‘Sailing in our ancestors’ wake’: Polynesian canoe completes three-year global voyage

No modern navigation instruments guided a Polynesian canoe as it followed the horizon during a three-year journey around the globe.

About a dozen crew members for each leg of the voyage relied only on their understanding of nature’s cues - ocean swells, stars, wind, birds- and their own naau, or gut, to sail about 74,000km to 19 countries, over 150 ports, spreading a message of malama honua - which means caring for the earth.

On Saturday, thousands welcomed the double-hulled canoe, Hokulea, home to Hawaii when it entered a channel off the island Oahu and tied up to a floating dock with the iconic Diamond Head in the distance.

Hokulea is the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s legendary wa’a (traditional voyaging canoe) and was first launched in 1975.

Ka'iulani Murphy, an apprentice navigator on the canoe said the successful journey taught her the value of ancient Polynesian maritime techniques.

“We really are sailing in their (the ancestors’) wake,” said Murphy, 38.

“We had to re-learn what our ancestors had mastered.”

The toughest part of the journey was dealing with cloud cover and trying to maintain the proper speed so the boat escorting the canoe could keep pace, she said, adding she enjoyed eating the fish the crew caught during the journey.

The crew was rotated out at major ports of call. The voyage took more than six years of preparation, including two years of intensive crew training