Leaning on the long steering oar, he focused intently ahead. One of the kids stood precariously on the stern, his toes gripping the edge of the deck. Instantly we accelerated in the brisk trade wind.Ĭhurning a frothy white wake, our craft skimmed across the turquoise water, going so fast it felt like we were flying. The kids pushed us off as Helbi raised the sail and barked out orders. The skipper, a wiry little man named Hanej Helbi, was the last to board. We waded into the shallows and climbed onto a slatted platform that extended out from the hull to the shorter wooden outrigger. On the beach below the boat shed, two teenagers readied a spindly 23 foot-long vessel with a triangular sail and a hull that tapered to a point at each end. When the weekend of race mania died down, I had the opportunity to go for a sail on one of the larger canoes along with three fellow visitors. As the captain of the American schooner Dolphin noted in 1824, "Their canoes display the greatest ingenuity, and I have no doubt that in a 'civilized' country they would be ranked amongst the rarest specimens of human industry.They move through the water with astonishing velocity, and in turning to windward, no boats can surpass them." The sails of these nimble boats were of modern, synthetic fabrics, but in every other way they were just like the sailing outriggers that had so impressed Western mariners centuries ago. The single-handed race ended in an exciting finish, with only a boat's length separating the runner-up from the winner, a guy from Jaluit atoll who had also been victorious the previous year. A few tipped over and swamped, costing their crews so much time that they had no chance in the competition. When hit by gusts of wind, some heeled so far over that their outriggers lifted right out of the water. Riding in the press boat, I got to see dozens of the sleek craft with brightly colored sails careen at amazing speed around the markers. One race was for small single-handed canoes, the other for larger ones carrying two men.
Cash prizes and bragging rights were at stake. A 737 jet, which was making a refueling stop, could be seen through the trees.Ī media boat broadcast a minute-by-minute account of the races, which enabled thousands more to follow the events live on radio. On race day, hundreds of cheering islanders thronged the shore at the starting line, which was adjacent to the atoll's paved airstrip. Island chieftains and government officials gave speeches. On the eve of the competition, a torchlight procession of boats made its way to a central landing, where a small crowd greeted crews with the blowing of the conch and bestowing of leis. These included canoes from two dozen atolls, each an irregular necklace of coral islands and reefs surrounding a lagoon. I had flown to Majuro to observe the annual outrigger sailing races. Once the sides and bottom of the log were fully shaped and most of the inside wood removed, the dug-out hull would have a much smaller pontoon-like outrigger attached to it, and a sailing rig added as well. Another youth used short, controlled swings of his adze to smooth out the rough cuts. Clement moved to Majuro to share that knowledge and preserve a proud heritage.Ī few paces away, a lithe teenager axed notches in a long log of breadfruit wood. "The different designs were like signatures," he said. "Several families on Namorik still had the knowledge," he added, noting that each had its own distinctive style.
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He explained that he had learned how to build canoes from his grandfather on smaller, outlying Namorik atoll.
Nearby, towering coconut palms leaned out over the shore of a vast, sheltered lagoon. He stood outside an open-sided, barn-like boat shed at Majuro, the most populated atoll in the Marshall Islands of Micronesia. "A decade ago, canoe-making was dying," said master builder Tim Clement, a tall man with rippling muscles and a dazzling smile.
An adapted excerpt from the book Mystery Islands In a region where small dots of land are separated by expanses of water, some have revived the art of turning logs into fast sailing canoes.
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