SPEEDY CRAFT

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 232, 28 June 1935, Page 10

SPEEDY CRAFT

Sailing Canoes of Gilbert Islands OVER EIGHTEEN KNOTS The speeds of various sailing vessels, which were discussed in the columns of “The Dominion” early this week, recall that one of the fastest types of sailing craft in the world is the Gilbert Islands sailing canoe; craft of this type have repeatedly been timed to achieve a speed of 18 knots, and they are reputed to have actually managed 21 knots, in the reef-protected lagoons of those islands. • » . Many of the lagoons are 20 to 40 miles long; the low-lyjng reef ensures calm water without in ai”’ way mitigating the blast of the trade-winds, or the seasonal westerly gales. Sailors on visiting warships repeatedly testify} to having been easily overhauled by these light canoes, carrying lateen sails of canvas or pandanus matting, and handled with such skill thpt for twenty minutes at a time they run balanced with the outrigger clear of the water, diminishing the resistance. The achieve, ment of this demands delicate and deft manlpjilation of the steering-paddle and sheet. These canoes are not the usual dugout of the islands, although that, too, is a speedy craft. The Gilhertese canoes are carvel-built, without, ribs: the planks are lashed edge to edge with plaited sennit. Some of the modern natives, however, build the hull on more orthodox European lines, but stick to the old type of outrigger. The canoes measure twenty to forty feet long; deep keelers, they draw up to three and four feet of water; their beam is only about IS inches; they hoist a big area of sail, and set up remarkably close to the wind. They will make a course within two points of the wind, which is better than a great many racing yachts. ‘ Never Put About. One of the peculiarities of. these canoes, from the sailor’s point of view, is that they never put about. The outrigger must always be to windward. So when it becomes necessary to go about, the sail is taken down, and then set up again at the other end of the vessel. This sounds laborious, but the practised native finds it only slightly longer than going about in a fore-and-aft rigged boat. The ordinary dug-out canoe of Polynesia, also an outrigger craft, Is another fast and seaworthy vessel. Hollowed to a half-inch shell from a log perhaps thirty feet long, they have little' beam and less draught. They are strengthened by being slightly thicker at the bottom and the gunwales, and being fairly solid at bow and stern. They are rendered seaworthy by the addition of bulwarks, firmly lashed, which raise the freeboard to ten or twelve inches. A big canoe at Vaitupu Island has a freeboard of perhaps two feet. The two ends, over which the waves break, are covered for a distance of six or eight feet. In these canoes the natives go far our on the open sea, in quite rough weather, fishing. In Fiji they make seventy and elghty-mlle journeys between the outlying islands. While their speeds are not as phenomenal as those of the Gilbertese canoes, they easily overtake a schooner sailing at seven or eight knots. 1 Casual people, the crews of these canoes seldom seem to carry more than a basket of coconuts and a couple of cooked taro roots, or a few bananas, by way of provision. One of the longest recorded voyages in’ a small modern fishing canoe w: *■ when a Vaitupa native went from that island to Nurakita, perhaps a. hundred and fifty miles, without any sail at all, in- two days. He had a big following sea, and had little more to do than steer his craft, which ran before the waves like a surf-canoe —as indeed it was. He was imprisoned after , his arrival, he states, for disobeying the local law forbidding natives to go out of sight of land. Craft of an Earlier Day. These, of course, are not the craft used by th.e Polynesians for the great ocean voyages in former years. The earlier craft were constructed with two hulls placed parallel, and joined by transverse beams. Those beams served also to support a platform whereon stood a sturdy but. The mariners who crossed the seas in these “Foulua” were true sailors, whose knowledge included the use of the sea-anchor and the rudiments of dead-reckoning navigation. The Tongans, who were noted pirates and sea-rovers, carried their raids as far afield as the Ellice Islands to the north, and Matuku in Fiji to the west, and they could not have made such passages without meeting frequent rough Weather. The Rotumans also were famous seamen, builders of canoes measuring 80 or 90 feet, and carrying upward of fifty men. In the days when these were made the only tools available for their construction were the crude adzes of the stone age. Unhappily, now that modern tools are available, the need for such craft has gone.