The crews of the voyaging canoes Hokule'a and Alingano Maisu, with little shelter aboard their open canoes, are being pounded by rain as they push through squall after squall on their voyage from Majuro Atoll to Pohnpei.

Based on yesterday's automated position reports, the canoes were about halfway to Pohnpei.

Crew members were tiring of the weather.

Hokule'a crew member Ka'iulani Murphy, in an e-mail sent by satellite from the canoe, said the crews are wearing foul-weather gear constantly, but it does little to keep them dry.

"Foul-weather gear merely kept the water against our bodies warm," she said.

After drifting for a period, Hokule'a skipper Bruce Blankenfeld elected over the weekend to take a tow to meet airline schedules at Pohnpei, where a number of crew members are disembarking and are scheduled to fly home, and others will be waiting to climb aboard.

Polynesian Voyaging Society president Nainoa Thompson said that despite the towing, the voyage will continue to be navigated without modern instruments.

"The decision to take a tow from the escort boat is driven by the fact that the canoes need to recapture time that has been lost due to the delayed departure from Hawai'i and the longer than expected sail from Hawai'i to Majuro. While being towed by the escort boat, the canoes will continue to be navigated without instruments, with the navigators setting the direction in which the escort boat heads," he said in an e-mail posted on the society Web site.

"It's been squally. We've had rain, a little bit of wind. The horizon is pretty obscure, but we can navigate through this stuff," Blankenfeld told The Advertiser by satellite phone late last week. But sometimes conditions have been so miserable that the canoes simply shut down and wait.

"Around 2 in the morning (on Saturday) we got completely socked in and shut our sails to wait for the clouds to clear. We wouldn't want to sail in the wrong direction," Murphy said in an e-mail to the Polynesian Voyaging Society weblog (pvshawaii .squarespace.com/blog-hokulea).

Crew members have found that in light winds, the Alingano Maisu is the faster canoe with its lighter weights and narrower hulls. In heavy winds and seas, Hokule'a's greater weight and big, rounded hulls push through more effectively. Lately, the canoes have been experiencing Maisu weather, although Blankenfeld aboard Hokule'a is the lead navigator on this leg of the voyage and the plan is to keep Hokule'a ahead during this period.

"After a while of drifting slowly, Bruce decided to take a tow from Kama Hele in order to get to Pohnpei on time. No one really likes to be towed ... This morning we were able to drop the tow and sail on our own for several hours. More rain drenched everyone and everything, and it came down hard. After the rain let up, we had to resume towing, but Maisu was able to sail behind us. As of this afternoon, Bruce approximates that we have three sailing days left to get to Pohnpei," Murphy wrote.

The first part of the canoes' mission is to deliver the Alingano Maisu as a gift to Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug of the island of Satawal. The second portion of the voyage is a goodwill visit by Hokule'a to Japan. Thompson said one reason for the urgency in keeping to schedules is the canoe's need to avoid the typhoon season when it crosses from Micronesia to Japan.

"The key time element of the voyage is to make the crossing between Palau at 7 degrees north (latitude)and Okinawa at 26 degrees north as early as possible in April. As the seasons move from winter to summer and its warmer oceans, the ingredients needed to spawn cyclonic activities (typhoons) begin to develop ... A typhoon in this area would put the success of the voyage to Japan and the safety of Hokule'a and its crew at considerable risk," Thompson said.

He said the decision for the larger canoe to accept a tow was made in a conference call between Thompson, Blankenfeld, Maisu captain Shorty Bertelmann and Maisu navigator Chadd Paishon.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.