FOREST AND STREAM. 
199 
The Polynesian VesseL 
There is but one race of primitive man which makes 
its entrance upon the page of history by way of the sea. 
Other early races creep over mountain passes and evade 
the great watercourses by flanking their distant foun- 
tains, they fear the great sea, it takes ages before they 
gain the courage to coast from cape to cape, and always 
in sigljjt of land. The Polynesian of the South Sea bursts 
into knowledge with the hazard of deep-water voyaging. 
In all the families of his race, save one, his story begins 
with the daring of the Pacific, the greatest ocean of all. 
Call the roll of these families and see whence they came 
and how. 
Hawaii? By canoe from Kahiki, which may be Tahiti, 
certainljf is no nearer than the Marquesas. 
The Marquesas? From Hawaii, far across the western 
sea. 
Tahiti? From Hawaii in the west. 
Rarotonga? From Awaiki, a land in the west and 
down to leeward. 
The Maori of New Zealand? From Hawaiki. 
All these families tell of the tempestuous voyages of 
their ancestors from this mysterious land, of 'which all re- 
tain the name. It was the home of the race in the begin- 
ning, it was at that home that they learned to become 
sailors and. ocean adventurers. The only family of the 
Polynesian race which does not begin in a legend of a 
dangerous trip across the waters is the Samoan. They 
believe that the earth was made, at their archipelago, that 
they are themselves the first race of human beings. 
Ethnologists are agreed on one point, they acknowledge 
that even if Samoa is not the nest of the Polynesian race, 
still its largest island, Savaii, is carried in all these tradi- 
tions as at least the place of the final dispersion of these 
colonies. 
This gives us the shortest and the most direct line in 
the evolution of naval construction, bj' it we can judge 
how primitive man first essayed to build ships, a primitiA'^e 
man who was not afraid of the .water. Compared with 
the brown race of the South Sea, the Tyrian navigators of 
remote antiquity and the Viking rovers of more recent 
ages are nothing but longshoremen. We are able to see in 
the present day what tlie primitive savage did in remote 
ages, when he ventured on the sea. The Polynesian vessel 
POLYNESIAN C.\NOE TYPE HAWAII. 
is a type which has been preserved with almost absolute 
uniformity in all the wandering families of that race, it is 
the type of what the floating log became when human 
ingenuity was exerted to fit it for emergencies which 
arose early in savagery. 
As Samoa is acknowledged to be the dispersal center of 
the Polynesian race, the Samoan type of vessel -maj' not 
improperly be assumed as containing all the elements of 
naval architecture as known to the race at the time of the 
great dispersal, and therefore the most simple development 
of the early type of vessel. There is just time to catch the 
Samoan type before it vanishes. Already the boat copied 
after Caucasian models is displacing the native craft from 
end to end of the archipelago. Fifteen years ago there 
were many sailing canoes in Samoa, this year there is 
but one, and it is drawn up on a remote beach and left 
to fall into decay, never again to be used. The same 
change will continue to work, it will not be long before 
this primitive type of vessel will be but a' museum 
curiosity. 
Before proceeding to the consideration of what the 
Polynesian vessel is, it is needful to make clear one 
thing which it is not, for great confusion exists on that 
point. The Polynesian vessel is not a proa or prahu. 
Where the prahu is found in the Pacific it has been car- 
ried by the Malay race or by the Tarapon stock, which has 
peopled Micronesia, it is a sure proof that the users are 
not Polynesian people. The Polynesian vessel is the di- 
ametric opposite of the prahu, it is everything which the 
prahu is not. Keep that clearly in mind before passing 
to study of the details. 
The prahu must have these features: i, bow and stern 
must be alike; 2, one side must be flat, and that flat side 
must always be to leeward ; 3, the outrigger is always to 
windward, and exerts a downward force; 4, the mast 
is fixed at the vertical ; 5, the sail is as nearly as possible 
an equilateral triangle. 
The Polynesian vessel differs in these features: i, bow 
and stern are on different lines, with a single exception; 
2, the lines are symmetrical with respect to the central 
fore and aft line; 3, the outrigger is designed to act by 
buoyancy, to exert an upward force, and is absent from 
sailing canoes ; 4, the mast hinges in the step and is never 
vertical, but always canted forward; 5, the sail is never an 
equilateral triangle, but a sharp isosceles triangle in which 
boom and gaff measure the equal sides, while the after 
leach is about one-third of their length. 
Bearing in mind, therefore, that the prahu and the 
canoe are radically distinct in every particular, let us 
proceed to the study of the Polynesian vessel, as typified 
in the naval architecture of the Samoans, whose skill in 
shipping earned for them at the hands of Bougainville, 
who discovered them, the title of the Navigators, a name 
which only now is being removed from the maps. 
According to their uses, Samoan vessels are divided 
jntb the twd classes, such as arfe propelled b}^ f$il8< arnd 
such as depend on the paddle for propulsion. The lat- 
tef again are divided into two classes, the canoe, which 
is built up of boards and that which is shaped from a 
single tree trunk. Of these the simplest, and accordingly 
the most primitive type^ is the dugout or periagua type. 
As such it should receive first consideration. 
The essentials of this canoe (Fig. i) are a hull hol- 
lowed out of the trunk of a tree in a single piece, and an 
outrigger on the port side, which is attached to the hull 
by a double set of braces, vertical and horizontal. These 
canoes still abound on every Samoan beach. They are 
commonly from three to five fathoms long, and seldom 
vary in the other dimensions with any attempt to preserve 
a ratio to the length. The beam is approximately i8in., 
that is to say, just wide enough for the hips of the 
paddler, who sits on the outrigger braces, where they cross 
the hull. The depth is the same as the beam. The space 
between the hull and the outrigger is less than a 
fathom, generally between 4 and 5ft. 
The details of the hull are shown in. the end view, and 
show plan in Fig. 2, and the deck plan in Fig. 3. The 
builder, a select and much respected class in Samoan so- 
cial conditions, selects from his store of dried logs a 
trunk that measures tlie right number of fathoms for 
the canoe he is about to construct. In the present days 
POLYNESIAN CANOE TYPE — SA.VIOA. 
when he can buy civilized utensils of carpentry, his tools 
are seldom other than a gouge and a plane iron mounted 
as an adze. Similarly in his own woi'kshop, before the 
white men introduced metals, he used but the stone 
adze and the shell gouge, using now as then the coral 
stems for finishing oft' rough cuts. Fire was not used 
by Polynesian carpenters to assist in excavation; yet the 
Fijians, who have been for ages in constant intercourse 
with the Samoans and Tongans, were well acquainted 
with this labor-saving device. 
The carpenter invariably begins the shaping of the log 
at the end which is to form the stern of the canoe and 
hacks out the inner and outer shape together. When 
the first rough cutting is done, he begins on the inner hull 
and cuts that to its final dimensions before touching the 
outer side. The outer surface is dressed last of all, and it 
is shaped with respect to the finished inner surface, the 
thickness of timber being just about lin. throughout. All 
this work is done with neither measurement nor tem- 
plet, yet each canoe is as like each other as though the 
same builder had constructed them on exactly the same 
lines. The cuts will show the form of the hull. The 
bow is sharp and horned, the keel, while approximately 
flat, is yet slightly on the rocker type, the run begins 
at about two-thirds of the length. For some space abaft 
the bows the hull is left in a solid block, which bears the 
ornamentation of several small cubes carved in line along 
the central line of the canoe. These ornaments are fre- 
quently decorated with sun-bleached cowiw shells. 
The builder of this canoe undertakes to turn out a hull 
that will float in still water, and it is only by repeated ex- 
periments of its flotation that he is able to complete his 
work to his own satisfaction. But no hulls are designed 
to preserve their equilibrium when carrying weight. That 
balance is obtained by means of the outrigger. This con- 
sists, in the Samoan type, of three essential features. 
SAMOAN CANOE — SHEER PLAN. 
The first is the outrigger beam, the second the horizon- 
tal braces, the third of the system by which the beam is 
attached to the braces. The beam is a stick about two- 
thirds of the hull in length, elliptical in section and not 
more than 6in. at its widest, cut off square astern and for 
several feet at the forward end shaved down to a chisel 
edge in which the bevel is uppermost. 
The horizontal braces are light saplings about 2in. 
diameter and a fathom long. These are lashed across 
both gunwales of the hull, one just forward of the beam, 
the other at a point just above the beginning of the run. 
The butts of the braces project a handbreadth over the 
starboard gunwale, their outboard ends to port are joined 
by a light brace laid over them and lashed into place. 
All fastenings of the outrigger system are lashings of 
coir sennit. Between each horizontal outrigger brace and 
the beam are two rods of hardwood carefully whittled 
down until they are no more than a finger thick. The 
upper ends of these rods are lashed to the horizontal 
braces in such a way that the rods form an angle at the 
beam. Here they engage in sockets which have been cut 
for them in the upper surface of the beam. Through a 
hole in the beam between the sockets for the rods a lash- 
ing of sennit is passed and carried over the brace above. 
This is repeated in as may parts as may seem desirable; 
it is hauled as taut as possible and then a final strain is 
put on it by whipping together the two sets of parts. It 
will be noticed that the whole outrigger system has no- 
where an absolutely rigid joint, at each point of attach- 
ment there is to be found a lashing instead of a pin; every 
joint has a certain degree of flexibility. Outfiggers have 
D'een ^otn V fefciming in contact with r^cr^ r^f,. 
They resist all wrenching power of the waves even in 
the highest gales. The forward end of the outrigger is 
even with the bow of the canoe; its after end stops short 
at the after brace. 
Before leaving this simplest type of the primitive Poly- 
nesian vessel, it may be of interest to show how it has 
developed among the Hawaiians (Fig. 4). In the course 
of its wanderings this Polynesian family has lost the clean 
lines of the bow and stern of the Samoan canoe, both 
ends are about the same. The outrigger has lost one es- 
sential of its system, the vertical supports. In attaching 
the beam by ineans of curved braces the Hawaiian canoe 
makes the system by so much the more rigid, therefore 
by an equal or possibly greater amount the more exposed 
to carryin,g away under wave stress, a danger which is 
made all the more probable in the Hawaiian canoe by the 
much greater interspace between hull and outrigger. 
This simplest of the Polynesian vessels is a paddle boat. 
So is its more complex successor. To be sure, a lazy 
man may hoist a rag on his mooring pole when he finds 
a slant of wind, which may save him the labor of paddling. 
But they are not meant for mast and sail and are not or- 
dinarily so used. This very simple dugout, or periagua, is 
limited by the dimensions of natural timber. Beyond a 
certain girth the logs increase rapidly in size and weight, 
and consequently in the dift'culty of handling. If it is 
intended to construct a canoe of more .than six fathoms 
length, the carpenter has resort to another style of build- 
ing. He keeps the same design and the same lines which 
he has employed in the periagua, but he builds the ves- 
sel of separate planks. These planks he hacks out of 
solid timber with his adze; they are from i to 3in. thick 
-and vary in exterior shape according to the part of the 
vessel which they are designed to occupy. Each plank 
is rimmed by a shoulder 2in. broad and 2in. thick. They 
are set together shoulder to shoulder and then are lashed 
by coir sennit passed through corresponding holes. The 
joints are payed with bread-fruit gum, which is practically 
a perfect resistant in all conditions under which it is to 
be used. The only other point in which these built canoes 
differ from the periaguas is that they are frequently decked 
over bow and stern as far as the outrigger braces. 
The sailing canoe marks a different elernent in con- 
struction. It is a catamaran of equal and similar mem- 
bers, which is a double-ender. -Each hull is a copy of the 
SAjMO.^N canoe— breadth PLAN. 
other, and of the same size. In this type of hull the bow 
and stern are alike; they .are just the same as the run and 
stern of the paddle canoes. The hulls are always com- 
posite, built up of separately hewn planks. The twin 
hulls are braced by two sets of beams, a set athwartships 
and a supplementary X-set attached thereto. In each set 
the beams cross both hulls and are lashed at both gun- 
wales of each as well as at every point where they inter- 
sect the other series. The lashing is the same useful coir 
sennit. This absence of the nail precludes rigidity of the 
joints. The Samoan builders of catamarans have there- 
fore never encountered the difficulty which has been fatal 
to a general popularity of the type. No traditions of voyag- 
ing recount any such mishaps as the breaking asunder 
of the vessel. Upon this system of beams between the 
hulls is erected the light deck with a shed-house for the 
voyagers. The mast is stepped in the keel of one of the 
hulls and leans ever forward at a sharp angle. It is 
crotched at the head where it engages the gaff of the 
mat sail. The point of this lateen sail is hauled down to 
the bow and the sheet and the tack are carried through 
leaders to the helmsman on the midships deck. In com- 
ing about everything is cast adrift, the mast is hauled 
over toward the other end of the hull, the gaff becomes 
the boom, the helmsman pokes his steering paddle down 
through a slot at the other end of the deck and the ves- 
sel plays off on the other tack, but keeping always the 
same hull to windward. William Churchill. 
The America Cup, 
The work on the new Morgan yacht has reached a 
point where everything that is done shows progress, the , 
sternpost and a couple of dozen frames were set up last 
week, and the remaining frames are going into place 
rapidly. It has lately become known that some of the 
sheet steel received at the works is intended for a full 
set of spars, the first of these, a steel gaft", having been 
commenced. The mast will be of steel, 21 in. diameter, or 
3in. less than Defender's Oregon pine stick. A set of 
wood spars will also be provided. 
It is stated that the challenger will be 128ft. over all, 
88ft. l.w.l., and 22ft. beam, and will be plated with phos- 
phor bronze below water and aluminum above, with a 
deck of 3-16 bronze, covered with white pine. The parts 
are got out at Thornycroft's Yard, Chiswick, and taken 
down the Thames to Blackwall. Capt. Hogarth has 
selected a crew of thirty. 
Coronet, schr., F. S. Pearson, arrived at New York 
on March 3, from Kingston, Ja., via Charleston, where 
her owner and friends left her. She left New York on 
Dec. 6 and has since visited l^aagau, Porto Ricp 
Cuban porta, ' ,, ' ' 
