Posted on: Sunday, February 27, 2005

OUR HONOLULU

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Ferdinand Magellan's expedition it is not. But the picturesque Spanish ship in Honolulu Harbor opens a window into a world of four centuries ago and an adventure more exciting than any reality show.

She's the Nao Victoria, a full-sized replica of the only vessel in Ferdinand Magellan's five-ship fleet that made it around the world. One crew mutinied and returned to Spain. The others were lost or abandoned. This dumpy little craft sails about as fast as you can walk. In 1522, the original Victoria completed the first voyage around the world.

The Falls of Clyde can carry about 30 sails. The Nao Victoria carries six. The helmsman steers with a tiller, a pole that juts from the poop deck. By pushing right or left, he moves the tiller on the deck below in either direction. That activates the rudder.

Navigator Manolo Murube is equipped with a GPS, a sextant and a primitive astrolab. It's a metal disk with a rod that moves across degrees marked in the metal. By holding it up to the sun, Murube said, he can find his latitude within 1 degree.

Sailing the Nao Victoria must be like driving a car with a rudder and no gear shift. The only way you can go is forward with the wind behind you.

Capt. Ignacio Fernandez Vial swears that his ship sails beautifully. He designed and built her. Her top speed is 8.2 knots in a 25- to 30-knot breeze.

During Magellan's voyage, the crew cooked on a box of sand. This crew has a gas stove. Magellan's crew slept on a deck in the waist of the ship. The 20 people on board the new Nao Victoria sleep in bunks stacked three high below deck.

Capt. Vial is convinced that a Spaniard named Gaitan discovered Hawai'i in 1542 while voyaging between Manila and Acapulco. Gaitan put the islands on a map, and subsequent maps show them.

The islands on Gaitan's map are farther east than is Hawai'i and there are no islands where Gaitan puts them on his map. Vial points out that this is due to longitudinal error.

He also believes that Capt. James Cook knew where Hawai'i was in 1778, and that his "discovery" of the Islands was no accident. Perhaps the documents Vial expects from Spain will provide information.

He said the ship will be on display for six months at an expo in Japan.