What type of canoes did the Polynesians use?

Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side.

What were Hawaiian canoes made of?

Often a person who had special skills was needed to perform specific tasks. Sometimes tools and materials that were needed to build a canoe would be limited. Hawaiians would use the fine wood of the koa tree and hollow it out to form a single hull canoe.

What were Polynesian sails made from?

The sails were made of mats woven from pandanus leaves. These vessels were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai’i and Tahiti.

What is a Polynesian single outrigger canoe made from?

Modern OC1 hulls and amas are commonly made from glass-reinforced plastic, carbon fiber reinforced plastic, and/or Kevlar to produce a strong but light canoe. OC1 are often made with rudders operated by foot pedals.

What is a Polynesian canoe?

The origins. Nowadays popularized by the Moana Disney movie, the Polynesian outrigger canoe is known in French Polynesia under its maohi name : “va’a”. Cunningly intended for long travels, it is made of a beam connected to the hull thanks to two wooden arms, which contribute to provide steadiness.

What Wood did Polynesians use?

Often these canoes were hollowed out from a single Totara log; being chosen long before it was felled. The Māori also used the wood for large carvings and framing for whare (housing).

What wood is the Hokulea made of?

Measuring at 61 feet and five inches and weighing in at 16,000 pounds, the Hokulea is constructed out of plywood, fiberglass and resin. The vessel, also known as waa kaulua (double hulled voyaging canoe in Hawaiian) is guided at sea by her twin masts and long paddle.

What tools did Polynesians use?

Emory and Rowena Keaka. The stone adz was the most important tool of the Polynesians. With it they felled trees, shaped their canoes and canoe parts, and hewed timbers and household furnishings, wooden spears, and clubs.

When was the first Polynesian canoe made?

The canoe dates to approximately A.D. 1400 and was contemporary with continuing interisland voyaging. It was built in New Zealand as an early adaptation to a new environment, and a sea turtle carved on its hull makes symbolic connections with wider Polynesian culture and art.

What did the Polynesians discover?

The Polynesians were very observant. They noted the directions that waves came from and how they affected or rocked their canoes. They had a keen sense of ocean currents and variations in bird and sea life in different places in the Pacific.

How did Polynesians make canoes?

Samoa and Tonga is where the distinctive Polynesian culture developed. Polynesians traveled on double-hull canoes connected by two crossbeams with a central platform that laid over them. The triangular sails were made out of specialized woven mats (see this blog for more information: Ancient Art of Tonga).