Pier 60 boatyard is voyagers' 1st stop

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer

Eighty-four-year-old Wally Froiseth works with his daughter Luana Froiseth on a canoe that is to be given to the Waikiki Surf Club. Wally Froiseth is one of its founding members. Many present-day voyagers regard craftsmen like him as the voyaging tradition's unsung heroes. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

A warehouse and boatyard at Pier 60 on Sand Island houses the heart of an effort by dozens of craftsmen to repair, restore and build the single- and double-hull canoes that make such voyages possible.

In pooling their skills and talent, they are preserving an aspect of an ancient culture that gave birth to the Hawaiian race. And they are passing on their knowledge to the next generation of builders, living out the vision of master boat builder Wright Bowman Jr.

"They're the unsung heroes," said Billy Richards, president of the Friends of Hokule'a and Hawai'iloa, which oversees the program at Sand Island. "They're the ones that do all the work. People drag their canoe here. We fix it up. They take it away, bust it up and bring it back."

When others were forming more voyaging programs, Bowman saw the need to go back further — to the builders —Êand create a guild where their skills could be practiced, honed and passed on, said Richards. Bowman started the guild in 1996, a year before his death.

Today, though the guild is little known outside the voyaging community, it has an estimated 60 members, reaching youths through school visits and embracing all who express interest in the craft.

Wally Froiseth measures a wae for the Waikiki Surf Club canoe project. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Nearby sits the twin-hull voyaging canoe Hokualaka'i, under construction for the 'Aha Punana Leo program at the University of Hawai'i-Hilo, along with pieces of the Hawai'iloa, a fiberglass mold of a voyaging canoe hull, masts and spars. Even the walls hold canoes.

Canoes are also being built on Maui, Kaua'i and the Big Island, but it's here in the 200-by- 50-foot, open-front warehouse that Bowman's idea has come to fruition.

Hawaiian music fills the warehouse as several builders and refurbishers quietly go about their task. A light dust from nearby recycling and cement plants coats the hot tarmac where E'ala, a smaller double-hull canoe, awaits repairs and someone works on a huge motor launch.

Many of the people working at Pier 60 have ties to the Hokule'a, which was built in 1975, and the double-hull voyaging canoe Hawai'iloa, built in 1994, said Richards, who sailed on the Hokule'a's first voyage.

The craftspeople are men and women, teens to an octogenarian. Some adhere strictly to the canoe-building tradition, while others improve and expand upon it. All put their hearts and souls, their mana, into canoes that will likely outlive them.

Wally Froiseth, 84, a founding member of the Waikiki Surf Club, is lengthening a koa canoe called Kai 'Elua to make it a racing outrigger. Froiseth has worked in all aspects of canoe building and repair, including hollowing out logs, reshaping, patching and joining pieces of an outrigger that have split in half.

Known for building all the sweeps, or steering arms, of the Hokule'a, Hawai'iloa and the Hokualaka'i, Froiseth said he has experimented with many aspects of canoe construction and shaping and is ready to pass that information on to the next generation.

Luana Froiseth, who helps her father in the mornings at Pier 60, does additional work on the canoe. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

"The kids come down," he said. "If they want to learn, I'm there. Some come and watch. They ask questions. We tell them as much as we know."

The guild members know design as well as craftsmanship, but Tay Perry, 66, said he considers himself a craftsman more than an artist. Perry took an older koa racer, cut the hull like a corkscrew, pulled it apart and filled the spaces with koa to lengthen the racer and bring it up to current racing design standards. He will redesign it, but there are some classic designs he would not change, Perry said.

"I'm pretty traditionalist in my taste," he said. "I look at the old pictures of canoes when I was young and I try to make them the same way."

Jerry Ongies, 76, doesn't mind tampering with tradition for safety's sake. Ongies is finishing the voyaging canoe Hokualaka'i. After building several of his own boats, including one he sailed in the Pacific, and working on the Hawai'iloa, Ongies is incorporating some design changes to make Hokualaka'i safer and easier to handle for students in the 'Aha Punana Leo program.

"This canoe is a blend of the old traditional double-hull canoes and modern-day sailboat construction," said Ongies, a retired Army colonel. "In designing this canoe I wanted to make sure it was something the kids could handle."

Most of the people at the pier work on the canoes as a hobby, like Dennis Lai Hipp, 55, but the program also helps people improve their skills and allows them to earn the rank of master builder.

Wally Froiseth, 84, sands a wae for the canoe that is to be given to the Waikiki Surf Club. The work helps the voyaging culture thrive. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

The hull of the canoe was rough-cut 15 years ago by Bowman as part of a folklife festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and was close to completion last week. At the museum a team will finish the canoe, making it a living display.

Lai Hipp, who first became involved in canoe building with the Hawai'iloa project in 1996, is training two female students from Wai'anae, saying they were the only two who returned after being brought to the site as part of a school excursion. More Hawaiians need to be involved in Hawaiian canoe building, which attracts other Polynesians and Mainlanders, he said.

At first, Lai Hipp said he was troubled by the idea of training women in a traditionally man's field, but accepted them because they were the ones willing to show up and do the hard work. Their hands were as much a part of the Au Hou as his own, he said.

"When they look at the finished product and they see what they can do with their Hawaiian hands, there's pride," Lai Hipp said. "There's pride in our heritage, in our culture, in knowing we can carry on this tradition even if we use modern tools. This tradition is still alive for us."

On the Big Island various canoe associations from across Hawai'i are contributing canoe parts to build a double-hull canoe for Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Micronesia who taught Hawaiians how to navigate by the stars and ocean after the skill had been lost here.

The Hokualaka'i and the Na Mahoe, a twin-hull 70-foot Hawaiian sailing canoe being built on Kaua'i, will be used as floating classrooms, just as the Iosepa from La'ie is being used, said Dennis Chun, Hawaiian studies coordinator at Kaua'i Community College.

Chun is part of a group that has been building the Na Mahoe for the past four year at an estimated cost of $160,000, if one factors in the volunteer help, he said. Chun's group obtained an $88,000 grant to begin the project that has brought together community workers and students.

The canoe is the focal point of Hawaiian culture, an icon, Chun said. Building canoes and using canoes to teach perpetuates the culture and is a reminder that Polynesians were discovering islands long before Europeans discovered continents.

"The canoe is where Polynesians became Hawaiian," he said. "If there were no voyaging canoe, Polynesians would not have landed here and eventually evolve into our Hawaiian identity."

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.