sea.
What is even more astonishing is that the entire
science of wayfinding is based on dead reckoning. You only know where you
are by knowing precisely where you have been and how you got to where you
are. One’s position at any one time is determined solely on the basis of
distance and direction travelled since leaving the last known point. “You
don’t look up at the stars and know where you are,” Nainoa told me, “you
need to know where you have come from by memorizing from where you sailed.”
It was the impossibility of keeping track over a
long voyage of every shift in speed, current, and bearing that kept European
sailors hugging the coastlines before the problem of longitude was solved
with invention of the chronometer. But this is precisely what the
Polynesians managed to do, and all without benefit of the written word.
There were no logs, notebooks, or charts, no speedometers, watches, or
compasses. Every bit of data — wind, currents, speed, direction, distance,
time — acquired over the course of a deep sea voyage, including the sequence
of its acquisition, had to be stored within the memory of one person, the
navigator. Latitude north and south could always be determined from the
stars, but not longitude. Should the navigator lose the position in
relationship to the reference course, the vessel would be lost. This is why
Ka’iulani, like all wayfinders, did not sleep over the course of our short
journey. Navigators do not sleep. They remain monk-like, undisturbed by the
crew, with no mundane tasks to perform, sitting alone on a special perch at
the stern of the vessel, tracking with their minds.
“If you can read the ocean,” Mau once told
Nainoa, “if you can see the island in your mind, you will never get lost.”
In 1976, on its first deep sea voyage, the Hokule’a under Mau’s guidance sailed from Hawaii 4,400
kilometres to Tahiti, where it was greeted, quite unexpectedly, by an
enormous, jubilant crowd of over 16,000. Nothing like this had ever been
seen in French Polynesia. The colonial administrators, as long ago as the
mid-eighteen hundreds, had formally outlawed virtually every aspect of
traditional cultural life, including long-distance oceanic trade between the
islands. The Hokule’a brought everything back to life, as if the wind
itself were whispers coming forward in time.
In 1999, having criss-crossed the Pacific from
Marquesas and to Aotearoa, the Polynesian Voyaging Society embarked on its
most ambitious journey. With Nainoa as navigator, the Hokule’a would try to pull Rapa Nui out of the sea. It was
a wildly ambitious expedition. The distance from Hawaii to Easter Island is
roughly 10,000 kilometres, but the journey implies crossing the Doldrums and
tacking into the wind for 2,300 kilometres, which effectively doubles the
total sailing distance to nearly 20,000 kilometres. And all to make landfall
on an island 23 kilometres in diameter, less than a single degree on a
compass, had in fact a compass been on board. Food and water rations were
cut in half to lighten the load. In dry dock 4,000 pounds were stripped from
the vessel. The crew was the smallest ever to sail the
Hokule’a
.
The route went via the Marquesas to Pitcairn Island. From there they would
tack south, pick up the westerly winds, and sail east and north until within
a distance from their target roughly equivalent to the length of the
Hawaiian Archipelago. Then they would search for the island, sailing back
and forth in a grid, careful that on the downwind runs to the west they
would not overshoot and find themselves forced by the winds to sail on for
South America.
At one point, close to their goal, Nainoa snapped
awake in a daze and realized that with the overcast skies and the sea fog,
he had no idea where they were. He had lost the continuity of mind and
memory essential to survival at sea. He masked his fear from the crew and in
despair remembered Mau’s words. Can you see the image of the island in
What is even more astonishing is that the entire
science of wayfinding is based on dead reckoning. You only know where you
are by knowing precisely where you have been and how you got to where you
are. One’s position at any one time is determined solely on the basis of
distance and direction travelled since leaving the last known point. “You
don’t look up at the stars and know where you are,” Nainoa told me, “you
need to know where you have come from by memorizing from where you sailed.”
It was the impossibility of keeping track over a
long voyage of every shift in speed, current, and bearing that kept European
sailors hugging the coastlines before the problem of longitude was solved
with invention of the chronometer. But this is precisely what the
Polynesians managed to do, and all without benefit of the written word.
There were no logs, notebooks, or charts, no speedometers, watches, or
compasses. Every bit of data — wind, currents, speed, direction, distance,
time — acquired over the course of a deep sea voyage, including the sequence
of its acquisition, had to be stored within the memory of one person, the
navigator. Latitude north and south could always be determined from the
stars, but not longitude. Should the navigator lose the position in
relationship to the reference course, the vessel would be lost. This is why
Ka’iulani, like all wayfinders, did not sleep over the course of our short
journey. Navigators do not sleep. They remain monk-like, undisturbed by the
crew, with no mundane tasks to perform, sitting alone on a special perch at
the stern of the vessel, tracking with their minds.
“If you can read the ocean,” Mau once told
Nainoa, “if you can see the island in your mind, you will never get lost.”
In 1976, on its first deep sea voyage, the Hokule’a under Mau’s guidance sailed from Hawaii 4,400
kilometres to Tahiti, where it was greeted, quite unexpectedly, by an
enormous, jubilant crowd of over 16,000. Nothing like this had ever been
seen in French Polynesia. The colonial administrators, as long ago as the
mid-eighteen hundreds, had formally outlawed virtually every aspect of
traditional cultural life, including long-distance oceanic trade between the
islands. The Hokule’a brought everything back to life, as if the wind
itself were whispers coming forward in time.
In 1999, having criss-crossed the Pacific from
Marquesas and to Aotearoa, the Polynesian Voyaging Society embarked on its
most ambitious journey. With Nainoa as navigator, the Hokule’a would try to pull Rapa Nui out of the sea. It was
a wildly ambitious expedition. The distance from Hawaii to Easter Island is
roughly 10,000 kilometres, but the journey implies crossing the Doldrums and
tacking into the wind for 2,300 kilometres, which effectively doubles the
total sailing distance to nearly 20,000 kilometres. And all to make landfall
on an island 23 kilometres in diameter, less than a single degree on a
compass, had in fact a compass been on board. Food and water rations were
cut in half to lighten the load. In dry dock 4,000 pounds were stripped from
the vessel. The crew was the smallest ever to sail the
Hokule’a
.
The route went via the Marquesas to Pitcairn Island. From there they would
tack south, pick up the westerly winds, and sail east and north until within
a distance from their target roughly equivalent to the length of the
Hawaiian Archipelago. Then they would search for the island, sailing back
and forth in a grid, careful that on the downwind runs to the west they
would not overshoot and find themselves forced by the winds to sail on for
South America.
At one point, close to their goal, Nainoa snapped
awake in a daze and realized that with the overcast skies and the sea fog,
he had no idea where they were. He had lost the continuity of mind and
memory essential to survival at sea. He masked his fear from the crew and in
despair remembered Mau’s words. Can you see the image of the island in
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