Maori canoe sails into Okahu Bay

Press, 7 January 1986, Page 4

Maori canoe sails into Okahu Bay

PA Auckland For hundreds gathered at Orakei, the arrival yesterday of the voyaging canoe Hawaiki Nui was like a slice from another era.

The canoe, flanked by two sleek outriggers dispatched from the shore, cruised into Okahu Bay at 4 p.m. and was promptly crowded out by people as soon as it touched sand. Built from totara and fibres in traditional style, it cut a distinctive profile in a harbour filled with craft of synthetic materials. The five-man crew looked healthy and in good spirits. A crew member and director of the project, Mr Francis Cowan, said there had been only two spots of bother — once when the mast broke on the way to Rarotonga, and the other during bad weather at the Kermadec Ridge.

The crew was treated to a traditional welcome last-

ing more than four hours on a section of Orakei Domain

— a papakainga (place of ancestral settlement) of the Nagti-whatua people. For the Maori artist and crew member, Mr Matahi Whakataka Brightwell, the whole voyage was the fulfilment of a 12-year dream. Mr Brightwell tried to win support for the project in New Zealand, but eventually got funding from the French Territorial Government in Tahiti.

Tribute was paid to the crew’s efforts in the Maori and Rarotongan welcome.

This month or next, the canoe will be shipped back to Tahiti, where it is expected to be exhibited in a museum.

Other crew members were Mr Greig Cuthers, who lives in Auckland and is of Cook Island descent, Mr Alex Roper, an Englishman, and Mr Rudolf Parau, of the Austral Ridge in French Polynesia.