Walap of the Marshalls

A nice sketch of a model walap from Canoes of Oceania, Haddon & Hornell.

 

An oddly similar view of a real vessel found here:  http://www.realmagick.com/proa-history-of-the-proa/

More historical pics

From the Hawaiian & Pacific Images pages of the digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu site.

Found here:
http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/pacific/Pages/browseby.php?s=browse&by=category&category=41

Dumont d'Urville?  Caroline Islands, circa 1835

same as above

Artist unknown, Caroline Islands canoes, circa 1819

Artist unknown, Caroline Islands, 1819

Historical pics from the Jack Tobin Collection

From the Jack Tobin Marshall Islands Anthropology Collection found here:
http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/tobin/index.php?c=1

"Dr. Tobin extensively documented his time in Micronesia, both in written and photographic form. The photos in this collection date from 1950 through 1985, with the majority taken between 1950 and 1972. These images include not only the Marshalls, but also various atolls and islands throughout what was then the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands"

Starting here are pics of "Boats/Ships - Marshall Islands"
http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/tobin/Pages/browseby.php?s=browse&by=category&category=31

Carolines canoe

Another classic shot showing the beautiful Carolinian sail shape.  Found here:  http://www.multihull.de/proa/history/p_history.htm

"Atoll Memory"

A video of Ant Atoll, near Pohnpei.  Uploaded to YouTube in 2008 by Lon Warneke. 

Some of Dame Jane Resture's sites

Her Micronesia Home Page:
http://www.janeresture.com/michome/index.htm

Micronesia Postcards and Photos:
http://www.janeresture.com/michome/postcards.htm

A canoe of the Carolines

A Kiribati canoe

A Yappese canoe at speed

Canoes of the Kiribati Islands

Check out this great piece on Kiribati canoe construction at Jane Resture's site:
http://www.janeresture.com/kiribati_canoe/history.htm

With the slightest of a breeze

And the greatest of ease

She skims over the shimmering blue

A most remarkable craft

From the fore to the aft

The incredible Kiribati canoe!

Like a frigate bird on a wing

The rigging and sails sing

A melodious song of the deep

About the spirits of the sea

And what has come to be

The incredible Kiribati canoe!

Poem by Dame Dr. Jane Resture

A great winds app!

Check out this great interactive winds app!

Mokil and seafaring

Mokil is one of the more eastern islands in the Carolines.  It's actually in the Pohnpei district. Don't know how much seafaring they still do but I did find an old film (from the 40's?) which showed a lot of proa action.  It's here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP64wcCKZcA
Film by Melvin Sloan and Conrad Bentzen, Project by J.E. Weckler, 1948, 60 mintues

The people are doing their best for the camera and there are lots of interesting scenes.  At around 41 and 42 minutes there are good racing scenes, including a shot of capsize recovery.  Of note is that they're recovering the small canoe in the same manner I have used:  by sinking the hull rather than the float to right the boat.

There's also a film here called The Last Sailing Canoe on Mokil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TESimBxah80

Their canoes seem to have more in common with the Marshallese style.  Not unexpected given the proximity.

Model canoe, with paddle and bailer
Caroline Islands, Mokil
Collected by Saul H. Riesenberg, 1947, acc. 1948.
11–3263a-c

The model above was found here:

http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/cent/gallery3_2_1.html

And from the Last Sailing Canoe video:

P.S. In finally getting to listen to this film, at one point the narrator mentions that they got this style of canoe from the Marshalls and have only had it about one generation...

Enewetak walap

Here's some stuff about the Enewetak walap built by Dennis Alessio and others on Majuro Atoll in 1992.  Will put up more as I can gather it up.

Short video clip here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMe_xsSL6oQ

This, I believe, is their home site, Waan Aelon Kein:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/garyd/walap.html

And here is Dirk H.R. Spennemann's Digital Micronesia article on it:
http://marshall.csu.edu.au/Marshalls/html/culture/Enewetak_Walap.html

Here's a good illustration on a stamp:

Illustration by Herb Kane

Sail specs

Here are a few fairly "orthographic" views of Carolinian sails.  I'll collect as many useful pics as I can in order to notate the typical tack angle of these and other "Oceanic lateen" or "Crab-claw" sails.

The average tack angles in the above sails are from about 60 to 63 degrees, depending on how you measure them.  These seem to be typical for most of the Carolinian sails I've seen.

The Satawalese Seasons

"Lefung concurs with our winter, it is "the impatience", the time of hunger.  Leraak, approximately our summer, is "the year", the time of plenty."

- from page 36 of The Last Navigator, by Stephen Thomas