Hokulea

Posted on April 14, 2009

Jibs used on Hokule’a

Posted on April 12, 2009

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.

Day four and sail away..

Posted on February 6, 2008

Of course I always feel great satisfaction once I put the last touch on a model, but I am also very critical of my work. Maybe not noticeable to the layman, but I am unhappy with the width of the masts. They are not exactly to scale. Also, some of the rigging is not sufficiently stretched. To much pull on one side and it will hang loose on the other side, so I start to tighten the loose cordage only to loosen up the opposite rigging. The rigging is a real pain on such a small model and it takes hours and a ton of patience to do it. I sometimes wonder how I can do this nitty gritty stuff with my “carpenter” type hands.
Tomorrow the model will be crated, together with its base and showcase, and shipped to Maui

Day 3

Posted on February 4, 2008

After my third day of working on this model, the deck and the mast steps were placed and I started to mount the railings. When ever it may enhance the beauty of a model, I like to use different type of exotic and indigenous color coordinated species of wood to build my canoes. So for example on this small Hokulea the deck is made out of curly Koa and curly Primavera, Noni for the railings and Macademia for the big water guard, Tamarind for the manus.

Connecting the hulls

Posted on February 1, 2008

Day 2 of making the small 12″ Hokulea model. Certainly the most tricky and time consuming step in building this small model is connecting the 2 carved hulls with their wimsy small beams at their precise intervalles. Honestly I hate to do it. One would need kids hands, everything is so small and pieces tend to fly away at the slightest interference. But once all this is done, its time to place the gunnels and the hull to hull spreaders. After that its plain sailing so to speak although I still need to assemble or place more than 100 little components to call it Hokulea, and each little individual component needs to be cut, shaped, sanded and lacquered before it can be place on the model.

Hokulea

Posted on January 31, 2008

Its a long time I have not done a 12 inch scale model of the Hokulea and I feel a bit anxious to get on with it. But like always when dealing with a new model or one that I have not done for a while, I need to dig out plans or have new ones made, dig out templates, scale down sizes, check the lines, select the woods I will be using etc, basically spend an entire day getting stuff together and than finally, the following day, a small model of the Hokulea is in the making starting with 2 small pieces of Koa.

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