Updated at 6:42 a.m., Friday, January 11, 2008
Hokulea to spend next three months in drydock
Advertiser Staff
Hokule'a, the 62-foot-long Polynesian voyaging canoe, will be hauled out of the water about 6:30 a.m. today at the Honolulu Community College Marine Education Center on Sand Island.Volunteers and staff of the Polynesian Voyaging Society will guide the 9-ton double-hulled canoe onto four large dollies in the water before rolling the Hokule'a onto shore.
The canoe will be serviced for the first time since her five-month, 9,000-nautical-mile voyage to Micronesia and Japan in 2007.
Hokule'a has been in the water for 14 months, said voyaging society President Nainoa Thompson.
"Although she is structurally in very good shape and is seaworthy, we pushed her hard and she sailed hard and it's time to care for her," Thompson said. "It's more an expression of care and respect for the canoe. We sailed her hard and she took care of us."
In addition to the more than 180 crewmembers who sailed Hokule'a during the voyage, when Hokule'a came home, more than 1,000 people sailed her, many of them children, during community- and education-based sails.
Hokule'a will be in dry dock for touch-ups and painting, which are scheduled to be completed by mid-April. After drydock, Hokule'a will embark on a seven-month, 3,000-mile statewide sail to 26 communities to continue the Polynesian Voyaging Society's education and outreach programs and to train the next generation of crew leaders.
