300 Memoirs Bcrnicc P. BisJiop Museum 



As the name indicates, the vaka poti is a hj-brid of canoe and boat, and is larger and more 

 seaworthly than tlie fishing canoe, being twenty to twenty-five feet long with a maximum 

 beam of two to two and a half feet. A long trip of breadfruit or temanu wood, eight inches 

 to a foot in width, about four inches thick and tapering to a point at both ends, serves the 

 double purpose of keel and bottom. It is smoothly rounded on the outside and slightly hollowed 

 along the center of its upper surface. This is probably an extreme modification of the dugout 

 underbody of the old built up canoes. Longitudinal slots are cut in either end of this keel and 

 into these two flat, slightly curving pieces of temanu wood are bolted. These serve as the stem 

 and sternposts of the boat, and are identical in form. Short light ribs are then bolted to the 

 keel along both edges, their short lower arms resting upon its upper surface. The sides of the 

 boat are built up with thin planks of commercial lumber which are laid on with an overlap 

 from above downward — that is, the boat is clinker built. These planks are carefully dressed 

 along the points of contact to insure a tight joint, and are fastened into grooves in the sides of 

 the stem and sternpost. The gunwales are finished with a narrow flat strip of wood. At 

 either end of the boat, immediately below this strip, a triangular piece of plank is put in, deck- 

 ing the last two or three feet of the bow and stern. The boat is braced by three broad flat 

 thwarts which also serve as seats. One of these thwarts is placed in the middle and the other 

 two at either end, two to three feet within the edges of the end deckings. The forward 

 thwart is pierced with a hole three or four inches in diameter which, with a corresponding 

 block on the keel, serves to step a mast. These crafts are always provided with an out- 

 rigger similar in shape and attachment to that of the fishing canoe, but of proportionately 

 greater size. 



Alexander, who visited Xuku Hiva in 1899, saw a slightly dilterent form of outrigger 

 in use with the zvka poti. He says (2, p. 746) : "From the gunwale to the outrigger float of 

 these canoes is an average of 7 feet. The outrigger frame consists of five pieces of wood, name- 

 ly, two poles or crosspieces seized across the gunwales 4^/2 feet apart, one forward and the other 

 aft of center : two stanchions connecting crosspieces of the outrigger float, and a brace which 

 is seized to crosspieces just outside the gunwale. That part of the crosspieces between the 

 gunwales answers the purpose of thwarts, the upper side being hewn to a flat surface. The 

 outboard ends are sized to the perpendicular pieces, or stanchions, the length of which is, as 

 a rule, the distance from the gunwale to the water line. These pieces are sized to the top 

 side of the float, the sizings extending all the way around the float, but done so neatly as 

 to offer little resistance to the water. The crosspieces, float, and stanchions are braced with 

 withes to prevent them from being twisted and thrown out of position by coming in contact 

 with rocks. . . . The material used in sizing the outrigger frame together is coconut fiber 

 twisted into a small line." 



A vaka poti is normally handled by four men. one of whom sits in the stern and steers 

 with a paddle while the other three row with short oars of ordinary European form. The 

 bow and stern oars are placed on the side opposite the outrigger, the middle oar on the out- 

 rigger side, working within it. 



Every craft of this sort is provided with a leg of mutton sail of canvas like that com- 

 monly used on ships' boats. When not in use the sail is stored under the short deck at one 

 end of the boat, while the poles which serve as mast and boom are lashed along the cross- 

 pieces of the outrigger. The heavier of these poles, which is about nine feet long, serves as the 

 mast. When the sail is to be hoisted, the mast is passed through loops of string tied along one edge 

 of the sail, the loop nearest the masthead being firmly tied to the pole. Two light ropes are 

 then attached to the masthead opposite each other and the mast is stepped, the butt passing 

 through the hole in the forward thwart and resting in the hollowed block in the keel. The two 

 ropes from the masthead are then fastened to the forward outrigger crosspiece just outside the 

 gunwales of the canoe. A third rope is sometimes run from the masthead to the prow, but 

 this is not common. The lighter pole serves as the boom and passes through the loops along 

 the lower edge of the sail. The outermost loop is firmly tied to the boom, and a rope is at- 

 tached to its outer end. The boom is then gradually thrust outboard until the sail is fully 

 spread and only the inner end of the boom rests against tlie mast. This end simply rests 

 against the mast and is not attached to it. 



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