HAWAIIAN LASHINGS and the MENEHUNE

Posted on October 20, 2007

 Lashing gunnel to hull on model canoe.

Can I say this ? “A Hawaiian canoe is only as beautiful as his lashings” How does that sound ? I think that canoe carvers, paddlers and sailors would agree with me.  Its like to say the rigging of the old sailing ships was what made them so fascinating and mysterious. Whenever I am in the process of lashing a model canoe, which was the case today, it still surprises me how easy the procedure is for me but at the same time I am conscious that it took me 15 years to be able to accomplish a whole range of Hawaiian type lashings.  I have to point out that I do lash all my models with the same type lashing executed on the life size canoe, whether this is an Opelu type canoe or the Hokulea or any other canoe. The only difference resides in the size of the thread or cord, and the number of passes. Whereby the iako of a racing canoe is attached to the hull and spreader  with 4, sometimes even 5 passes, I do only 3, maybe 4 on the larger models. I said “easy” for the more common type lashings, but the lashing of the forward boom on the Hokulea as well as its stearing paddle can still make me somewhat impatient. Those are real tricky ones . If you have ever worked on the Hokulea you know that you can climb below the forward and stern tops or manus, and pull those darn cords…but not so on a model…and still it needs to look as if some menehune did climb into the model and do the miniature job. The above picture illustrates a typical ancient Hawaiian lashing gunnel to hull that I did recently on a canoe model commissioned by the Kahala Resort. If the procedure required countless hours to execute on a real size canoe, it requires a few days on a model. The very beautiful geometrical pattern of this lashing is only visible on the inside of the canoe, whereby when you look to the other side , which is the exterior of the hull, nothing of this lashing does show here. The menehune’s work…