‘Vaka’
by Tom Davis, Pa Tuterangi Ariki.

300 pages Medium format. Soft Cover. Illustrated. Joint publication of Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Polynesian Press, 1999.

It was Dick and Tai’i Adamson who sewed the seed. It was my wife Ali who pushed us to take the long plane ride from Adelaide to Sydney to Auckland, and then on to Rarotonga.

Dick and Tai’i had been with us on the first Wooden Boats Over America Tour in 2000, and we had really enjoyed their company.

I first experienced Maori culture as a young man in New Zealand, many years ago. I loved it then, and now it was we loved it, this time, too.

The preppy young travel agent tried to convince Ali not to go to ‘the Cooks’. He said we’d kill each other. The boredom would do it, he said. ‘All you can do is go down to the sea, lie around and read, or swim or walk. There’s only 34 kilometres of road around Rarotonga, the biggest and main island in the group, and the speed limit is 40ks. Whew’.

We liked the sound of that, so we went. We were seduced it from the moment we stepped off the plane. Rain was falling, but it was warm. Inside the terminal, ? was playing a welcome to us, accompanied by the always cheery sound of the Ukulele.

Over the next 4 weeks, it just got better. On the last night Dick and Tai’i’s extended family came to our house, roasted a pig and fed, drank and sang us away. We have never forgotten that last night, it’s beauty of sound, and the breeze in the coconut palms, the alternating thump of the surf in the distance.

By that time we had met some of the traditional navigators.

And I had bought and read, ‘Vaka’.

‘Vaka’ means boat.

‘Vaka’ is an account of the 300 year life of a giant Maori double canoe, it’s construction, it’s adventures, it’s affect on the Maori political life of the Pacific islands and finally as the boat that carries Maori from Ngatangiia harbor on Rarotonga to the big, beautiful land, Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud.

It is a story rich in the detail of the construction of many boats, details of their rigging, sources of materials and how the specific items were made. There is wonderful information about the sail handling and steering techniques of the great boats. As the stories unfold we learn of the vessel’s maintenance and the rich detail of their journeys.

What is especially riveting is the revealing description of the brilliance of their navigation. Three thousand years before Cook, and without any need of Harris and his chronometer, Maori were reliably and regularly navigating, trading and fighting all over the Pacific. We saw, in the harbor at Ngatangiia, the 60’ double canoe that the local navigators, armed only with a coconut shell with some holes in it, a piece of string and the ancient songs set off from California, in the late 90’s to a dot some thousands of kilometres away in the Pacific. Following them, but just below the horizon was a US ship, bristling with GPS and Satellite navigation equipment. The traditional navigators were being put to the test.

School kids from the west coast of the US, to the islands of the Pacific, Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand followed the double canoe’s progress, willing them on, on to an emphatic confirmation of the power of their culture and it’s breathtaking seagoing tradition.

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New!
The Sharpie Book
by Reuel Parker

Includes basic plans for 16 traditional sharpies from 14' to 38' with references to Bolger and Kirby interpretations.

Useful additional history theory and evolution of construction techniques.
179 pages. Well illustrated.

Coming soon!

'The Norwalk Islands Sharpies Book'