Voyaging group links up with UH
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
A broad new educational partnership was launched yesterday between the Polynesian Voyaging Society and the University of Hawai'i, bringing together traditional navigation and modern marine science education and promising new opportunities for many more students.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
At the same time, it will provide a new home for the voyaging canoes Hokule'a and Hawai'iloa and a center of activity for Hawai'i's voyaging community.
Ramsey Pedersen, chancellor of Honolulu Community College, indicates a parcel of land on Sand Island that UH hopes to develop with the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Navigator Nainoa Thompson is at left.
"This is a special partnership — the canoe represents the hands, hearts, eyes and hopes of many people," said master navigator Nainoa Thompson. "This will link our history and heritage to education and the marine industry."
The center, at Sand Island Parkway Road on the edge of Ke'ehi Lagoon, will bring together the traditions of ancient navigation and the high-tech resources of Honolulu Community College's $7.5 million Marine Education and Training Center on Sand Island, built almost a decade ago.
The partnership will foster the training of future open-ocean voyagers and maintain the treasured canoes, which have sailed 90,000 miles on six South Pacific voyages over the past 27 years.
The Polynesian Voyaging Society canoes Hokule'a and Hawai'iloa will continue to be owned by the Hawai'i Maritime Center, a subsidiary of Bishop Museum, and one canoe will always be stationed at the center.
But their maintenance and preparations for voyages will now be done at Honolulu Community College's Marine Education and Training Center on Sand Island as part of an educational partnership between the voyaging society and the University of Hawai'i.
The canoes will alternate at the two sites, with educational programs occurring at both.
The hope is to eventually build canoe houses on two adjacent acres to lodge the vessels as well as build smaller teaching vessels for students.
• What: A free celebration — open to the public — to mark the refurbishment of Hokule'a and thank those who volunteered their efforts over the past 13 months, and to recognize the new partnership between the Polynesian Voyaging Society and the University of Hawai'i. • When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. • Where: At the Honolulu Community College Marine Education and Training Center, 10 Sand Island Parkway Road, just over the bridge and to the right on Sand Island Access Road. • Activities: Tours of Hokule'a; storytelling by its crew; video presentations; demonstrations in canoe restoration; a chance to win a guest sail aboard Hokule'a; entertainment, food booths and more. Jean-Michel Cousteau will be on hand to do a presentation and film the event as part of a larger film he's planning on the coming Hokule'a voyage to each Hawaiian island and the chain's remote Northwestern islands.
"This affiliation represents a major change in priorities for the Polynesian Voyaging Society," said Pat Duarte, executive director of PVS. "Rather than developing educational programs to support our voyaging, PVS will now use our voyages to support educational programs."
A celebration
In the past few years, the training center has been plagued by low enrollment, but HCC Chancellor Ramsey Pedersen expects this new partnership to turn that around.
"We're expecting it to be booming next year," he said. "And we're looking at bringing in the high schools for participation, too."
There will be countless opportunities to link programs and courses and offer students from the UH system, as well as the Department of Education, opportunities to learn, using the two canoes in the process, he said.
There are already programs in traditional Polynesian wayfinding at both Manoa and at Windward Community College, but the new partners envision the development of far more educational materials.
The center will provide office and lecture space for the voyaging society, and Pedersen envisions a lecture series by Hawai'i's growing cadre of traditional navigators, who have been in training since the mid-1970s. And it could also someday be home to an Ocean Academy in which students will learn everything from traditional navigation to modern boat-building to resource sustainability.
One of the partnership's first projects will be the refurbishment of Hawai'iloa.
Thompson estimated that three million hours of work have gone into the construction, repair and maintenance of the canoes over the last quarter-century, but a program dedicated to their care is badly needed.
"Ninety-five percent of the success of a voyage is in the preparation, and seeing that the canoes are seaworthy," said Thompson.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
Correction: The Polynesian Voyaging Society canoes Hokule'a and Hawai'iloa will continue to be owned by the Hawai'i Maritime Center, a subsidiary of Bishop Museum, and one canoe will always be stationed at the center. But their maintenance and preparations for voyages will now be done at Honolulu Community College's Marine Education and Training Center on Sand Island as part of an educational partnership between the voyaging society and the University of Hawai'i. The canoes will alternate at the two sites, with educational programs occurring at both. A previous version of this story was unclear.
