Navigating by Stars, Seas, and Birds in Flight
30 Jan
This isn’t the first time Polynesian voyaging canoes have caught our fancy — we’ve talked about them HERE and HERE before. Still, THIS comprehensive Reuters story about the renaissance in traditional Polynesian canoe-seafaring warranted another post on the subject, we thought.
Prompting the Michael Perry story is news that a Polynesian voyaging canoe will set sail from Hawaii in March, aiming to reach tiny Palmyra Atoll near Kiribati using only the ancient seafaring skills known as “wayfinding.”
Wayfinding, the navigational techniques used by the planet’s first blue-water sailors, is, says Perry, “an intricate knowledge of the stars, such as memorizing a 32-point star compass by Micronesian navigators, knowing where stars rose and fell over the horizon, reading ocean swells, cloud formations and bird flight patterns.”
Traditional Polynesian voyaging made a comeback in the mid-1970’s when the Polynesian Voyaging Society built a voyaging canoe in Hawaii. In 1976, the 62 foot double-hulled “Hokule’a,” using only traditional navigation techniques, made a trip to Tahiti and back.
