Ray -skin Rasps. 31 



The sail of the Society Islander was in the shape of a half moon. 

 A sprit or boom was fastened to the mast near the foot and curv^ed 

 upwards to a height a third more than that of the mast, which was 

 vertical, the upper end of the sprit being diredlly over the mast- 

 head. The sail thus being enclosed in a case, and pracftically a 

 fixture when set, was awkward to work and when a squall came it 

 was necessary to keep the head of the vessel to the wind, for which 

 purpose several of the crew jumped into the water and swam at 

 the bow. The onl}- means of reefing was to unloose the sprit 

 at foot and roll the sail around it. During squalls capsizes were 

 not uncommon and the means employed to right the vessel were 

 thus : After making everything fast the head of the sail was 

 brought to windward, and a line being taken from it and passed 

 over the outrigger (which was kept to leeward) several hands, by 

 their weight on the outrigger and pulling at the line, lifted the sail 

 out of the water some little way ; then, the wind getting under the 

 sail righted the canoe. Some men remained in the water to keep 

 the head to the wind, and when bailed the canoe continued her 

 voyage. Many of these canoes had two sails. 



The Hawaiian sail was shaped somewhat like that of the 

 Society Islands, but the top of the sprit was on a level with the 

 masthead, near which it was held by a cord. The leech of the 

 sail dropped gracefully between these two points, like that of 

 Southern New Guinea. This sail, while no doubt having an 

 artistic appearance, was not the most effecftive, and as early as 

 1823, the Rev. Wm. Ellis in his "Tour Through Hawaii" wrote: 

 "The sails they now use are made of mats, cut in imitation of the 

 sprit, sails of foreign boats, which they say they find much better 

 than the kind of sail they had when first visited by foreigners." 



There are two other important groups of islands to be dealt 

 wath — the Marquesas Islands and the Paumotu Archipelago. The 

 sail of the Marquesas Islands as seen by Cook in his second voy- 

 age and James Wilson in the Duff, 1796-8, was not of much value 

 to its owner, as at best it was a clumsy contrivance built after the 

 shape of the New Zealand sail but of indifferent materials, the 

 mast, boom and matting showing great want of care. These peo- 

 ple in Cook's time were not such expert sailors as the other Poly- 

 nesians, though Alex. Dalrymple states in his "Voyages and Dis- 

 coveries in the South Pacific Ocean," I^ondon, 1770, that when 



