Special, The Voyage of the Hokule'a (1977). The 1977 National Geographic special on Hokulea's voyage to Tahiti. The canoe sailed from Honolulu on 1 May 1976 and reached Tahiti on 4 June, navigated by Mau Piailug without instruments. The voyage is the founding event of the Pacific voyaging revival.
- - Maori canoes at the 1978 rowing championships. Canoes at the closing ceremony of the 1978 World Rowing Championships at Lake Karapiro, New Zealand, probably Taheretikitiki and Te Winika. Both were trucked to the lake from their home at Ngaruawahia.
- - Paraplegic Yacht Voyage. Peter and Liz Fordred, a paraplegic couple aged 27, set out in their boat Usikusiku to cross the Atlantic unaided, filmed on 31 March 1981 and timed for the International Year of Disabled Persons. AP reports they were attempting to be the first paraplegics to sail the Atlantic without assistance. The item covers the departure only.
- - Waka at Golden Bay, 1992. A canoe at Golden Bay in New Zealand, 1992, at the place where Abel Tasman's ships anchored in December 1642. Tasman sighted the coast on 13 December, sailed up the West Coast in the yacht Heemskerck with the armed transport Zeehaen, reached Cape Farewell on the 16th and anchored on the 18th.
- - HONG KONG: 5 BRITONS SET SAIL IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE JUNK. Five Britons set sail from Hong Kong in a traditional Chinese junk on 2 March 1997, aiming to reach Britain by the handover. Documented junk ocean voyages include Keying, which sailed from China round the Cape of Good Hope to the United States and England between 1846 and 1848. In 1955 six crew sailed the Ming-style junk Free China from Taiwan to San Francisco, about 6,000 miles in four months.
- - Waka in the Bay of Islands. A Māori canoe in the Bay of Islands, Northland, New Zealand, 2004. The Bay of Islands is where Ngā Puhi keep the largest of the ceremonial waka, at Waitangi.
- - Hokule'a arriving at Kailua Beach. The Hawaiian voyaging canoe comes in to Kailua Beach on Oahu in 2005. Hōkūleʻa's arrivals draw crowds to the shore, and the canoe spends much of her time between ocean voyages sailing between the Hawaiian islands on education work.
- - War canoe at Waitangi. A waka taua photographed at Waitangi in New Zealand, 2005. Waitangi holds the largest of the ceremonial war canoes, kept in a purpose-built shelter beside the Treaty grounds.
- - Sternpost of a waka. The carved taurapa of a Māori canoe, photographed in Wellington, New Zealand, 2005. The sternpost is the last thing fitted to a waka taua and the piece that carries the most elaborate work after the prow.
- - Close view of a waka sternpost. Detail of the carved taurapa of a Māori canoe, Wellington, New Zealand, 2005. The double spiral running up the post is cut through the timber rather than incised on the surface.
- - Prow of a waka. The tauihu of a Māori canoe photographed in Wellington, New Zealand, 2005. The prow board is a separate piece lashed to the hull, and it can be taken off and stored when the canoe is laid up.
- - Waka on Lake Rotorua. A Māori canoe on the lake at Rotorua, New Zealand, 2005. Rotorua's lake canoes were built for inland water and are lighter and shallower than the seagoing war canoes of the coast.
- - Sternpost of Te Toki-a-Tapiri, Auckland Museum. The carved taurapa of the waka taua Te Toki-a-Tāpiri, standing in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The canoe is the last surviving Māori war canoe of its size built for war rather than for display.
- - Hokule'a in the Suo Oshima channel, Japan. The double-hulled voyaging canoe passes through the Suo Oshima channel in Yamaguchi, Japan, in 2006. Hōkūleʻa was launched in 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society as a working replica of an ancient Hawaiian wa'a kaulua, built to test whether Pacific islands could have been settled by deliberate navigation rather than drift.
- - Carved prow of a Maori waka taua. Detail of the carving on a Māori war canoe, photographed in 2006. A waka taua carries a pierced openwork prow board, the tauihu, and the carving identifies the canoe and its people as clearly as a name would.
- - Maori ceremonial paddling. A ceremonial paddling display in New Zealand, 2006. The coordinated stroke of a waka crew is set by a kaihautu calling time from within the hull, and a large waka taua can carry eighty paddlers.
- - Waka paddling class on the Clive River. A paddling class on the Clive River in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, 2006. Waka ama and waka paddling are taught as clubs and school programmes, which is how the crews for ceremonial canoes are found.
- - Eddie Aikau memorial plate aboard Hokule'a. The plate fixed to Hōkūleʻa in memory of Eddie Aikau, photographed in 2007. Aikau was crewing on the canoe's 1978 voyage to Tahiti when she capsized south of Molokai. He set out on a surfboard to reach Lanaʻi for help and was never found.
- - Grip of Hokule'a's portside steering sweep. The hand grip on the canoe's port steering sweep, 2007. Hōkūleʻa has no wheel and no rudder in the European sense: she is steered by two long paddle-shaped sweeps worked from the stern platform, which is where the navigator also keeps watch.
- - Storage compartment inside Hokule'a's hull. One of the sealed compartments built into the canoe's hull, 2007. The twin hulls of Hōkūleʻa carry the crew's food, water and gear in these boxes, which double as the buoyancy that keeps her afloat if she is swamped.
- - Watertight bucket belonging to a Hokule'a crew member. A sealed bucket used by a crew member for personal stowage aboard Hōkūleʻa, 2007. Everything on a voyaging canoe lives in a watertight container because there is no cabin and no dry space: the crew sleep in open bunks under canvas.
- - Hawaiian pu conch trumpet on Hokule'a. A pu, the Hawaiian conch shell trumpet, carried aboard the voyaging canoe in 2007. It is blown to mark arrivals and departures and to signal across water where a voice will not carry.
- - Hokule'a's galley. The canoe's cooking station with a kettle and a bucket, 2007. There is no fitted galley on a wa'a kaulua: food is prepared on the open deck between the hulls, and everything must be stowed watertight before a squall.
- - Hokule'a's rear crossbeam. The aft crossbeam that ties the two hulls together, photographed in 2007. The beams are lashed rather than bolted, so the whole structure can flex with the sea instead of resisting it, which is how a double canoe survives an ocean without breaking up.
- - Radio equipment aboard Hokule'a. The canoe's radio set, 2007. Hōkūleʻa is navigated without instruments by design, but she carries safety and communications gear, and the navigator is required to keep his position by star, swell and bird sign regardless of what is in the locker.
- - Hokule'a's forward mast. Looking up the canoe's forward mast, 2007. Hōkūleʻa carries two masts, each setting a crab claw sail, and the rig is deliberately simple: there is nothing aboard that could not be repaired at sea with what the crew has to hand.
- - Hokule'a enters Kan-non Marina, Hiroshima. The voyaging canoe comes into the Hiroshima marina in 2007. Hōkūleʻa's Japan voyage took her far outside Polynesian waters and was one of the outreach passages that preceded her circumnavigation of the world.
- - Hokule'a at Mukuno Harbor, Suo-Oshima. The canoe lies at Mukuno Harbor on Suo-Oshima in Japan, 2007. She was sailed there as part of an exchange voyage, and the island's own long-standing links with Hawaii through emigration were the reason for the call.
- - Hokule'a off Suo Oshima, Japan. The Hawaiian voyaging canoe photographed at Suo Oshima in 2007. The island in Yamaguchi Prefecture sent large numbers of emigrants to Hawaii from the 1880s, and the canoe's call there followed that connection.
- - Hokule'a arriving at Kan-non Marina, Hiroshima. The voyaging canoe comes in to the Hiroshima marina in 2007. Her Japanese voyage was one of a series of long outreach passages made before the round-the-world voyage of 2014 to 2017.
- - Waka leaving the shore. A canoe pushes off from the beach in Auckland, New Zealand, 2007. Getting a heavy hollowed hull off a beach and into deep water takes the whole crew before any of them can paddle.
- - Sternpost of a Maori canoe in Berlin. A taurapa, the tall carved sternpost of a Māori canoe, in the ethnographic collection at Dahlem in Berlin. The taurapa stands vertically at the after end of a waka taua and is carved from a single piece of wood.
- - Prow of a Maori canoe collected in 1893. A carved tauihu from the Buller collection, acquired in 1893 and held at the ethnographic museum in Dahlem, Berlin. The Buller collection was assembled in New Zealand and sold into European museums in the late nineteenth century.
- - Figurehead of the war canoe Ngatokimatawhaorua. The carved figurehead of the waka taua Ngatokimatawhaorua at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. She was built by Ngā Puhi for the 1940 centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and is launched each 6 February and on other special occasions.
- - Ngatokimatawhaorua's figurehead in profile. A side view of the carved prow figure of the waka taua at Waitangi, New Zealand. Built by Ngā Puhi for the 1940 Treaty centenary, the canoe needs a crew of well over a hundred to be paddled.
- - Satawalese navigator Mau Piailug talks about the story of the first navigators. Mau Piailug of Satawal tells the story of the first navigators, in which women were the first navigators and Pulap the first navigator island. Piailug lived from 1932 to 2010 and navigated Hokulea from Honolulu to Tahiti in 1976 using exclusively traditional techniques. His teaching is the direct link between Micronesian practice and the Hawaiian revival.
- - Mau Piailug removes each tur and calls out the star path. Mau Piailug removes each stone from a star compass laid on the ground and calls out the star path. The star compass is memorised rather than drawn, and the stone layout is a teaching aid. This is the technique that navigated Hokulea to Tahiti in 1976.
- - Hokule'a: USIE Sail. Another 2009 sail from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Regular sailing keeps both the canoe and the crew skills current. Hokulea has been sailing since 1975.
- - Hokule'a: Palmyra Plane Arrival. Arrival by aircraft at Palmyra during a Polynesian Voyaging Society voyage. Remote atolls need air support for crew changes even when the canoe sails there. Palmyra is uninhabited apart from a research station.
- - Hokule'a: PAA Canoe Tour. A tour of the canoe from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Hokulea has two hulls joined by crossbeams with a central deck platform. There is no cabin and no engine.
- - Hokule'a sailing off Honolulu. Photographed on 22 January 2009 from the deck of the Chinese junk Princess Taiping. Hōkūleʻa is a wa'a kaulua, a double-hulled voyaging canoe, and carries two crab claw sails set on raked masts, the rig that Pacific navigators used long before European contact.
- - Prow of a Maori war canoe. The carved tauihu of a waka taua, photographed in New Zealand in 2009. The board is functional as well as decorative: it lifts and parts the water ahead of the hull as much as it declares whose canoe this is.
- - Boathouse for the war canoe Nga Toki Matawhaorua. The whare waka at Waitangi in New Zealand sheltering the war canoe Ngā Toki Matawhaorua, 2009. The canoe was built for the 1940 centenary of the Treaty of Waitangi and is launched each year on 6 February.
- - Te Aurere, a Maori double-hulled waka hourua. The traditional double-hulled canoe photographed at Mangonui on New Zealand's North Island in 2009. Te Aurere is around 17 metres long and 5 metres in beam, carries two masts, and was built in 1992 to bring ocean voyaging back to Māori waters.
- - The war canoe Ngatokimatawhaorua on display. The waka taua on display in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, 2009. She is named for the canoe of Kupe, which by tradition carried one group of Māori settlers to Aotearoa.
- - The waka house at Hobsons Beach. The shelter at Hobsons Beach in New Zealand housing the 35 metre war canoe Ngatokimatawhaorua, 2009. She is among the largest waka taua ever built and needs a crew of well over a hundred to paddle her.
- - Te Arawa waka taua in its lakefront shelter. The Te Arawa war canoe in the shelter it then occupied on the Rotorua lakefront, New Zealand, 2009. Canoes of this size live under cover between the occasions on which they are launched.
- - The Te Arawa war canoe at Rotorua. A second view of the Te Arawa waka taua in its lakefront shelter at Rotorua, New Zealand, 2009. Te Arawa is the name of both the iwi and the founding canoe from which they trace descent.
- - Hokule'a: Angela Fa'anunu - Rotary Club Presentation. Angela Faanunu presents the Polynesian Voyaging Society's work to a community audience. Public talks fund and sustain the programme between voyages. The society was founded in 1973.
- - Hokulea: Buddy McGuire. An interview with Buddy McGuire from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. The society's own channel carries dozens of these crew profiles. They are primary-source material on a living tradition.
- - Hokulea: USSP Sail. A sail from the Polynesian Voyaging Society's 2009 programme. The society sails continuously in Hawaiian waters between ocean voyages. Its own uploads are the primary record of that work.
- - Hokulea: Navigation Lesson. A navigation lesson from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Learning the star compass takes years before a navigator can hold a course across open ocean. Nainoa Thompson trained under Mau Piailug through the 1970s.
- - Kaua'i Crew Bio: Stephanie Fitzgerald. A crew biography for Stephanie Fitzgerald of the Kauai crew. Voyaging crews are assembled by island and by leg. The society posts short biographies before each sail.
- - Hokulea: Kaua'i Training Sail Preparations. Preparations for a Kauai training sail aboard Hokulea. Preparation and provisioning are a large part of voyaging with no engine and no resupply. Crews of twelve to sixteen sail the canoe.
- - Hokulea: Interview with Max Kaniho Jr.. An interview with crew member Max Kaniho Jr from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Crew interviews are how the society documents who sails. Membership is drawn from across the Hawaiian community.
- - Hokulea: Raising and Lowering A Jib. Raising and lowering a jib aboard Hokulea. Sail handling on a double-hulled canoe is done entirely by hand with no winches. The rig sets crab claw or Marconi sails.
- - Hokulea: Palmyra Voyage PSA. An announcement for Hokulea's Palmyra voyage. Palmyra Atoll lies about a thousand nautical miles south of Hawaii. Voyages to it are used as ocean training legs.
- - Hokulea: Sailing Canoe Training. Sailing canoe training from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. New crew learn sail handling on the water rather than in a classroom. The society posts its own training footage.
- - Hokulea: Molokai Training Sail 9/25/09. A Molokai training sail aboard Hokulea in September 2009. It was five hours out of Ala Wai Harbor, southwest of Molokai, that the canoe capsized on 16 March 1978. Eddie Aikau volunteered to paddle his surfboard twelve to fifteen miles to Lanai for help and was never seen again.
- - Hokulea: Hitoshi Miyashita \"Dragon\". A profile from the Polynesian Voyaging Society's 2009 uploads. The society's channel is the custodians' own record of the canoe and its crews. It runs from training sails to ocean legs.
- - Hokulea: Kamaile Academy Pa'ina. A school gathering connected to the Polynesian Voyaging Society's education programme. Schools are a central part of the society's work alongside the sailing. Crews visit classrooms before and after voyages.
- - Hokulea: Swim Test. A crew swim test for the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Crew selection includes water competence because the canoe carries no rescue vessel. The 1978 capsize made that requirement explicit.
- - Excerpt #2 from Voyage of the Joseph Conrad. An excerpt from film of Alan Villiers's voyage in Joseph Conrad. Villiers bought and captained the former Georg Stage and circumnavigated with an amateur crew around 1934 to 1936. He wrote forty-four books and his photographic archive is held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
- - Hokulea: Deep Sea Training Sail. A deep sea training sail aboard Hokulea. Crew must be able to stand watch, steer by star and swell, and handle the canoe in a seaway. Training sails run out of Hawaiian waters before every ocean leg.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 1. The first part of Hawaii Public Radio's Wayfinder interview series with Nainoa Thompson, posted by the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Thompson was born 11 March 1953 in Honolulu and was trained by Mau Piailug and by the Bishop Museum planetarium lecturer Will Kyselka. He is president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 4. Part four of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. Seabirds such as white terns and noddies fly out from land in the morning and return in the evening, which expands an island's detectable radius. Cloud reading adds another layer, including lagoon reflections on cloud undersides.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 6. Part six of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. Thompson was inducted into Pwo as a master navigator in 2007 and made a commander of the Order of Tahiti Nui in June 2014. He also chairs the Kamehameha Schools Board of Trustees.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 7. Part seven of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. Hokulea carries no auxiliary motor of any kind. She is 61 ft 5 in overall with a 15 ft 6 in beam and twin wooden masts, steered by a long paddle.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 5. Part five of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. In 1980 Thompson navigated Hokulea from Hilo to Papeete between 15 March and 17 April, thirty-three days, the first Native Hawaiian in modern times to navigate by non-instrument wayfinding. Mau Piailug sailed as an observer and offered one correction in the entire voyage.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 2. Part two of the Wayfinder interview series with Nainoa Thompson. Wayfinding uses a star compass of up to 150 stars, memorised star sequences for each route, and the technique of sailing down the latitude. No instrument of any kind is carried.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 8. Part eight of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. The 1976 Hokulea voyage demonstrated that Pacific settlement was deliberate voyaging rather than passive drift. That was the question the canoe was built to answer.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 3. Part three of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. Swell patterns run straight over long distances and so give a navigator a heading even when cloud hides the stars. Reading them is done by the motion of the hull rather than by sight.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 12. The final part of the Wayfinder interview series with Nainoa Thompson. Between 2014 and 2017 he sailed Hokulea and Hawaiiloa to thirteen UNESCO World Heritage marine sites. The canoe is now moored at the Marine Education Training Center at Honolulu Community College.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 11. Part eleven of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. Teaching wayfinding to a new generation is the Polynesian Voyaging Society's stated purpose alongside the voyages themselves. Thompson learned from Mau Piailug of Satawal, Micronesia.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 9. Part nine of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. The Lapita culture spread about 6,000 km between roughly 1300 and 900 BC, reaching Tonga and Samoa. Settlement then ran through the Cook Islands and Eastern Polynesia to Hawaii, Rapa Nui and New Zealand.
- - HPR Wayfinder Series: Nainoa Thompson Part 10. Part ten of the Wayfinder series with Nainoa Thompson. Hokulea was launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, founded in 1973. She is a performance-accurate reconstruction of a traditional Hawaiian double-hulled voyaging canoe.
- - Hokule'a's deck and sleeping area. The open platform between the hulls, moored at the Marine Education Training Center of Honolulu Community College in 2010. Crew sleep on the deck itself; the canoe carries no accommodation below and the platform is working space, galley and berth at once.
- - Hokule'a seen from ahead. The voyaging canoe moored at the Marine Education Training Center of Honolulu Community College, 2010. The twin hulls are joined by lashed crossbeams carrying a single deck platform, a form of vessel that predates any European multihull by centuries.
- - Hokule'a's stern and steering sweep. The aft end of the canoe at her Honolulu berth, 2010. The long blade hanging over the quarter is the steering sweep, worked by hand; a second sweep is carried on the opposite side and both may be used at once in a seaway.
- - Hokule'a's bow and masts. Looking forward along the canoe at the Marine Education Training Center, Honolulu, 2010. Both masts are stepped on the crossbeams rather than through a hull, which spreads the load of the rig across the whole structure.
- - Hokule'a's forward deck and sleeping area. The forward part of the platform where the crew berths are built, photographed in Honolulu in 2010. Fourteen or so crew live on this deck for weeks at a time on an ocean passage.
- - Life preserver aboard Hokule'a. Safety gear on the canoe at her Honolulu berth, 2010. Hōkūleʻa navigates without instruments as a matter of method, but she is fitted out to modern safety standards for the people aboard.
- - Hokule'a head on. The voyaging canoe viewed bow first at the Marine Education Training Center, Honolulu, 2010. Seen from ahead the two hulls sit well apart, and it is that beam, not ballast, that gives a double canoe its stability under sail.
- - Hokule'a's stern. The after end of the canoe at her Honolulu mooring, 2010. The stern platform carries the steering sweeps and is the navigator's station, where the direction of the swell can be read through the hull.
- - Hokule'a's name on the hull. The canoe's name lettered on her side, photographed in Honolulu in 2010. Hōkūleʻa is the Hawaiian name for Arcturus, the star that passes directly overhead at the latitude of the Hawaiian islands and so tells a navigator when he has come far enough north.
- - Hokule'a's stern from the side. A side view of the canoe's after sections at the Marine Education Training Center, Honolulu, 2010. The hulls are double-ended and finely tapered, a shape carried over from the wooden canoes the design was drawn from.
- - Poster for Hokule'a's first voyage to Tahiti. An old commemorative poster on display at the Marine Education Training Center in Honolulu, 2010. The 1976 voyage to Tahiti was the canoe's first ocean passage and the test that the whole project had been built to make.
- - Hokule'a's forward lookout position. The lookout station at the front of the canoe, Honolulu, 2010. On a wayfinding passage the lookout matters as much as the navigator: land is first detected by cloud shape, reflected lagoon light and the flight paths of nesting birds.
- - Hokule'a's stern quarter. The canoe photographed from astern and to one side at her Honolulu berth, 2010. Hōkūleʻa was built in 1975 and has been rebuilt and refitted repeatedly since, so that little of the original material remains in a hull that has now sailed round the world.
- - Lookout station aboard Hokule'a. The canoe's lookout position at the Marine Education Training Center, Honolulu, 2010. Watches are stood around the clock at sea, and the star compass the navigator uses is memorised, not drawn.
- - Hokule'a's name lettering. The canoe's name on her hull, Honolulu, 2010. The name means the star Arcturus, which stands overhead at Hawaii's latitude and is one of the fixed points in the zenith-star method of finding an island.
- - Waka at the 2010 World Rowing Championships. A Māori canoe on the water at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. The championships were held at Lake Karapiro, and waka crews took part in the ceremonial programme around the racing.
- - Waka crew at Lake Karapiro. A canoe under paddle at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. Waka appear at national occasions as ceremonial vessels, crewed and called in the same way they have been for generations.
- - Waka on the water at Lake Karapiro. A Māori canoe at the 2010 World Rowing Championships. Lake Karapiro is on the Waikato River, whose waters carried canoe traffic long before it was dammed.
- - Kaihautu calling time aboard a waka. The man standing amidships is calling the stroke, while two boys bail hard, at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. A large waka needs continuous bailing because the hull is open and takes water over the topsides at speed.
- - Bowman of a waka. The forward paddler of a Māori canoe at the 2010 World Rowing Championships. The bow position sets the entry of the stroke that the rest of the crew follows.
- - The double-hulled waka Haunui at Te Papa. The traditional double-hulled canoe Haunui on display at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, 2010. Double-hulled waka hourua were the vessels of ocean settlement, as opposed to the single-hulled canoes used in coastal and river work.
- - Waka of 1820 at Te Papa Tongarewa. A canoe dated to 1820 on display at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, 2010. Hulls of this age survive only in museums, and almost always because they were hauled out and kept under shelter.
- - Waka on Lake Karapiro. A Māori canoe on the lake during the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. Karapiro is a dammed stretch of the Waikato River, the same water that carried canoe traffic through the North Island.
- - War canoes at Lake Karapiro. Waka taua on the water during the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. The big ceremonial canoes are brought out for national occasions and paddled by crews drawn from their home iwi.
- - Waka crew under paddle. The crew of a Māori canoe at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. Every paddler works to a called stroke, and a canoe of this size will not hold a straight line without it.
- - Waka coming ashore. A canoe landing at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. Bringing a heavy waka in to a beach without damaging the hull is done slowly, with the crew over the side.
- - Waka taua on the water. A Māori war canoe at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand, with a television boat following astern. The waka taua is the largest class of Māori canoe and the one built for display and for war rather than for fishing.
- - Captain of a waka taua. The leader of a war canoe crew at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. He stands amidships and calls the stroke, timing the whole crew by voice.
- - Crew of a waka in New Zealand. Paddlers aboard a Māori canoe at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. Crews for the ceremonial canoes come from the iwi that hold them and train for the occasions on which they are launched.
- - Waka taua under paddle. A Māori war canoe on the water at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. The hull sits low and narrow, and its speed under paddle comes from length rather than from beam.
- - Paddlers aboard a waka. The crew of a Māori canoe at the 2010 World Rowing Championships in New Zealand. Paddling positions run the length of the hull, with the steersman working a long blade at the stern.
- - Mau Piailug The Navigators film importance of navigation. Mau Piailug on why navigation matters, from footage for The Navigators. He was inducted into Pwo, the Micronesian master navigator rank, and later conferred it on Nainoa Thompson in 2007. Piailug died in 2010.
- - The watertight-bulkhead technology of Chinese junks. UNESCO documents the watertight-bulkhead technology of Chinese junks. The junk is characterised by a central rudder, an overhanging flat transom, watertight bulkheads and a flat-bottomed design, built with iron nails and clamps. That construction distinguishes it from Southeast Asian lashed-lug boats.
- - Traditional Maori waka at Pilot Bay, Tauranga. A waka under paddle at Tauranga, New Zealand, 2011. Waka were the vessels of the Polynesian settlement of Aotearoa, and the tradition of building and paddling them has been actively revived since the 1970s.
- - Maori ceremonial canoe paddle in kauri wood. A hoe, or ceremonial paddle, made in New Zealand around 1880 to 1890 from kauri wood with paua shell inlay, now in the Honolulu Museum of Art. The paua inlay catches light in the same way it does on canoe carvings, and the paddle is a display object rather than a working one.
- - Waka below Pinnacle Hill, Puketutu Island. A canoe in the foreground at Puketutu Island in Auckland, New Zealand, 2011. The island sits in the Manukau Harbour, one of the sheltered waters where waka were worked as everyday transport.
- - The waka Haunui at the Festival of Sail. Photographed at the 2011 Festival of Sail in San Diego, California. Haunui is named for the Tainui elder Hone Haunui, chosen by the canoe's kaitiaki Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr in recognition of years of support and guidance on waka matters.
- - Bow of a traditional Maori long canoe. The forward end of a long waka, photographed in New Zealand in 2011. The hull of a large canoe is a single hollowed log with carved boards added at bow and stern.
- - Waka house at Okains Bay Museum. The canoe shelter belonging to the Okains Bay Museum on Banks Peninsula, New Zealand, 2011. A hollowed log hull is kept under cover because sun and wind open the timber along its length.
- - Voyaging canoe at San Diego's Festival of Sail. A Pacific voyaging canoe under sail at the 2011 Festival of Sail in San Diego, California. The crab claw sail, triangular with its apex down and its spars crossed at the tack, is the defining rig of Oceanic sailing.
- - Waka paddled into Viaduct Basin, Auckland. A canoe comes into the Viaduct Basin in Auckland during celebrations around the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The Viaduct is the harbour basin used for the America's Cup regattas of 2000 and 2003.
- - Voyaging canoes arrive in San Francisco. Marumaru Atua, Hine Moana and Haunui, left to right, reach San Francisco in 2011 on the Te Mana o Te Moana expedition. Seven voyaging canoes from across the Pacific sailed that expedition together, crossing to North America and back.
- - Sanding canoe parts for the Polynesian Voyaging Society. US Navy personnel sand down pieces of a Polynesian canoe in Honolulu on 22 January 2011. Sailors from Destroyer Squadron 31, the destroyer USS Chafee and Navy Information Operations Command Hawaii spent the day restoring the canoe and its support vessels ahead of a voyage to be sailed without electronics or navigation equipment.
- - Maori canoe suspended at the National Museum of Scotland. A waka hung in the World Cultures galleries of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Nineteenth century collecting carried canoes and canoe carvings to museums across Europe, and many have never returned.
- - Maori war canoe post, about 1891. A carved post from a Māori war canoe, held in the Oceanic collection of the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Munich. Carved canoe components survive in European museums in far greater numbers than complete hulls do.
- - Prow of a Maori canoe at Museum Rietberg. A carved tauihu, or canoe prow, in the collection of Museum Rietberg in Zurich. The prow board is mounted separately from the hull and is the most heavily worked piece of carving on the vessel.
- - Figurehead on a Maori waka. The carved figure at the head of a Māori canoe, photographed in 2012. The tauihu is worked as an openwork board and stands proud of the hull it is lashed to.
- - Close view of a waka figurehead. Detail of the carved prow figure of a Māori canoe, 2012. The face at the base of the tauihu is the manaia figure, cut with the same spirals that run through the rest of the board.
- - Te Hono ki Aotearoa in the Diamond Jubilee Pageant. The waka taua Te Hono ki Aotearoa taking part in the Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the Thames in 2012. The canoe was carved in New Zealand and is held in the Netherlands, where a local crew is trained to paddle her.
- - Modern double-hulled waka off North Head, Auckland. A double-hulled waka sails off North Head at Auckland on 25 October 2013, during the arrival of the Tall Ships race. Modern waka hourua like this are built to sail offshore, not only to be paddled in harbour.
- - Maori canoe. A Māori waka photographed in New Zealand. The hull of a large waka is hollowed from a single totara log, with topstrakes lashed on to raise the freeboard.
- - Maori canoe prow from the North Island. An early nineteenth century tauihu from the North Island of New Zealand, held at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The quai Branly holds one of the larger European collections of Oceanic canoe carving.
- - Mau Piailug The Navigators Film proa shunting. Mau Piailug explains shunting a proa, from footage for The Navigators. A shunting proa reverses bow and stern rather than tacking, keeping the outrigger to windward. It is a rig and hull logic with no Western equivalent.
- - The Ocean Shows Us the Way. A short film on reading the ocean for direction. Swell, birds and cloud together give a navigator position without instruments. The method was reconstructed from Micronesian practice in the 1970s.
- - Hokulea: How to navigate without instruments. A Hawaii news explainer on navigating without instruments. Crews learn the star compass, swell reading, bird behaviour and cloud signs. Hokulea carries no compass, chart, sextant or electronics.
- - Video Stories | Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage Overview. An overview of the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Malama honua means to care for the earth, and the voyage was framed as an environmental mission as much as a sailing one. It departed 18 May 2014.
- - Worldwide Voyage | A Hui Hou E Hōkūleʻa. A farewell film for Hokulea as the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage departs, produced in Hawaiian by Oiwi TV. Hawaiian-language media has covered the voyaging revival throughout. Departure ceremonies are part of the practice, not decoration around it.
- - Maori canoe at Te Papa Tongarewa. A waka on display at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, 2014. Te Papa holds several major canoes, kept indoors because a hollowed log hull will split if it is allowed to dry unevenly.
- - Video Stories | Navigation Through Generations. How navigation knowledge passes between generations, from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Mau Piailug taught Nainoa Thompson, who has since trained a further generation. The transmission had nearly stopped before the 1970s revival.
- - Worldwide Voyage | The Star Compass. An explanation of the star compass from the Worldwide Voyage series by Oiwi TV. The compass divides the horizon into houses through which stars rise and set. A navigator holds the whole system in memory along with the sequence for each route.
- - Worldwide Voyage | History of Hōkūleʻa and Polynesian Voyaging. A history of Hokulea and Polynesian voyaging from Oiwi TV. The canoe was launched on 8 March 1975 and first sailed to Tahiti in 1976. She capsized southwest of Molokai in 1978 with the loss of Eddie Aikau.
- - New Zealand war canoe engraved for Cook's third voyage. A plate from Cartes et figures du troisième voyage de Cook, published in Paris in 1785. Cook's three Pacific voyages between 1768 and 1779 produced the first sustained European visual record of Polynesian vessels.
- - Mālama Honua: Worldwide Voyage. A Hawaiian television feature on the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. The voyage visited 85 ports in 26 countries over three years. Nainoa Thompson led the project as president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
- - Drawing of Maori waka at the Rotorua Museum. A painted depiction of waka held in the Rotorua Museum, New Zealand. Rotorua sits inland on a lake, and lake and river canoes were built lighter and shallower than the coastal war canoes.
- - Sternpost of a Maori canoe. A carved taurapa photographed in 2016. The sternpost rises well above the hull and is the tallest element of a waka taua, standing behind the steersman.
- - Sailing on the canoe Solo to Maleso, Festpac 2016 Guam（太平洋芸術祭＠グアム 2016年）. A sailing canoe passage to Maleso filmed at the 2016 Festival of Pacific Arts in Guam. The festival brings voyaging canoes from across the region together. Micronesian sailing canoes use the shunting proa configuration.
- - Canoe at Okains Bay Museum. A waka in the collection of the Okains Bay Museum on Banks Peninsula, New Zealand, 2016. The museum was built around a private collection of Māori and colonial material assembled locally.
- - Maori canoe prow, about 1800. A tauihu dated to roughly 1790 to 1810, held in the Oceanic collection of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. It is among the earliest surviving examples of the form in any museum.
- - Maori canoe prow at the quai Branly. A carved tauihu in the Oceanic collection of the Musée du quai Branly, Paris. The openwork spirals are cut clean through the board so that the water and the light pass behind them.
- - Maori waka photographed in 2016. A Māori waka photographed in 2016. The hull form is narrow and deep for its length, built for speed under paddle in coastal and river water.
- - Maori canoe sternpost from about 1810. A carved taurapa from the North Island of New Zealand, dated to roughly 1800 to 1820, in the Musée du quai Branly. The sternpost is cut from one piece and lashed upright to the after end of the hull.
- - Sailing Across the World's Oceans with No Tech. A short film on sailing the oceans with no technology aboard. Non-instrument navigation was a living practice in parts of Micronesia when the Hawaiian revival began. Hokulea has sailed on that basis since 1975.
- - Hokulea arrives in Nova Scotia, its northernmost location on worldwide voyage. Hokulea reaches Nova Scotia, the northernmost point of the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. A Hawaiian voyaging canoe in the North Atlantic is the clearest measure of the voyage's ambition. The canoe carries twelve to sixteen people.
- - A look back at Hokulea's first voyage, 40 years ago. Hawaii news looks back at Hokulea's first voyage forty years on. The 1976 passage ran from Honolulu on 1 May to Tahiti on 4 June. It settled a long argument about whether Pacific settlement was deliberate.
- - Hōkūle‘a – The Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage. A short film on the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. Hokulea weighs 16,000 lb empty and carries 11,000 lb of cargo and crew. She sets crab claw or Marconi sails on twin wooden masts.
- - Worldwide Voyage | Tahiti Arrival Ceremony. The Tahiti arrival ceremony during the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. The voyage departed on 18 May 2014 with Hikianalia and returned on 17 June 2017. It covered 47,000 nautical miles, 85 ports and 26 countries.
- - Lei laid on Hokule'a at the homecoming. Garlands and gifts left for the crew of the voyaging canoe in Honolulu, 2017. Each landfall of the worldwide voyage brought presentations of this kind, and the crew carried them home.
- - Public aboard Hokule'a at the homecoming summit. Visitors tour the Polynesian voyaging canoe in Honolulu, 2017. She had just completed the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, which took her round the world between 2014 and 2017.
- - Aboard Hokule'a during the 2017 homecoming. Regional Forester Randy Moore takes in the view from the deck of the voyaging canoe, Honolulu, 2017. The canoe had just completed the three-year Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage and was open to visitors during the homecoming events.
- - View up the Ala Wai canal from Hokule'a. Looking up the Honolulu canal from the canoe's deck, 2017. Hōkūleʻa is 62 feet long and draws very little, which lets her work in and out of shallow harbours and reef passes that a deep-keeled yacht could not enter.
- - Crew sleeping berth aboard Hokule'a. One of the canoe's bunks, photographed in Honolulu in 2017. Crew sleep in narrow berths under the deck canvas; on an ocean leg the watch system runs continuously and the berth is shared between watches.
- - Conch shell given to Hokule'a's crew. One of the gifts presented to the crew by islands they visited on the worldwide voyage, photographed in Honolulu in 2017. The shell is sounded as a horn, used aboard to signal to other vessels and to call the crew.
- - Auckland from near Mechanics Bay. A drawing by Charles Heaphy, who lived from 1820 to 1881, held in the Auckland Museum paintings and drawings collection. Mechanics Bay was one of the early landing places on the Waitematā Harbour, where canoe and European boat traffic met.
- - Waka at the Waitangi Treaty grounds. Te Waka o Te Ana o Maikuku on the water at Waitangi on 6 February 2017. Waitangi Day is the one occasion in the year when the big ceremonial waka are put afloat and crewed in numbers.
- - Waka at Waitangi at first light. A canoe at the Waitangi Treaty grounds on the morning of 6 February 2017, with the naval vessel HMNZS Canterbury lying offshore. The waka are launched at dawn on Waitangi Day each year.
- - Hokule'a's crew meet visitors in Honolulu. Randy Moore and Roseanna Wary talk with a crew member aboard the canoe during the 2017 homecoming. Hōkūleʻa sails with volunteer crews who rotate through legs of a voyage, and several hundred people have sailed on her since 1975.
- - Visitors tour Hokule'a at the homecoming summit. The public go aboard the Polynesian voyaging canoe in Honolulu, 2017. She had returned that June from three years at sea on the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage.
- - Rudder blade of the voyaging canoe Hokule'a. The steering sweep photographed during the 2017 homecoming in Honolulu. The blade is worked by hand from the stern platform, and it is heavy enough in a seaway that two crew may be needed on it.
- - Visitors touring Hokule'a in Honolulu. Roseanna Wary, Randy Moore and Jodi Chew aboard the canoe during the 2017 homecoming festivities. Hōkūleʻa had returned that June from three years sailing round the world.
- - Public tours of Hokule'a in Honolulu. Visitors go aboard the canoe during her homecoming festivities in Honolulu, 2017. Public access is part of the Polynesian Voyaging Society's purpose: the canoe exists as much for teaching as for sailing.
- - Gifts and lei presented to Hokule'a's crew. Objects given to the canoe's crew during the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, on display at the 2017 homecoming in Honolulu. The voyage took Hōkūleʻa to more than 150 ports across the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans between 2014 and 2017.
- - Hokule'a open to visitors in Honolulu. The public go aboard during the homecoming summit, 2017. Hōkūleʻa carries no engine and no instruments on an ocean passage, and visitors can see how little there is between the crew and the sea.
- - Thousands line the channel for Hokule'a's homecoming. Spectators crowd the channel into Honolulu on 17 June 2017 as Hōkūleʻa returns from the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage. The canoe had been away three years and had sailed around the world, visiting more than 150 ports on the way.
- - Kitchen dishes used aboard Hokule'a. Crew crockery from the voyaging canoe, photographed at the 2017 Honolulu homecoming. Everything aboard has to be light, unbreakable and stowable, because there is no locker on a canoe that stays dry in a seaway.
- - Touring Hokule'a during the homecoming. Visitors on the deck platform of the voyaging canoe, Honolulu, 2017. The whole living space of the vessel is this open deck between the two hulls.
- - Touring the voyaging canoe Hokule'a. Randy Moore and Roseanna Wary aboard the canoe at the 2017 Honolulu homecoming. The Polynesian Voyaging Society opens the canoe to the public wherever she calls, and that teaching role is as much her purpose as the sailing.
- - Hokule'a's steering sweep. The canoe's rudder blade photographed during the 2017 homecoming in Honolulu. On a wa'a kaulua the sweep is both steering gear and the navigator's instrument: the feel of the blade tells the helmsman what the swell is doing under the hulls.
- - Lei adorning Hokule'a's stern. Garlands hung on the stern of the Polynesian voyaging canoe, Honolulu, 2017. The stern platform is where the steering sweeps are worked and where the navigator keeps station through the night.
- - The Hokulea | Polynesian Voyaging Society's Legendary Vessel. A profile of Hokulea and the Polynesian Voyaging Society. The canoe is 61 ft 5 in long with a 15 ft 6 in beam and no engine. She has sailed to Tahiti, around the world and across the North Pacific.
- - Worldwide Voyage | Hōkūleʻa Homecoming, Part 1. The first part of Hokulea's homecoming at the end of the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage. The canoe returned to Hawaii on 17 June 2017 after three years. Crews rotated through legs across the whole circumnavigation.
- - How did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific Ocean? - Alan Tamayose and Shantell De Silva. An animated explanation of how Polynesian wayfinders navigated the Pacific. The techniques were reconstructed in the 1970s from surviving Micronesian practice, principally Mau Piailug's. The 1976 Hokulea voyage tested them over open ocean.
- - Hokulea Documentary. An independent documentary on Hokulea. The canoe has been continuously documented since her launch in 1975. She is the best-recorded vessel in the Pacific voyaging revival.
- - Map of Hokule'a's worldwide voyage. The chart of the 2014 to 2017 Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, photographed at Kona Port on the Island of Hawaii in 2018. The canoe covered roughly 40,000 nautical miles and called at more than 150 ports on the way round.
- - Whare waka housing Nga Toki Matawhaorua. The canoe house at Waitangi, New Zealand, sheltering the waka taua Ngā Toki Matawhaorua, the largest Māori war canoe. Built for the 1940 Treaty centenary, she is 35 metres long and is launched on Waitangi Day.
- - Solar panels on Hokule'a's after deck. Panels fitted aft on the voyaging canoe, 2019. The electrical load is for safety and communications equipment only; the navigation itself is done by star, sun, swell and bird, with nothing to read from.
- - Engraving of traditional Maori boats. An old engraving of New Zealand Māori vessels, reused as an illustration in a work by Jules Verne. Nineteenth century European fiction and travel writing recycled the same small stock of voyage engravings for decades.
- - Maori canoes in New Zealand, 1891. Four Māori men in European dress stand beside two long canoes, with a flagpole and harbour behind them. The photograph was collected by Charles Appleton Longfellow on his 1891 trip to New Zealand and is inscribed Maori War Canoes.
- - Hokule'a behind the Hawaii Convention Center. The voyaging canoe at her Honolulu berth in 2019, two years after completing the worldwide voyage. Hōkūleʻa has sailed more than 250,000 nautical miles since her launch in 1975.
- - Maori canoe at Tamaki Maori Village. A waka at the Tamaki Māori Village, a tourism operation in New Zealand. Working canoes are maintained and paddled at cultural centres as well as by iwi, which keeps the skills of building and handling them in use.
- - War canoe with thirty-three men, New Zealand, 1891. Thirty-three men sit in a long canoe beside a beach, the man in front wearing a cloak over his shoulders and the others in a mix of European and Māori dress. The photograph was collected by Charles Appleton Longfellow on his 1891 trip to New Zealand.
- - Hokule'a at the Polynesian Voyaging Center. The canoe on her berth behind the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu, 2019. The Polynesian Voyaging Society was founded in 1973 and built Hōkūleʻa to settle an argument about whether the Pacific had been settled deliberately or by accident.
- - Hokule'a's mast. Looking up the canoe's mast at her Honolulu berth, 2019. Each of the two masts carries a crab claw sail, and the rig can be reefed or struck quickly by hand, which matters on a vessel with no engine to fall back on.
- - Hokule'a's cooking facility. The canoe's galley arrangement, photographed in Honolulu in 2019. Cooking is done in the open on the deck platform, and everything must be secured or stowed the moment the weather turns.
- - Maori canoe prow at the De Young Museum. A nineteenth century tauihu from Ngāti Porou or Whakanui, carved in wood with abalone shell and metal, held by the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Metal tools reached Māori carvers through European contact and changed how deeply the spirals could be cut.
- - Voyage map on Hokule'a's hull. A route map carried on the canoe, photographed at the Polynesian Voyaging Center behind the Hawaii Convention Center in 2019. The society keeps Hōkūleʻa at Honolulu between voyages and uses her as a teaching platform.
- - Maori canoe stern ornament, 1830s to 1850s. A taurapa from Ngāti Porou, carved and painted in New Zealand around 1830 to 1850, held by the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Traces of paint survive on it, which is uncommon on carvings of this age.
- - Hokule'a's bow. The forward end of one of the canoe's hulls, Honolulu, 2019. The bows are raised and sharply raked, a shape that lifts to a head sea rather than driving into it.
- - Nainoa Thompson on Polynesian Wayfaring | StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Nainoa Thompson discusses Polynesian wayfinding on StarTalk. Explaining the star compass to an astronomy audience shows how precisely the system maps onto celestial mechanics. Thompson navigated Hilo to Papeete in 1980 without instruments.
- - New A.I.-Guided Mayflower Ship Poised to Sail Across the Atlantic Later This Year!. A report on an uncrewed vessel built to retrace the Mayflower's Atlantic crossing. The original 1620 passage carried the Pilgrims to New England. Alan Villiers commanded the replica Mayflower II across the Atlantic in 1957 in fifty-four days, thirteen days faster than the original.
- - Earth Day Star Lesson Video featuring Nainoa Thompson. Nainoa Thompson gives an Earth Day lesson on the stars. Teaching is a core part of the Polynesian Voyaging Society's work between voyages. Thompson trained partly with Will Kyselka at the Bishop Museum planetarium.
- - John Kruse recalls when Hōkūleʻa made first landfall at Mataiva on first voyage to Tahiti. John Kruse recalls Hokulea's first landfall at Mataiva in 1976. Landfall after weeks of open ocean is the moment that tests a non-instrument navigator's whole method. Mau Piailug had held the course from Hawaii without any instrument.
- - Waka on the Avon River. A canoe on the Avon at Christchurch, New Zealand, 2020. The Avon runs through the centre of the city, and waka are paddled on it as part of the river's public life.
- - Waka on the Avon River at Christchurch. A waka on the Avon in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2020, passing the Edmonds Band Rotunda during its restoration. The canoe carries the name Koroheke Ponomare Honore on her topside.
- - He Wa`a, He Honua – The Earth is Our Canoe. A feature-length film from the Polynesian Voyaging Society whose title translates as the earth is our canoe. The phrase frames the society's environmental mission alongside its navigational one. Malama honua, to care for the earth, gave the 2014-17 worldwide voyage its name.
- - DAILY ROUTINE AT SEA OF A SOLO SAILOR// SOLO NONSTOP NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN PASSAGE// CONTESSA 26. A solo sailor documents his daily routine during a non-stop North Atlantic passage in a Contessa 26. Sleep, cooking and navigation on a 26 ft boat are the whole of the day at sea. Tania Aebi sailed a 26 ft Taylor sloop, Varuna, round the world between 1985 and 1987.
- - Hokule'a & Hikianalia: Training Sail to Ka Houpo o Kane. Hokulea and Hikianalia on a training sail to Ka Houpo o Kane. The two canoes regularly sail together. Hawaiian place names are used for the waters the society trains in.
- - Perpetuating the Art of Polynesian Wayfinding | We, The Voyagers: Our Vaka | PBS Hawaiʻi Presents. A PBS Hawaii film on perpetuating the art of Polynesian wayfinding. Transmission of the knowledge is the subject rather than any single voyage. Mau Piailug taught Nainoa Thompson, who trained the navigators after him.
- - From Hawaii to New Zealand: How The Polynesians Navigated. An account of how Polynesian navigators sailed from Hawaii to New Zealand. Settlement reached New Zealand at the far southwestern corner of the Polynesian triangle. Lapita expansion had begun roughly 1300 BC.
- - What is the Hikianalia? (Ancient Polynesian Canoe Voyage). An introduction to Hikianalia, Hokulea's sister canoe. Hikianalia sailed with Hokulea on the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage from 2014. The society also operates Hawaiiloa.
- - Hikianalia – Bruce Blankenfeld (Polynesian Voyaging Society). Bruce Blankenfeld of the Polynesian Voyaging Society talks about Hikianalia. Blankenfeld is one of the navigators trained in the generation after Nainoa Thompson. The society maintains several canoes rather than one.
- - Hōkūleʻa in Tahiti – Then and Now (Polynesian Voyaging Society). Hokulea in Tahiti then and now, from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Tahiti has been the destination of the canoe's defining voyages since 1976. The society prefers to publish its own record of these arrivals.
- - pondlifeworkshop tacking outrigger sailing canoe. A tacking outrigger sailing canoe on the water. Tacking outriggers turn through the wind conventionally, unlike shunting proas which reverse ends. Both configurations keep the outrigger on the same side relative to the wind.
- - DHOW SAILING IN THE INDIAN OCEAN DOCUMENTARY. A documentary on dhow sailing in the Indian Ocean. Dhows are traditional sailing vessels of one or more masts carrying settee or lateen sails, working the eastern Arabian, Iranian, East African and South Asian coasts. They still make commercial voyages between the Persian Gulf and East Africa carrying dates, fish and mangrove timber.
- - What Made the Junk Ship Unique?. An account of what made the junk distinctive. The battened lug sail carries full-length battens which keep the sail flatter than ideal in all conditions, so its windward performance is poorer than other fore-and-aft rigs. It was nonetheless very effective for ocean voyaging.
- - Hōkūleʻa Training Sail in 360˚ - Feb. 8, 2022. A 360 degree film of a Hokulea training sail. The format shows the whole deck at once, which is how a crew actually experiences a double-hulled canoe. Steering is by a long paddle rather than a wheel or tiller.
- - Hikianalia the sister canoe of Hokule'a is being lowered back into the water after being in drydo.... Hikianalia is lowered back into the water after maintenance. Voyaging canoes are hauled out between legs for hull and rigging work. Hawaii news covers the society's operations closely.
- - 6 days crossing the treacherous bay of Biscay on a small sailboat. Six days crossing the Bay of Biscay in a small sailboat. Biscay's shallowing continental shelf builds a short steep sea in any westerly gale. It was crossing Biscay that Nigel Burgess was lost overboard three days into the 1992 Vendee Globe.
- - Chief Miko under way towards Satawal. Sailing at speed towards the atoll of Satawal in Micronesia, 2023. Satawal is a low coral island of roughly one square kilometre, and it is the home of the navigational tradition that Mau Piailug carried to Hawaii.
- - Sailing from Palau to Yap. A voyaging canoe on passage between Palau and Yap in Micronesia, March 2007. These are the waters of the Carolinian navigators, whose star compass and swell reading were the source of the knowledge that revived Hawaiian wayfinding.
- - Mau Piailug at a Pwo navigation ceremony. The Satawalese master navigator photographed during a Pwo initiation. Pwo is the rite that confers master navigator status, and Piailug revived it in 1990 in order to pass the knowledge on before it was lost.
- - Detail of a waka at Okains Bay Museum. Carved detail from a canoe held at the Okains Bay Museum on Banks Peninsula, New Zealand, 2023. Small regional museums hold a large share of the surviving waka, often collected locally in the nineteenth century.
- - Mau Piailug with Sesario Sewralur. The Satawalese master navigator photographed with Sesario Sewralur. Piailug's decision to teach outside his own island broke with custom and is the reason the star compass method survived beyond Micronesia; he died in 2010.
- - Bruce Blankenfeld initiated as a Pwo navigator. Blankenfeld receives the rank of Pwo navigator from Mau Piailug, 2023. Piailug, who died in 2010, initiated a generation of Hawaiian navigators after teaching Nainoa Thompson to find land without charts, compass or instruments of any kind.
- - Hokule'a and Alingano Maisu arrive at Satawal. The two voyaging canoes make Satawal in Micronesia, 2023. Alingano Maisu was built in Hawaii and given to Mau Piailug in 2007 in return for the navigation knowledge he had passed to the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
- - Marking Mau Piailug's birthday on Hawaii. Chief Miko at a celebration of Mau Piailug's birthday at Kohala on the island of Hawaii, 2023. Piailug died in 2010, and the Hawaiian navigators he trained continue to mark the day.
- - Mau Piailug's name carved in the navigator's seat. The Polynesian Voyaging Society honours master navigator Mau Piailug (1931 to 2010) with his name carved into the traditional navigator's seat aboard Hōkūleʻa. Piailug came from Satawal in Micronesia and taught Nainoa Thompson to navigate without instruments, which is how the Hawaiian tradition was recovered.
- - Navigators after a Pwo ceremony. Chief Miko with newly initiated navigators following a traditional Pwo ceremony, 2023. Pwo is the Micronesian rite that confers the rank of master navigator, and it was Mau Piailug of Satawal who reopened it to Hawaiians so that the wayfinding knowledge would not die with him.
- - Chief Miko aboard Hokule'a. Photographed on the deck of the Hawaiian voyaging canoe in 2023. The link between Hōkūleʻa and the navigators of Satawal in Micronesia has run since the 1970s, when Mau Piailug agreed to teach the Polynesian Voyaging Society what had been lost in Hawaii.
- - Chief Miko among elders at a navigation ceremony. Elders surround Chief Miko during a traditional navigation ceremony, 2023. The transmission of wayfinding is not written down: it passes by initiation, memorised star lines and years of apprenticeship at sea.
- - Chief Miko during the Pwo navigator ceremony. Photographed during the traditional Pwo initiation, 2023. The ceremony marks the moment an apprentice is recognised as competent to carry a crew across open ocean on his own judgement.
- - Mau Piailug with Chief Miko. The master navigator of Satawal receiving a foot massage from Chief Miko. Piailug taught navigation to Hawaiians from the 1970s, guiding Hōkūleʻa's first voyage to Tahiti in 1976 without instruments of any kind.
- - Navigating from Palau to Yap aboard Alingano Maisu. Under way between the islands of Palau and Yap in Micronesia. Alingano Maisu was built in Hawaii and presented to Mau Piailug in 2007 as a gift from the Hawaiian voyaging community in return for what he had taught them.
- - Eddie Aikau plaque aboard Hokule'a. The plaque the Polynesian Voyaging Society keeps on the canoe for Eddie Aikau of Kahului, Hawaii, who lived from 1946 to 1978. A big wave surfer and lifeguard, he was crewing on Hōkūleʻa's 1978 voyage to Tahiti when she capsized twelve miles south of Molokai. He set out on a surfboard for Lanaʻi to bring help and was never seen again.
- - Moananuiakea: A Voyage for Earth. A full-length Hawaii News Now film on the Moananuiakea voyage. Moananuiakea is the Polynesian Voyaging Society's Pacific circumnavigation following the Malama Honua voyage. The canoe still sails without an engine or instruments.
- - The war canoe Teremoe at Te Papa Tongarewa. Made by an unknown carver for Te Āti Haunui a Pāpārangi, perhaps in the 1820s to 1840s, from totara wood, and now in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. Teremoe took part in engagements on the Whanganui River during the New Zealand Wars.
- - Hull of the outrigger canoe Tauhunu. An outrigger canoe hull from Manihiki in the Cook Islands, maker unknown, made around 1900 from wood, plant fibre and pearl shell, now in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The single outrigger provides the stability that a double hull gives on a larger voyaging canoe.
- - Moananuiākea | North Pacific Gyre Training Sail Plan. The North Pacific Gyre training sail plan for the Moananuiakea voyage. Training sails prepare crews before ocean legs. The society runs them continuously between voyages.
- - Hikianalia, voyaging canoe launch, speech by Nainoa Thompson President, Polynesian Voyaging Society. Nainoa Thompson speaks at a voyaging canoe launch. Canoe launches across the Pacific have followed the Hokulea model since 1975. Other revived canoes include Hawaiiloa, Hawaiki-nui, Marumaru Atua and O Tahiti Nui Freedom.
- - Moananuiākea Voyage | Leg 11 Hilo Arrival. Hokulea arrives at Hilo on leg eleven of the Moananuiakea voyage. Arrivals are met with ceremony at every port the canoe visits. Hilo was also the departure point for Thompson's 1980 navigation to Tahiti.
- - Three double-hulled canoes at Rarotonga. Hikianalia, Paikea and Hōkūleʻa moored at Ngatangiia Harbour in the Cook Islands, 2025. The revival that began with one Hawaiian canoe in 1975 now runs across the Pacific, with voyaging canoes built and sailed from Aotearoa, the Cooks, Tahiti, Samoa and Fiji.
- - The Anaweka waka in storage. The Anaweka canoe hull held in storage at Fonterra Tākaka, New Zealand. The Anaweka waka is a rare surviving section of an early sea-going canoe, found on the New Zealand coast and dated to the fifteenth century.
- - The waka taua Te Paranihi at the Otago Museum. Built in 1840 in the Whanganui River valley for Paturomu, a chief based at Koroniti, and first named Tauria Komene. It was renamed Te Paranihi in 1890 in honour of John Ballance, then Premier of New Zealand. Although built as a war canoe it was never used in fighting and probably carried only a plain prow.
- - Hokule'a and Hikianalia at Avatiu harbour. The two canoes lie at Avatiu harbour on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, 2025. Hikianalia was launched in 2012 as Hōkūleʻa's companion vessel and sails with her on long voyages, carrying communications gear and running on solar-electric auxiliary power.
- - Stereoscopic view of a Maori waka prow. A three-dimensional view of a wooden canoe prow from New Zealand, displayed at Museum Rietberg in Zurich, made by combining two consecutive parallel-view photographs. The technique shows the depth of the openwork carving in a way a flat photograph cannot.
- - Polynesian canoes at Ngatangiia Harbour, Rarotonga. Three double-hulled canoes lie at Ngatangiia in the Cook Islands, from left Hikianalia, Hōkūleʻa and Paikea, with a small double-outrigger canoe in the foreground, 2025. Ngatangiia is by tradition the harbour from which canoes departed for Aotearoa.
- - Anaweka waka hull section. A second view of the Anaweka canoe in storage at Fonterra Tākaka, New Zealand. Fragments like this are the only physical evidence left of the vessels that carried the Polynesian settlement of Aotearoa.
- - Hikianalia and Hokule'a at Rarotonga. The pair moored at Avatiu harbour, Rarotonga, in 2025. Rarotonga sits on the old route between Hawaii, Tahiti and Aotearoa that Pacific navigators worked for centuries and that the Polynesian Voyaging Society has sailed repeatedly since 1976.
- - SG60 - Ship Visit & Tour to Fu Ning - The World's Largest Traditional Wooden Chinese Junk Ship.. A visit aboard a large traditional Chinese sailing ship. Junks evolved from river craft into ocean ships during the Song dynasty, roughly 960 to 1279. By the twelfth century they had adopted tanja sails and fully battened junk rigs from Southeast Asian traders.
- - Hōkūleʻa - Moananuiākea Global Voyage. A community media report on the Moananuiakea global voyage. The voyage continues the society's practice of long ocean legs sailed by rotating crews. Nainoa Thompson leads the programme.
- - Voyage of Rediscovery | PBS Hawaiʻi Presents. A PBS Hawaii documentary on the voyaging revival. Public broadcasting in Hawaii has followed Hokulea since the 1970s. The canoe's first Tahiti voyage was in 1976.