"This is one of the biggest things I've ever been a part of," said Olu Saguid, 25, who works with the 'Aha Punana Leo Hawaiian-language school program on the Big Island. "I'd put anything on the side to do this."

The 29-year-old Hokule'a had led the way through the pass with month-old Hokualaka'i just behind—a metaphor for their positions as the oldest and the youngest members of the growing fleet of Hawai'i's deep-sea double-hulled sailing canoes.

Voyaging canoes aren't built for racing, but a day later, the craft sailed in tandem, repeatedly tacking and jibing, changing sail configurations and maneuvering at sunset, in a series off Pelekunu and Ha'upu valleys that Hokualaka'i's crew dubbed the "Hawaiian Cup."

"I'll always do this. Living, laughing, eating, sailing. It doesn't get any better than that," said Tim Gilliom, a veteran Maui-based canoe sailor who is helping build a Maui-based voyaging canoe.

The canoes had been scheduled to sail from Hanalei Bay for Nihoa island, nearly 150 miles to the northwest of Kaua'i, Sept. 4. But the wind was not favorable for that course, and veteran non-instrument navigator Nainoa Thompson concluded that an extended sailing trip to any destination was more important than waiting for the right weather for Nihoa.

"We don't decide where to go; the wind tells us where to go," Thompson said in a crew meeting the night before the voyage began.

They decided on a roughly 150-mile course to Moloka'i, leaving Hanalei Bay on the afternoon of Sept. 4. When the wind died off south O'ahu last Sunday evening, the escort boat Pono took both canoes in tow until it picked up again.

Hokualaka'i sailed back to O'ahu on Wednesday and Hokule'a on Thursday.

Hokualaka'i crew member Palani Wright, left, with Olu Saguid at his side, steers the canoe toward the rising sun. Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

"We're building the capacity for a voyaging future," Thompson said.

Baybayan's crew — largely members of the staff of 'Aha Punana Leo, which owns the canoe — is expected to eventually educate schoolchildren about the Hawaiian canoe culture, in the Hawaiian language.

The voyage served as sea trials for the new canoe, which was launched in August. The crew quickly learned that equipment that seems rock-solid on land can readily fail under the stress of gusting wind and crashing seas.

The wooden pin that helps hold the steering sweep in place sheered off during a sail off Hanalei. It was replaced with a stronger pin made of the native hardwood kauila. The oak steering sweep suffered partial delamination, but was left in place. The boom developed stress cracks in the Ka'ie'iewaho Channel between Kaua'i and O'ahu. It was removed, and the mainsail was used loose-footed.

"We set out as a group to learn how to sail this canoe and to educate ourselves in how to use the canoe safely," said Baybayan, a canoe sailor for almost 30 years and one of a handful of accomplished Hawaiian canoe voyaging captains and noninstrument navigators.

"It's great that things did break. That teaches us valuable lessons in how to make the canoe stronger and what kinds of stresses it faces," he said.

A National Geographic crew documented the voyage with still and video photography for a magazine article and television documentary that is part of a series on cultural traditions and the importance of preserving them. The sense of voyaging canoes establishing a cultural connection for the Hawaiian community was not lost on the participants.

"We're bridges to the cultures, past and future," said Kawika Lewis, 35, an 'Aha Punana Leo staffer and cook aboard Hokualaka'i.

The new canoe is different from the other Hawaiian voyaging canoes in that its goal is perhaps less about sailing and more about Hawaiian language. Baybayan hopes that Hawaiian eventually will be the only language spoken on board.

"His mission was a program that not only uses the canoe but uses the language. We're always talking about the language, but we rarely have venue in which to live it. It's walking the walk," Kaimana Barcarse said.

"Going to school is a Western idea. This is a Hawaiian idea," he said.

But creating a Hawaiian language for voyaging will take time and dedication. For one thing, many of the Hawaiian terms for deep-sea sailing have long been lost. Like the redevelopment of noninstrument navigation pioneered by the Polynesian Voyaging Society and Hokule'a 2 1/2 decades ago, the language of sailing will need to be pieced together, and some parts reinvented.

"We need to create words for some of the things we need to do," said Baybayan, sitting on the rail at the stern of his canoe.

The canoes sailed Tuesday night along Moloka'i's northern cliffs through the moonless dark, then slipped into the quiet lee of of the island's west end.

On Wednesday morning, Hokule'a captain Thompson swam the 50 yards between the anchored canoes off Kaluako'i to confer with Baybayan, and later both stressed the importance of the canoe family remaining family, even though the various canoes have different ownership and missions.

"You can't rein these voyaging organizations in. You cannot set boundaries on where they can go, the lands they'll seek out and the friendships they'll make. But ultimately, values will keep them together," Baybayan said.

Both men said joint sails like this one, with crews from several voyaging associations serving on both vessels, are important.

"It reminds us of what we're part of," Baybayan said.