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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, June 9, 2003

Typhoon delayed arrival of navigator

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

Mau Piailug wasn't lost. He was just late.

Mau Piailug is widely known for teaching Hawaiians and other islanders to sail by using the stars and winds.

Advertiser library photo • May 9, 2000

The famed Micronesian navigator was the subject of an intense Coast Guard search last month after his traditional sailing canoe was reported nearly two weeks overdue on what was supposed to have been a short voyage.

An Air Force C-130 from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam located the canoe with its tired and thirsty 13-man crew less than 30 miles from its destination on May 22, according to Petty Officer Julie Mayzak, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard Marianas office in Guam.

The sailors were given emergency supplies and able to finish their trip, she said.

Piailug, who has helped thousands of Hawaiians and Pacific islanders rediscover their voyaging history, was leading a return trip from from Palau to Yap when the 34-foot canoe encountered strong head winds from a passing typhoon, Mayzak said.

"I wasn't worried. I knew right away that it was the weather," said Junior Coleman, Piailug's hanai son in Honolulu who has sailed with him on the Hokule'a and in Micronesia. "I told people to remember who is involved here. He's the Yoda of the Pacific. That's the status of a navigator; he guarantees the safety of the crew."

Still, Coleman admitted a few scary thoughts ran through his mind while Piailug was out of contact.

"There's always a risk involved any time a ship goes out to sea," he said. "There are worries about pirates, and he was sailing through a major ocean shipping lane," he said.

The 250-mile voyage began May 7 and was expected to take three days.

The ship was first reported overdue May 19, Mayzak said. The Coast Guard first asked a private air company to be on the lookout for the canoe, then diverted a Micronesian cargo ship to join the search.

On May 21, the Air Force plane spotted the canoe near its final destination in Yap, she said.

"They were able to sail themselves in," she said. "They were all in pretty good health and just fighting a headwind the whole way."

Typhoon Chan-hom, passing through Micronesia at the time, likely created conditions that slowed the canoe's progress, she said.

The 71-year-old Piailug is widely known for teaching Hawaiians and other islanders to sail by using the stars and winds.

The most recent trip was believed to be the first in modern times between Melekeok in Palau and Gachpar in Yap, two traditionally powerful villages that once controlled much of the travel between Palau and Yap.

The most noted trips historically were made by the Yapese, who traveled to Palau to quarry a special stone they fashioned into large circular disks, some of which are more than six feet in diameter.

The stone was sailed to Yap suspended by a log through a hole in the stone's center. The disks, called stone money, were highly valued because of the danger in acquiring them.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.