Hawaiian Canoes

During a conversation with an old buddy of mine over on the "Big Island" he reminded me of a batch of koa and other woods he'd saved up for me...just waiting for some money to ship it all to the mainland. It was for a modeling project I'd been toying with a while back to build a series of canoes using scale and historically pre-contact Hawaiian joinery, lashings, the works, and of 100% native materials.

Then I decided to manage pixels:

King Kamehameha's Canoe (1839) interpreted from period drawings. FD Scale.
This would represent a typical double hull war canoe at the time of Western contact. Nearly immediately the Hawaiians adopted "modern" masting, rigging, and sail. Adaptable sailors they were!

Hokule'a (1975) As Launched. FD Scale.

Hokule'a (2005) without all the detachable deck lockers. FD Scale.

Hokule'a is an interesting craft. It was built as a "historically" functional voyaging double hull canoe to emulate the navigation techniques used by ancient Polynesians to colonize Hawaii and other Pacific Islands. Actual construction is somewhat stylized and incorporates a lot of modern materials. Since 1975 it's had a lot of modifications for survivability/functionality as it's done it's many voyages all over the Pacific...sort of a Polynesia meets Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" fusion. Wood, fiberglass, solar panels, plastic coolers, GPS, electronics, and I think I saw an outboard motor in an image.

None of these changes has been documented in an organized fashion (suitable for this site) so I've left off most of the deck clutter.

Have fun with them, feel free to point out corrections to be made.

CraigH

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Nice! I've seen the hokule'a in Auckland I'm pretty sure, thought those guys were brave going ro sea on her. Good to get some alternative boats on the bucket

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That's a great work!

My only nit-pick (I admit, it's my small obsession

) is that on masts that aren't totally vertical, the "steps" of the contour on one side are in different places than on the other side, so in effect in some places masts are 3-pixel thick, in some 4-pixel thick and in some they are double-black-line thick.

Since we are with FD scale, i moved this thread to the proper forum.

Images above edited per Eswube's comments.

Thank's Golly for the forum move.

CraigH

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CraigH-Great drawings. May I suggest changing the country of origin on the first drawing to Kingdom of Hawaii. Hawaii was an independent nation until annexed by the US in 1895.

Deankal55,

Thought about it!

Dunno how management would feel about adding another country so I left it as USA. I'd be happy to change it.

By the source drawing date (1839) Hawaii was already starting to be heavily influenced by U.S. missionaries/business interests from the U.S. as I recall.

That drawing date creates a minor dilemma as I'm positive it's wrong. Without making a phone call, I'm fairly positive that whoever stuck it on-line dated it incorrectly. I'm thinking back to around 1998-2000 but I think that drawing was done by a fairly early visiting exploration/research ship scientist, one of the guys collecting samples, drawing illustrations, etc. That would put it back to between 1795-1819. After that it would fall under Kamehameha 2 or 3. They would have used the same canoes that were rigged with western sails. The Hawaiians were an amazingly adaptive technologically stone age maritime people only limited by having zero access to metal (better tools like saws and the ability to cut planks...leading to larger ships).

CraigH

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CraigH,

I don't know that the historical record supports exclusive US influence before 1887, or if you want to push it before 1873. But more about that later.

In looking at list of nations on the Shipbucket site it includes many former states such as Austria-Hungary, the Confederate States of America, East Germany, and Yugoslavia. It has a separate entry for Hong Kong. It has entries for both Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. And it lumps Russia and USSR together-but the nationality part of the legend on the drawings lables some as Soviet Union and also labels some Soviet ships as Russian. Also the Australian entry has ships credited to the Colony of Victoria. So I don't see a lot of consistency here.

Given these precedents, you could label the drawing as being from the Kingdom of Hawaii and include it in the USA listing. Or, the management could establish a category for "Former Countries," "Indigenous Societies." or "Ethnographic Vessels."

You can stop reading here if you don't want a bunch of history.

Regarding US influence in Hawaii, here are some key events that show that the US was not the only actor. In 1817 the Russians tired to colonize Kauai. In 1839 the French sail into Honolulu and force the King of Hawaii to allow Catholic missionaries to return to Hawaii on an equal footing as Protestant missionaries. In 1843 Lord George Paulet, captain of HMS Carysfort claims Hawaii for the UK-the Hawaii government makes and international appeal and Paulet is overruled from London. This event is why the Union Flag is on the canton of the Hawaiian flag. Following this event the governments of the UK and France recognize the Hawaiian monarch as a peer. In 1849 the French again send an expedition to support Catholics in Hawaii. The Hawaiians seek treaties with multiple states for protection from colonizing powers. In 1873 the King disbands the Royal Guard and Hawaii thereafter relies on the US for protection. In 1874 both US and UK troops are used to put down riots in Honolulu. US naval presence does not become permanent until the 1880s. Proximity ensured that US whaling ships and trade would out number other nations, but the period around 1839 saw numerous nations seek to exert influence in Hawaii.

deankal55,

No arguments with the fact that the US wasn't the only factor at all!

The Brits were first but they didn't establish a full time governmental presence to buddy up with Kamehameha and his descendants.

I was thinking more along the lines of missionaries, merchants, American whalers/traders, and the unofficial non-governmental interests. Those were heavily ex-patriot Americans primarily from the East Coast who moved in and quickly established a full time presence. The Kanakas were quickly hired and made a splash as common sailors aboard American ships, and incidentally quickly had a population presence in my state, California (pre 1830's) as part of hide ship crews...nearly exclusively American ships dominating a Spanish/Mexican colony's trade.

What I might do is draw up the canoe that was armed with a canon that was used in the conquest of Maui. Supplied by merchant interests I might add.

Cheers!

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