THE STORY of PACIFIC SAILING CANOES and THEIR RIGS Adrian
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From Buckfast to Borneo THE STORY OF PACIFIC SAILING CANOES AND THEIR RIGS Adrian Horridge ABSTRACT A revised survey of outrigger canoe rigs leads to the new conclusion that the primitive rig that made possible the Austronesian conquest of the Pacific was the mastless rig with a two-boom triangular sail supported on a loose prop, as survived in Madura and western Polynesia. It is proposed that the triangular sail spread across the Indian Ocean and became the lateen, which spread further to the Mediterranean and eventually to Portugal by the fourteenth century. New historical findings suggest that this Western lateen rig with a fixed mast, copied from a Portuguese caravellost in 1526, influeHced sailing practice in eastern Polynesia. Keywords: Pacific rigs, outrigger canoes, Austronesian, colonists. THE BEGINNING The first colonists from Indonesia certainly reached Australia more than fifty thousand years ago, but stone tools suitar 1 ~ to make dug-out canoes have not been found older than about twenty thousand years. Therefore the best guess is that the earliest sea crossings as far as the Solomon Islands were made with rafts.1 Of sailing rigs developed in those remote times we know nothing. However, a survey of the widespread sailing rafts still in use, mainly on rivers, in historic times, reveals a variety of rigs. The tak pai of Taiwan (Nishirnura 1925) had a square sail, the balsa rafts of the Peruvian coasts (Johnstone 1980: 224-28) used a two-boom triangular sail: the bamboo rafts (Ghe Be) of Haiphong Bay, Vietnam (Pietri 1949: 89) used a canvas lug sail or the low rounded junk sail of the southern Chinese: rafts in Fiji (Haddon and Hornell1936, i: 330) and Mangareva (Gambier Is.) (ibid: 91-94) had the local mastless two-boom triangular sail (Figure 52). How long the raft rigs had been in use no-one can now say, but, like much of the agriculture, housebuilding, and other crafts, they could have been developed in the Eastern Archipelago over a long period2 before the coming of the Austronesian-speaking peoples from the mainland of South China about four thousand years ago. Th.e Austronesians are defined as the speakers of a particular family of languages,3 with a clearly defined set of crafts, myths, agricultural plants,4 house designs, pottery,S an artistic style of carving and of tattoo.6 They spread into the region of Taiwan7 about four thousand years ago, then southwards to the Philippines and Indonesia. There they replaced older Australoid peoples related to Papuans and Australian aborigines. The Austronesians diversified into the old highland cultures of central Taiwan, Luzon, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Flores, Sumba and later Madagascar.S Later, these peoples were not much interested in boats or the sea, although they retained myths about their own origins from over the sea, and frequently they echoed boat structures in their coffins or house styles.9 They all had the stone adze with a bent haft (Figure 53) that originated in Asia together with weaving, unglazed pottery not made on a wheel, agriculture with millet and later rice, bark cloth of tapa, stone megaliths, ancestor worship, pigs, chickens, dogs and taro. One or more groups of these Austronesians went island-hopping eastwards against the prevailing winds and currents, passing to the north of New Guinea, and they colonised island after island, working eastwards.10 Eventually they became the Polynesians and contributed to 541 Pacific Sailing Canoes Figure 52: Primitive ~ailing raft with two-boom triangular sail Figure 53: Adze with bent haft Figure 54: Double outrigger with two-boom triangular sail (54) lower boom 542 From Buckfastto Bomeo the stock of the Melanesians and the Micronesians. Their distribution is identified with that of the dug-out canoe with outriggers (Figures 54, 57, 64). They relied on large canoes for their over water migrations. All branches of these migrations took with them the two-boom triangular sail with the mastless rig with no pulley and no fixed rudder (see below). The shallow draft and all the design details are adapted to the conditions of sailing over reefs in warm seas with no harbours. Eventually they reached the islands of the Eastern Pacific, and even visited coastal Central and South America, as inferred from the spread of the coconut and a breed of chicken that lays blue eggs (Langdon 1989) and they carried back into their Pacific cultures the sweet potato, a variety of cotton and possibly a few other plants. Travelling eastwards through the region of monsoon winds was easy, and the first major hurdle was the stretch of 900kms. (550 miles) of open water between Vanuatu (New Hebrides) and Fiji. For this they probably had to wait for the development of the double canoe, large examples of which could carry one hundred people or several tons of cargo.11 They also developed techniques for making nutritious dried food for survival at sea,12 ways of carrying fire, seeds and living shoots13 out of contact with sea-water, and numerous techniques for fishing, plaiting, sewing and making string.14 The rig of their sailing canoes was the two-boom triangular sail (Figures 52, 54, 55) supported on a prop which was used to push up the sail, which was then held up by a stay to the outrigger boom on the windward side. The two supporting booms of the sail distributed the load over the weak material. The sail was pushed up with a prop which pivoted freely on its lower end, so that bending forces were avoided, rather than pulled up on a halyard, which requires much stronger rope and a pulley. The pulley was unknown in the Pacific until the arrival of the western explorers.lS The sail pivots on its tack (the lower forward corner) and tilts forward to steer the craft downwind (Figure 55) or backward to go upwind. Although large steering oars were used, they were never mounted on pivots, as in Arab, Chinese, Indian or Western cultures. Figure 55: Position of the two-boom triangular sail going downwind 543 Pacific Sailing Canoes The design of the rig in historical times followed some simple rules. The sail of matting16 was weak and heavy when wet. Therefore, loads along the edges of the sail were distributed by the wooden or bamboo booms laced or sewn to it. The pole that held up the sail was pivoted freely at its base so that there was no bending load on it.l7 The stay holding up the sail ran to the outer end of the outrigger boom, so that loading on this stay was minimal. On a single-outrigger canoe a strong wind on the sail easily lifted the outrigger and spilled the wind. The booms of the sail had flexible ends to assist in spilling a gust. The sail was pulled well down fore-and aft to go into the wind (Figures 52, 54 and on the left in Figure 56), and was tilted forwards and across the boat to go downwind (Figure 55 and on the right in Figure 56). To tack, the bows were pointed downwind and the sail allowed to swing right round the front as the sheet was carried round the front to the other side (Figure 56). Alternatively, the tack of the sail could be lifted and carried to the other end of the hull (Figure 57), as was done on the single outriggers of the Marianas, the Carolines, Fiji, Tonga, and the double canoes of Fiji and Tonga,18 all of which were reversible end for end. These are general features common to most of the area of the mastless rig on the map (Figure 58). Also held in common in historical times were many details of the hull design. The hull was hollowed from a single log19 except where large trees were not available, in which case planks were carefully carved from driftwood, fitted and sewn together. The main hull usually had the sides raised by an additional plank on each side, and forked stem and stern pieces were added at the ends. This five-part canoe20 was almost identical in design from Madagascar, through Indonesia and the Pacific to Tahiti and Hawai'i. Next, the outrigger booms must be lashed down very firmly. This was c:I-one by leaving projecting lugs21 on the inside of the hull, to which were attached flexible ribs or small cross bars (called spreaders) fitted inside the hull (Figure 59). The lashings were of non-extensible ratan or other vines which tightened up when wet. Inshore fishing canoes had the outrigger booms lashed over an open hull but some offshore travelling canoes had the hull sealed22 and the superstructure raised above the waves on a waterproof rectangular box which acted as a hatch so that goods could be kept dry within the hull. A platform extended as far as the outrigger booms. Exact designs varied23 but the same principles were constantly observed, and there is a variety of evidence that the principles were embodied in myths and ceremonies.24 Sadly, most of this material culture of the Pacific Islands has been lost except for a few canoes collected by the early explorers. All sea-going canoes had a single outrigger on the windward side or a second hulL25 Big double canoes had a central raised platform. All components were lashed or stitched together,(14> and joints were sealed with resin or pounded putty-nut.26 Ropes and lines were plaited sennit of fibre from palm trees, the baru tree,27 beach-living convolvulus or vines.28 Sails were of small squares of plaited rushes or palm leaves, sewn together and edged with boltrope.