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Posted on April 24, 2009
 Honoliuliu Trail. A day up the Honoliuliu trail along the Waianae mountains with my brother- in- law Ralph Morelli, computer science professor at Trinity College, CT, and author of Java, Java, Java, Object-Orientated Problem solving, and Duane B. former researcher, Dept. of Tropical Plant and Soil science, University of Hawaii at Manoa and myself.
The most common trees along that trail are species of Eucalyptus, a lot of Silky Oak, also called Lacewood, and curiously enough a few Bunya Bunya trees, a conifer specie closely allied to pines, redwoods and other primitive trees. Queensland, Australia, is the tree native land. Once prized in Hawaii, its wood was used for ship’s masts and spars. |
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Posted on April 19, 2009 I do not believe in gambling or in the stock market…well maybe yes if I would have money to burn. But I truly believe that there are treasures out there for one to scoop up, provided one is knowledgeable in the field in question, and keeps his eyes and ears wide open. In my time studying the canoes of Oceania I also gain knowledge about the culture and traditions of the people building those vessels. So when visiting an antic shop on Oahu a few days ago my eyes were immediately attracted by a dark stained wooden mask lying on a chair. I took the mask in my hands and realized immediately that this is an old mask, and not a contemporary sculpted one. I asked how much? Well, I’ll give it to you for $ 20.00 said the shop keeper. I handed her the money. I knew of course that the mask in question is an old Asmat ceremonial mask dating to 1930-40, and therefore extremely valuable. The Asmat tribe is notorious for head-hunting, residing in West-Papua (Irian Jaya). The Asmat people are considered the best wood carver of the stone age, creating intricately carved canoes, including model canoes that they
offer to their ancestors. Important collections of Asmat Art are located at the Ethnographic Museum of Heidelberg, Basel and Neufchatel.
 Old Asmat Ceremonial Mask, Papua New Guinea
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Posted on April 14, 2009 It happens frequently, when surfing online about canoes, amongst others Hawaiian voyaging, surfing or racing canoes, that I come across websites using the picture of one of my earlier Hokule’a model as an attention getter.
Some companies or webmasters asked permission to publish that picture on their site, others did not.
This scale model of the Hokule’a is one of my creations and it belongs to a private collection .
I am not aware that it is for sale at any art galleries on the islands of Hawaii.
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Posted on April 12, 2009
 Courtesy of Honolulu Star-Bulletin I am referring here to an article written by Gregg K. Kakesako in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of Friday March 20/09 .
titled < Kokule’a hits Palmyra, gets new crew members >. The article was illustrated with a photo of the Hokule’a under full sail near the atoll. What was so unusual in this photo was the fact that the voyaging canoe was equipped with a set of triangular staysails, one set forward of the foremost mast, the other in between the two crab claw sails. Although I understand that smaller jibs increase the speed of the craft in high wind conditions , it needs to be said however that no traditional Oceanic voyaging canoe was ever rigged in such a manner. Thus , the rigging as shown in the attached picture, departs from what is known about Hawaiian voyaging canoes. |
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Posted on April 11, 2009 Was it writers block or busy doing other things? I believe it’s a bit of both. Anyway I am back on the block after a sabbatical lasting a few months. I really like this word “sabbatical” as it translates with “Forshungsurlaub” in German, which really means a vacation of studies and research !Well, this is exactly what I have been up to ever since bailing out the water from my flooded workshop. Never short of work been commissioned to build model canoes of Oceania, I also spent much time and effort building up my photo albums on Flickr.com and Picasa.com. Both albums are similar in content and run under the username <hawaiiancanoes> Most recent photos do illustrate 2 very beautiful surfing canoes and a Samoan one man fishing canoe been auctioned at Niketown in Waikiki. The Hawaiian canoes were quite old, carved out of Koa tree logs. |
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Posted on December 15, 2008 If living in Hawaii is a dream for many, dealing with flash floods and landslides is not what most people think about our islands. It all happened very fast, just a few days ago on December 11th at 5.30 AM. The heavens opened up to torrential rain causing extensive flash flooding and a landslide just on top of my property. Within minutes a river of mud, rocks and other detritus run into my sloppy backyard and towards my front gate. I did not realize that the mud and branches will get stuck at the gate and therefore stop the proper flow of the mud and water. The water level rose so fast that in no time it runs into my workshop, flooding machinery, lumber, templates etc. Towards 10.oo PM the rain stopped and it is only than that the extend of the damage caused by the flash flood became apparent to me. My yard was filled with 2 feet of mud. my pick-up truck was stuck in the mud, so was another car, my drive-way was busted and the roots of a gigantic Albizia tree were laid bare. First thing first, I immediately started to pump out the one foot of water that had flooded my workshop and installed fans and heaters to dry some motors . But clearing the mud and rocks will take days. I guess that at the rate of 2 hours a day this will be a good and cost free workout. Want to join ?  Flooded table saw, planer etc. |
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Posted on December 10, 2008 The reason for my long absence writing on my blog was due to me upgrading my website and starting work on my Flickr and Picasa photos albums. Both the Flickr and the Picasa albums run under the username “hawaiiancanoes”. The entire process of tending to those 3 sites at the same time while still carrying on building models was taking the better of a 3 months period during which I had to sort out literally thousands of pictures and write tens of captions. Some people who want to create a website complain of the lack of professional photos to embellish or illustrate their site. I had fantastic pictures, but before I could make use of them I had to sort them out and file them according to subject matter. So here I was, creating sets and albums with piles of photos before I could create sets and albums on Flickr. As for the caption to the images on the website or Flickr, some were easy to write while others required me to dig into nautical dictionaries to find out again what is the maritime word for “ steps” on a ship. I have to admit that writing good captions is a difficult exercise. All this work led me to forgo my yearly participation at the 2008 Hawaiian Juried Woodshow, but I tried somehow to make up for my absence to this art show by illustrating the exhibited work of my colleagues on Flickr. There are still bugs to be sorted out on my website and photos to be added on Flickr, the work is never finished, but at least, for now, I can start spending most of my time researching and building canoes that have sailed on all the corners of the Pacific. |
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Posted on September 5, 2008
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Posted on August 4, 2008
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Posted on July 24, 2008
The entire day I was occupied in finishing a Salomon Island war canoe, the famous |
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