LIHUE >> Several hundred Kauai residents and onlookers celebrated the launch Sunday of what’s believed to be the island’s first proper Hawaiian voyaging canoe in about five centuries, during an emotionally charged ceremony at Kalapaki Beach.
The Namahoe, a hulking, 72-foot-long replica of the ancient Polynesian vessels that once sailed vast ocean distances, took nearly 20 years to build. The project’s organizers said they largely relied on various volunteers, students and civic groups that donated sweat, time and resources to make it happen.
“This is history in the making — so happy to be alive to watch this,” Puanani Rogers, a 77-year old native of Kauai, said as she admired the Namahoe floating just offshore. “This waa (canoe) gives me hope for the future, for our children, for our culture. That’s why this is epic for me.”
The craft joins a growing fleet of such replica vessels that have sprouted across the Hawaiian Islands in recent decades, following the pivotal 1975 launch of renowned sailing canoe Hokule‘a. The two men who spearheaded Namahoe’s completion — John Kruse and Dennis Chun — are veteran Hokule‘a crew members.
With the Namahoe in the water, Kauai and Niihau finally have their own floating classroom to train local navigators and sailing crews without having to rely on canoes that visit from elsewhere, Chun said.
“You can’t have Hokule‘a on every island,” Polynesian Voyaging Society President Nainoa Thompson said Friday via phone from Canada, where the older canoe is traveling on its around-the-world journey. “Each island has to have their own canoe, their own identity, their own voyage.”
“Namahoe” is the Hawaiian word for “twins,” and the Garden Island canoe is named for the Gemini constellation that traditional way-finding navigators use to hold a sailing course between Kauai and Oahu, according to Kruse.
The name came in a dream to Patrick Aiu, a founding member of the canoe’s nonprofit, Na Kalai Wa‘a Kaua‘i o Namahoe, according to Chun. Aiu, who also served as a doctor on Hokule‘a voyages, died in 2002.
The art of sailing traditional double-hulled canoes on lengthy expeditions — and navigating by the stars and the waves — has recently seen a resurgence across the Pacific. Voyaging societies have taken hold not just in Hawaii, but also in New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Fiji.
In 2006, as the interest kept growing in Hawaii, about 10 local organizations representing hundreds of voyaging enthusiasts created an umbrella group called the Ohana Wa‘a, or Canoe Family. The group’s members look to support one another and cultivate voyaging statewide with the “finite resources out there,” Ohana Wa‘a Chairman Billy Richards said Saturday.
In 2009, the ohana’s members brought back to Hawaii a stone adze (an axelike cutting tool) from Taputapuatea, an ancient temple on Raiatea, in France’s Society Islands, that’s significant to Polynesian culture and voyaging.
The Ohana Wa‘a members — including Namahoe representatives — then took turns tightly lashing a handle to the tool in a ceremony to signify their bond.
That adze is currently aboard the Hokule‘a for its worldwide journey. On each leg, a chosen crew member safeguards the relic. It’s meant to represent the Ohana Wa‘a on the journey.
On Sunday, master navigators from the Cook Islands and New Zealand participated in the Namahoe launch ceremony.
Several hundred people watched as they and other veteran canoe sailors formally delivered the Namahoe to new, younger crew members in the hope they’ll take responsibility for the new vessel. The two groups sang and chanted in Hawaiian together in the Kalapaki shorebreak, part of Nawiliwili Bay.
“It’s not easy taking care of a voyaging canoe, even having one,” Richards said Saturday. Similar to the Namahoe, the Maui-based canoe Mo‘okiha o Pi‘ilani also took about 20 years to build.
The Oahu-based sailing canoe that Richards helps oversee, the Hawaiiloa, took 11 years to restore. It’s a labor of love that involves constant fundraising and volunteer help for vessels that can cost at least $250,000 to build, he said.
On Sunday, Chun said it was a “bittersweet kind of moment” with the Namahoe launched after dedicating nearly two decades of his life to building it. He felt apprehensive as he considered what happens next.
It’s a “whole big ’nother ballgame. How do we maintain it? How do we keep the funding up?” Chun, a Kauai Community College assistant professor, pondered as crews worked on the vessel deck behind him. “All the voyaging programs know: We’re not a business. So there’s no steady income. So how do we keep running?”
Stewarding Hawaii’s voyaging fleet is a lifelong commitment, Richards said.
“You need sponsorship, you need resources, bodies — you need all of the above,” he said Saturday. “Otherwise, the canoe sits and never goes anywhere.”
Debbie Jackson, a Kauai taro farmer who went to the shore to see the Namahoe in the water, was hopeful her island’s canoe would go to good use.
“I see all the little kids running around (here),” Jackson said Sunday. “They’re the next generation coming up and they need to see the canoe coming in and the impact that it makes, the importance of sailing, the importance of navigation. Because Hawaiians are navigators.”
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