The first voyagers of the Pacific

The voyagers sailed in double canoes.

Two long canoes were joined side by side. They had sails to catch the wind and long paddles to steer.

Te Ara explains that the earliest island crossings were probably made on rafts and dugout canoes between islands that could be seen from one another. For long voyages, Pacific peoples developed much better boats: outrigger canoes, with a float on one side for balance, and double-hulled canoes, made of two hulls joined by a deck.

Double-hulled canoes used for long distances were often about 20 meters long and could travel 150 to 250 kilometers in a day. V-shaped sails caught the wind, and steering paddles over 6 meters long both steered the canoe and stopped it from being pushed sideways.

According to Te Ara, rafts were slow and dugouts prone to capsizing, so long crossings needed outrigger and double-hulled designs. Micronesian outriggers were sailed with the outrigger to windward, with an asymmetric hull whose flat outer side resisted sideways drift; European explorers including James Cook estimated some canoes at up to 22 knots.

Long-distance double-hulled canoes were generally about 20 m long and could cover 150 to 250 km a day. Names varied: the tongiaki in Tonga, the va'a-tele in Samoa, the pahi in Tahiti and the wa'a kaulua in Hawaiʻi. Steering paddles over 6 m long worked much like a modern yacht's keel. The modern canoe Hōkūleʻa, launched in 1975, was designed to perform like an ancient Hawaiian wa'a kaulua.

The navigators had no maps.

At night, they steered toward a star rising on the sky's edge. They felt the waves rocking the canoe. They watched for birds flying home to land.

The greatest skill of the old navigators was reading the night sky. They memorized where bright stars rose and set on the horizon, and steered toward a star low in the sky; when it rose too high, they picked the next one. Seven to 12 stars could guide a canoe through one night.

On cloudy days they used ocean swells, long waves pushed up by steady winds. By keeping the canoe at the same angle to the swells, they stayed on course. Some stars pass right overhead at certain islands: Arcturus is the overhead, or zenith, star for Hawaiʻi.

Te Ara describes how navigators used star compasses to gauge the rising and setting points of the brightest stars and planets, then memorized them; they steered toward a star near the horizon and switched as each rose too high or set, needing seven to 12 stars a night, and checked the sun's position at dawn and dusk. Routes were preserved in memory or song, and by back-sighting, lining up landmarks behind the departing canoe with known star paths.

Under overcast skies, steady swells raised by the north- and south-easterly trade winds kept the canoe's heading. Zenith stars helped find land: sailing directly beneath an island's zenith star (Arcturus for Hawaiʻi, Sirius for Ra'iatea and for Vanua Levu in Fiji) put a canoe within about 80 km of the island. Navigators may also have used the height of meridian stars such as the Southern Cross, measured in finger and hand widths above the horizon, which changes as a canoe sails north or south.

How do you find an island you cannot see?

Birds fly out to sea in the morning and back home at night. Clouds pile up over islands. Waves bounce back from the land.

An island can be found long before it is seen. Seabirds fly out to sea at sunrise to fish and return to land at sunset: frigate birds go up to 100 kilometers from land, and terns up to 50 kilometers. Clouds build up over high islands such as Tahiti and Hawaiʻi and can be seen from more than 150 kilometers away.

Waves change near land too. When swells hit an island they bounce back and curl around it, making patterns a skilled navigator can feel in the canoe. Changes in the color of the water, floating leaves and driftwood were more clues.

Te Ara lists many signs of land. Birds that fish at sea return to nest at sunset: frigate birds range up to 100 km from land, gannets and petrels 70 km, terns 50 km. Convection clouds over high islands such as Tahiti and Hawaiʻi can be seen more than 150 km away, small eyebrow-shaped clouds over atolls up to 50 km, and a bright cloud base can mean light reflected from a lagoon.

Land-swell patterns form when swells rebound from an island or divide and curl around it; rebounding waves can be detected about 50 km from small islands and up to 300 km from land as large as New Zealand. Te Ara adds that the migration paths of birds such as the West Polynesian pigeon between Tonga and Samoa may have helped navigators, and that sea color, currents, fish and floating debris also signalled land.

In the 1970s, people in Hawaiʻi built a big double canoe called Hōkūleʻa.

In 1976, it sailed all the way to Tahiti and back with no maps or instruments. It showed how the first voyagers found their way.

After Europeans colonized the Pacific, traditional navigation was almost lost. In 1973, people in Hawaiʻi founded the Polynesian Voyaging Society to find out how the ancestors had sailed. They built Hōkūleʻa, a double-hulled canoe about 20 meters long, named for the star Arcturus.

In 1976 Hōkūleʻa sailed from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti and back, guided by Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Satawal in Micronesia, using no modern instruments. He later taught Nainoa Thompson of Hawaiʻi, who taught many young navigators. Hōkūleʻa has since sailed more than 140,000 nautical miles.

Te Ara records that traditional navigation declined after European colonization, as ships replaced canoes and some colonial governments restricted movement between territories. The Polynesian Voyaging Society, founded in 1973 to test theories of Polynesian seafaring, launched Hōkūleʻa on March 8, 1975: a 20 m fiberglass and plywood double-hulled canoe designed by Herb Kawainui Kāne and named for Arcturus, Hawaiʻi's zenith star.

In 1976, guided by Mau Piailug of Satawal in the Caroline Islands, it made a return voyage to Tahiti, repeated in 1980; Te Ara says these voyages proved navigation without modern instruments was possible. Piailug taught Nainoa Thompson, who led a voyage of rediscovery from 1985, and in 1999 and 2000 Hōkūleʻa sailed to Rapa Nui and back, when Pi'ikea Miller became the first woman navigator of the modern period. PVS counts more than 140,000 nautical miles sailed and 25 voyaging canoes across the Pacific since 1975.