Canoes of Oceania

Toroa's new Gibbons Dierking rig

2012-01-21T22:08:00.005+13:00

Chris sent me two photos of Toroa with his new Gibbons Dierking rig.

Nothing more to add until I hear more about sea trials

No Direction Home (Augmented)

2012-01-13T16:38:00.010+13:00

I'm not at all sure how I came to this point in my life.

Bob Dylan once said that he was born a long way from where he was supposed to be. I feel the same way! ( though, thankfully, I was not born in Duluth, Minnesota)

After watching Scorsese's "No Direction Home" I was moved to reflect on my creative output.

The day before, nursing an aching heart, I read Pippa Blake's auto biography "Journey"

I knew Sir Peter Blake reasonably well over many years as I had been involved on the margins of his various projects when I was a spar maker and rigger (Ceramco and Lion) and then again later as a sign writer (ENZA and NZL 32, Black Magic).

My son Robert was the youngest member of Team New Zealand for two successful defenses of the Americas cup in Auckland and earlier attended Takapuna Grammar school where the Blake's children studied when living in NZ.

Pippa's story reminded me of my own, but it also got me thinking. Like Bob Dylan who spoke of the journey in terms of never arriving at a destination; to arrive would mean death.

Sailing, art, music, family, mortgage (death pledge) all the distractions, self doubt, parental and societal disapproval and lack of support of a chosen path.

I have to leave all that behind me now and take a fresh new path.

I believe that my almost obsessive involvement with the marginal and the different is profoundly symbolized (for me) in the proa.

Perhaps I was drawn to activities and interests that very few knew much about as a way to withdraw from a society that shunned those that were different.

New Zealand is a new land of immigrants that have settled here in successive waves over the lat 1200 years only.

Each new wave has had to fight for a place and for acceptance. Only the third or fourth generations finally feel as though they have been accepted as a legitimate New Zealander.

This blog has given me an outlet for expression on an international level. My writing has connected me indirectly to a community that I feel a part of (at a safe distance). Perhaps that community shares something in common with me other than simply odd shaped sail boats. Reading between the lines of all my writing I begin to see a recurring theme.

Michael Scacht said; "Harmen comes to proas in a way with which I can personally identify: as a vehicle for understanding more than just sailboats. A way of looking at the world. And when I say “the world”, I don’t mean the atoms, I mean the invisible connective tissue".

'"Seek and ye shall find" one of the great teachers said. The seeking itself is the finding, since one can fervently seek only what one already knows to exist.' so says Gabor Mate, MD in his excellent book " When the Body says no"

In many ways my eccentric quest to explore the different has been an attempt to express a creative urge, though tainted with a pathological fear of success and acceptance. I think I avoided anything that set me up against anything mainstream or conventional for fear that I would be compared with someone more competent than myself and found lacking.

So much of my activity in the arenas of art and sailing has been in isolation, at a safe distance from my community. Frustration has been the result. Perhaps this stems from a feeling of being so close and yet so far from what I truly wish for, that sense of belonging, reciprocated by those I love or admire.

In my other existence I have been a professional and semi professional musician. I practiced in relative isolation to become a reasonably competent drummer. Many years later (perhaps frustrated by my lack of success) I rejected this pursuit and chose a very marginal instrument, the one string bass, (skiffle bass, wash tub bass, tea chest bass).
This instrument I made completely my own. I was considered by my musical peers as a freak, a virtuoso, and much else besides. Few people understood how it was played in tune. Trained musicians of extraordinary skill and virtuosity marveled at its uniqueness (and its strangeness). Somehow though this activity was acceptable in a community that could tolerate (even admire) such eccentricity and I was safe because there was so little to compare me with!

To qualify for those patient enough to have read this far, I simply mean to share what I am learning about myself in the hope that I will say or do something that triggers recognition, that catalyzes something that might provide an insight to themselves and in so doing myself as well.

I have an idea for an exhibition featuring self portraits in the context of my journey to date. Another project in the wings are a series of paintings based on Henry Winklemann's 19th and 20th Century, black and white photos of famous New Zealand Keel boats. It could be interesting to look back on my journey whilst moving forward, somewhat like rowing a boat.

Harmen

Toroa is on a new tack

2011-09-23T16:48:00.004+12:00

Well that's it then Toroa has his new owner, Chris from Auckland.

Toroa will sail on the Manukau Harbour and later on the Whangarei Harbour.

Chris appeared mid week, mid afternoon. We had Toroa loaded and lashed down to the trailer with the two of us talking constantly. I was aware of how intimidating it must have been for Chris with so much strange information to absorb. I gave him a file of images of Toroa in varying stages of rig so that he can reference them when he is setting up. Chris has some work to do repairing the abraded keel line and applying the new abrasion strip to the keel, antifouling and paint. I've agreed to visit him once he is ready to rig and launch.

Chris stayed overnight with Julie and me before heading off back to Auckland.
We traveled with him for a small part of the way to complete ownership transfer of the trailer at the Post Office in the Northland town of Kaikohe.

We said our goodbyes and Chris left with some of what I have come to identify as the result of my life's work to date.

I feel now that giving Toroa his wings was a good decision for me at this time. As Mike Toy, Jefferson Chapple and Gary Dierking unanimously reminded me, "Toroa is not who and what you are, your identity is intact with or without him".

Thanks guys!

Once again I was surprised by the level of interest shown in Toroa. Chris was the person who originally purchased Takapu.

Once he knew that Toroa was for sale Chris approached me to reverse the sale of Takapu and opted instead to buy Toroa.

This now means that Takapu is once again available.

Please contact me with a comment on this blog or call me on 09 405 7855 or email me at kaurispring@xta.co.nz if you would like to discuss owning Takapu.

Please refer to my earlier post "Takapu is for sale" to learn more about the details.

I will continue to keep this blog current as I still have a great deal of unpublished information about my activities, stories of my Proa adventures, building pics and a great many images of other proa projects including those of the launching of Papa Tom Davis' Proa "Takitumu."

I also wish to continue documenting my own adventures and future endevours relating to canoes.

Harmen

Takapu has found a new opportunity

2011-03-05T12:58:00.020+13:00

Takapu has found a new opportunity.

He is returning to Auckland and the Waitemata Harbour. His new owner has plans to resurrect him to his traditional form.

Takapu is 6.9 meters long from tip to tip and weighs around 100 kg. The hull and deck is constructed of three diagonal skins of Sapele Mahogany veneer laminated with West System Epoxy.

Ama is strip plank cedar sheathed with West Epoxy and 8oz glass weighing approximately 30kg. Primed with two pack epoxy primer.

The steering dagger board rudders are 30 mm 7 ply Meranti sheathed with S glass and epoxy and finished in graphite impregnated West Epoxy.

The boards are bi directional, ogive section.

If you want to learn more about these hydrofoil boards please follow the link where Tim Anderson explains my system better than I can
.
http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Etim/pix/2004_nz/50_nz_4-15-04/_nz13.html

In Limbo

2011-02-22T04:33:00.011+13:00

The best sailing summer that I can remember and I am no closer to finishing Toroa.
Work commitments and ill health limit my activities.
I have made some modifications to my Coleman canoe as promised and I can now row from a central position after some changes to the central alli tube spreader which is now a third thwart.
I have a pair of 8 foot oars which are mounted through rowlock wings made from aluminium channel extended by 300 mm from the gunwale bolted through the alli side strake. The last remaining project is the yawl rig for which I have accumulated the sail fabric, the masts and steps and some rope.
Photos to come.

I've also built a cajon drum and have begun to assemble a small drum kit to extend my musical opportunities in our new community in Rawene.

http://harmensmusicblog.blogspot.com/

Takapu awaits a new opportunity.

photo by Russ Brown 2003

Takapu at his winter retreat, Shelly Beach Herne Bay Auckland

The owner of Takapu at the time this image was taken has approached me and we have agreed on a way to get Takapu sailing again.

Harmen

Equinox, gale force wind, freezing hail! Spring's here.

2010-10-12T21:01:00.009+13:00

Julie and I have moved from Waima.

We swapped our home of five years with people whose roots are in Waima. Their house in the little township of Rawene suited our needs and was similar in value. Now we live within one minute's walking distance to my work at Hokianga Hospital. No more car commuting!

Our new house looks out over the inner Hokianga Harbour so I'm back in touch with the pulse of the tide.

We moved in a convoy of small vehicles the 16 KM (12 miles) in the pouring rain one day in June
with lots of help from our friends.

I hooked up Toroa to the car on his road trailer and said goodbye to the place whare he was rebuilt.

I was alone in the car as we drove the Waima hill and descended into the Omanaia valley. All was going well until we came to the Rawene intersection from State Highway 12. at the turn, the right hand trailer tire burst.

I decided to proceed slowly on the rim, not having a spare to fit. A scene from that great Roger Donaldson film "The World's Fastest Indian" came to mind

The ride was a further 6 KM at 5 KM per hour, I was The World's Slowest Pakeha!

Flump, flump, flump, flump, wobble, wobble, wobble, It was slow noisy progress and to top it all off the car began to overheat. The cooling fans decided to go out in protest. Rovers are very self conscious cars and don't like drawing attention to themselves.

As we rolled past my place of work all my colleagues came to the roadside to jeer at me attracted as they were by my appalling progress. We finally pulled in to our driveway where I disconnected the trailer and left Toroa exactly where he stood.... until yesterday.

Over the three month gap Julie and I have established ourselves in our new environment. Last weekend I finished setting up my workshop with my wood tools on one side and my engineering tools on the other.
My saw bench is in its rightful place outside the workshop with enough undercover space around it to do some real work again.

With my now accessible tools I've unbolted the offending wheel and cut off the mangled tire from the rim. I took the wheel to our nearby garage where I asked the mechanic to fit a recycled tire which I found in the fill behind a retaining wall where my saw bench is now located. So I still don't know what's good and what's bad. Now I'm able to mobilise myself for another assault on the summer sailing opportunities.

My health is still not so good with my right wrist and ankle so swollen that I believe they will never be useful again. Just as well that I have a left hand and a left ankle that are still reasonably OK. (OK?
I think that "OK" must be derived from the Scottish "Och Aye") it has to be.

Toroa still needs a good water blast and also a coat of gloss paint. Who knows when that will happen?

Money's tight everywhere. Where did it all go? Rescuing the US economy?

Meanwhile I'm going to convert our little red Coleman canoe to every form of propulsion known to small boats. A yawl rig, row locks and outboard bracket, that way when I'm sick I can still go boating with minimal stress physically.

Han's Comment on my blog post "Takapu the Proa a Dissertation"

2010-10-02T16:34:00.002+13:00

Hi Han

I read about the Gondola in a "Wooden Boat Magazine" article many years ago. Since then I have wanted to study one closely, in action, to see what other benefits there may be from the asymmetry.

From my experience with the Proa I have learned that good design (especially design features with a long successful history) usually solves at least three problems at once.

I believe that this hull shape could simply offset the thrust of the oar but I believe that the answer may not be so simple, it may also have a more fundamental reason. One reason will almost certainly be the need for extra buoyancy over the side that the oarsman stands, on this long slender hull, to keep the boat level for the comfort of passengers.

Another will be the need to counteract a tendency that long slender hulls have to broaching. My experience with long symmetrical canoe hulls is that they have a strong tendency to track off course when a small force acts across the line of least resistance, i.e. wind or wave action. I believe the reason for this broaching action is the result of a pressure differential that gets started when the hull turns through the flow and water speeds up around the outside of the turning circle. This in turn generates lift which exacerbates the turning moment into a logarithmic spiral. The result is almost impossible to correct with any kind of lateral counter force like a long sweep or paddle (a disastrous situation in the congested busy waterways of Venice!).

With an asymmetric hull the pressure differential is constant and therefore more predictable for the oarsman to counteract. Lastly I believe that the oarsman exerts a slight diagonal force in the thrust sweep of his oar which results in lift from the rounded side of the hull. This thrust/lift combination in turn reduces the amount of effort required to move the hull through the water, the same phenomenon that a fish utilises when swimming.

Re rudderless steering.

The Patin Catala of Spain is a great example which has evolved into a very successful sailing class. http://woodenboat.com/boat/?p=1358

Best

Harmen

2 answers to 2 good questions

2010-09-12T10:50:00.010+12:00

Dave ? contacted me with a question asking for me to elaborate on aspects of my sail construction spar materials and tack connection. He also wanted to learn more about the Kiribati Dimple and its effect.

My brown "Novathene" Polytarp sail is laid up with the warp and weft at 45 degrees to an imaginary straight line along the leach between the two spar tips. This orientation allows the fabric to distort freely in both directions, across the sail and down its length, opening up the leech and at the same time accommodating the variable luff curvature induced by the flex in the luff spar and boom without adversely affecting sail shape. The loose bias of this cloth shears and stretches to create a surprisingly fair curve with no induced shape sewn into the panels as we see in a modern sail.

The two spars are made from 4 scavenged windsurfer (sailboard) masts.
The luff spar is constructed with a sleeve joining the bases of two of the fibre glass masts resulting in the tapers running out to the tips top and bottom.
The boom is one mast sleeved into the other with the tapered end to the clew. The angle of intersection at the tack is 60 degrees making the sail roughly an equilateral triangle though to be traditional the Micronesians make their booms slightly longer that the main hull and the luff spar and mast slightly shorter and of roughly equal length.

You will notice that there no empirical rules in any of my commentary only a "rule of thumb" which irritates purists and control types terribly, this rule of thumb also applies to the hull shape.

I have made my connection between luff spar and boom at the tack connect by means of a very small jaw made of marine ply scarfed into the tube section of the boom which forms an open crutch against the luff spar. The jaw is held in place by the luff and foot tension exerted by the sail when it is bent on with all its supporting lashings to the boom.

I'll illustrate these details when I have more time.

I'm not to sure how I can expand any further on the Kiribati Dimple idea if it is not made clear from my chapter in my dissertation with comments contributed by some true experts in my later posts on the subject.

There is no science yet to support my hypothesis on the subject of hull asymmetry. I can only speak from experience the publication of which again has left my ideas open to derision and doubt from some surprisingly bright people.

"Hull asymmetry takes various forms throughout the Pacific. In Micronesia, where it was most highly developed, the backbone of the canoe is bent in two directions during construction. In other instances keels are straight but sides are built with parabolic cross sections, one side made rounder than the other and featuring a shallow concave indentation in the lee side of the hull below the waterline. Michael Toy designed the hulls Takapu and Toroa with this feature. He understood that asymmetric hull curvature works as a hydrofoil designed to counteract leeway. My personal experience is that, as the vessel gathers speed, it begins to make ground to windward to the extent that I always have to head below my objective so as not to over shoot the mark."

I drew this illustration showing the sections of the hull of Takapu.
The sections are derived from the plans as drawn in 1977 by Mike Toy. The keel is straight, the volume of the windward side is perhaps twice that of the leeward.

You will see that section 5, the mid bulkhead frame is narrower than the preceding section 4 (and following section six, remembering that the hull is a mirror of itself end to end)

I now also believe that the dimple reduces drag by mitigating the secondary, lee side shock wave and the feature also assists with maintaining directional stability in a following sea.

How much asymmetry? Not too much and not too little!

Takapu the model: fish eye view

Holling Clancy Holling and me

2010-08-22T10:24:00.004+12:00

This post seems a long way off topic, however because of the relevance of Holling C Holling to my early development as an artist and sailor I've also chosen to put this up on my art blog as well.

Holling Clancy Holling and me.

On my 7th Birthday my Grandfather, Henk Oostenrijk from the Netherlands, sent me a book voucher.

My Mother and Father took me to a bookstore in Auckland City where I chose “Seabird,” a beautiful, hard cover book for children written and illustrated by Holling Clancy Holling and published by Collins on the subject of Whaling. My Mother dedicated the book for me by writing my birth date and my Grandfather’s name on the flyleaf.

I no longer have that original copy. It was donated without my knowledge or approval to a local school, fundraising book auction when my children were still attending primary school.

It did solve my Father’s problem of what to give me for my 8th birthday. My obsession that year with “Seabird” gave him the cue. I received from him a copy of “Paddle to the Sea.”

The following year it was “Tree in the Trail”

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=fjLWevyUu0cC&printsec=frontcover&dq=seabird+Holling+Clancy+Holling&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Those three books changed my life forever. Long before I fully appreciated the literary contents of those books I was gazing in awe at Holling’s illustrations, many of which I copied. Not only that, I began to build my own canoes, models at first and then, on to the real thing.

Like Holling, I had a curiosity about many things and this lead to an interest in the canoes and the people of the Pacific Ocean.

I was compelled to make sailing models of outrigger canoes, whittled out of the dry, woody flowering stems of the flax plant that flourishes in the coastal areas of New Zealand. My friends and I would send them racing across the bay and watch them diminish, longingly, wondering where they might eventually end up, as they dwindled from sight; out to sea.

My first real canoe was designed by New Zealand designer, Frank Pelin and built to his plans by my father and me. That canoe was a 15 foot, plywood, hard chine adaptation of an American Indian birch bark canoe. I named that canoe “Seabird,” the canoe taught me about boat handling from a very young age. I used two types of paddle, the double Eskimo kayak style and the other, the traditional single paddle. My friends and I cruised the sheltered local waterways north of Auckland where we fished and camped all summer long.

Again much influenced by Holling’s realist style and parallel to his path, I chose a career as a commercial graphic artist and mural painter, which eventually lead to sculpture as well. These activities, though not my true passion, helped me to put food on the table for my family.

As I write this I am now in my 50’s and I still cherish and collect copies of Holling’s work. I haunt the children’s section of secondhand bookshops and charity shops always on the lookout for another, yet unseen Holling publication. In this way I have found a 1935 first edition of “The Book of Indians” a later Collins republication of the same title and a 1948 first edition Houghton Mifflin copy of “Seabird”.

My continuing curiosity about Holling lead me to Walt Giersbach’s blog which seeks to illuminate that which was previously unknown about the life and work of Holling C. Holling and his wife Lucille. Now, thanks to the efforts of people like Joan Hoffman of Michigan and others, details and artifacts from Holling’s life are being collected, displayed, recorded and published so that more may benefit from Holling’s rich legacy, the body of work that he left for our benefit and enjoyment.

Thanks Holling C Holling for daring to follow your dream and so influence the lives of people like me so far away here in New Zealand.

Joan Hoffman, Holling’s biographer wrote me recently:

August 2010

Harmen,

Glad you made contact with Walt.

You and Holling would have had much in common. He had an early interest in canoeing and became very skilled at it. In the Holling Collection is one of his early drawings of a horse drawn at age three.

Holling became a bit better off financially after he wrote and illustrated Paddle-to-the-Sea and the four Houghton Mifflin Co. books that followed (Tree in the Trail, Seabird, Minn of the Mississippi and Pagoo). Before that he did a great deal of advertising and commercial art to put food on the table. He even worked for Walt Disney at times for a pay check. The children's books he wrote before Paddle were done as a sideline. There are about 20+ books Holling either wrote and illustrated or others he illustrated for other authors.

Holling was a talented writer as well as an artist. He wrote some poetry. One of his great assets was a supportive wife. She helped in so many ways. And he had an outgoing personality and could talk with young and old in all walks of life. He had a curiosity about many things.

You won't see any of Holling's work after Pagoo (published in 1957), although he lived until 1973. Unfortunately he developed Parkinson's with dementia. He worked on several other ideas but never completed them.

Joan Hoffman

Winter at Waima

2010-06-07T17:04:00.002+12:00

Toroa has come out of the water and is now resting on his trailer at home.

Julie and have not yet resolved our house sale. This problem occupies much of our time and energy. There is also a 4 m3 pile of firewood to split, I've just now come inside from a session with my axe and after a hot bath it's time to relate a little of what's been happening.

Toroa sat at anchor in the tidal stream of the Waima River mouth near the tip of the Rawene peninsula for the better part of 4 months. Without anti fouling paint of any kind he needed regular bottom scrubs. As a result there are now several large oysters that have glued themselves very firmly to the bottom in the few places that missed the regular scrub. Before Toroa goes back in the water some kind of antifouling paint will need to be applied. My new summer mooring location will dry out for part of the tide cycle so a hard type antifouling paint suits that situation best. Then there are the graphics that I have designed which must also be applied before his next outing. The next time Toroa goes in the water it will be his official launch. There will be a proper Maori ceremony attended by a local Kaumatua.

Overall I'm pretty happy with Toroa. I only wish that I did not suffer such a physically disabling disease.
Rheumatoid arthritis is very debilitating when all the major joints swell up. This inflammation makes doing anything strenuous unbelievably painful. The problem is worst in my shoulders, hands, fingers and wrists.

The doctors and specialists are not very positive about my prognosis and are trying to convince me to take strong medication in the form of Predisone and Methotrexate. The contraindications for these drugs on the face of it look worse than my symptoms.

I need to do much more research before I make a choice to go down that path.

When I look inwardly I can't help but feel that the R.A. that I suffer from may be a disease that manifests itself in a mindset of resentment, there are thousands of theories around what causes the disease but no one knows for sure!

This is somewhat off topic I know but I want to share with you just what is going on.

I really appreciate the interest that you are showing in my Canoes of Oceania blog. I'm surprised by the number of people that are following my irregular postings.

It's interesting to read about your various blogs and activities, I want to encourage some of you to share more of yourselves in your profiles.

Just recently Julie and I attended a student showing of short films on the subject of Kaimanakitanga.
Roughly translated this means our treasures of knowledge.

Janine McVeigh a local writer and educator chose my work with Toroa as the subject for her 3 minute film. We felt honoured to be the subject of this kind of documentation and we enjoyed the showing of 9 very different short films at the local campus of Northtech, our Northland Polytechnic. These films covered diverse material such as genealogy, Water, conservation, Native forest, etc. The little film titled "Following my Heart"will be loaded on to Youtube and will be linked here on my blog as well.

Janine wants to dedicate more time to this project and plans to feature Toroa in a documentary in which we hope to include some video footage of Toroa sailing.

It's time to get some more real proa footage out there for more of you to view.

Whilst writing this I received a phone call from Gary Dierking who just got back from a month long canoe sailing trip in Fiji with his wife Rose. It's good to be in touch with you again Gary, we've missed you.

Well It's time for me to help get an evening meal together. The weather has closed in and the wind has turned to the south which means cold and wet for us.

Bye for now

Harmen

Toroa takes us on a real journey.

2010-03-12T23:01:00.006+13:00

Last Sunday the tide and wind were perfect for a trip up harbour to Kohukohu. We had intended on making the trip on Saturday however the wind and rain came in with too much force so we postponed.
I had wanted to attend the opening of the Ukulele Exhibition at the Village Arts Gallery.
The Exhibition was organised by the Kohukohu arts group who regularly put on art exhibitions of a particularly high standard. http://www.villagearts.co.nz/
The Ukulele Exhibition comprised of a collection of ukuleles which had been given a makeover by well known, established NZ artists. We were blown away ( by the exhibition).

We had a very calm start so we started the outboard and set off with the incoming tide from the Rawene township and were soon navigating the treacherous "Narrows." After 40 minutes at full throttle we made the Kohukohu Wharf where we tied up to the floating pontoon where four young Maori children were diving from the roof of the wharf shelter.

The village of Kohukohu is the second oldest in NZ and is particularly pretty when viewed from the Water. The majority of the houses date back to the 19th Century with most having been carefully restored. The trees, the bird life, the fish all make for a beautiful outing on the harbour on a sunny Autumn day.
We left Toroa tethered to the pontoon after which Julie and I went to the nearby Waterline Cafe and ordered coffee and a chocolate brownie.
After an enjoyable relax on the veranda we walked over to the Gallery where we met Kohukohu residents, John, Marg and Jim, colleague, curator/gallery owner, and boat enthusiast respectively.

After enjoying and discussing the brilliant show (Julie wanted to buy all the ukuleles on show) we made ready to leave. John, Marg and Jim came out to see us depart as they were particularly interested to see Toroa. With our friends in attendance on the wharf we cast off, raised our sail and set off on starboard tack across the harbour in 10-12 knots of breeze.

All went very smoothly and we sailed, on the wind, up to the Narrows where the decision was taken to drop sail and start the motor.

Under power we finished the trip to Rawene where we picked up our dinghy and paddled Toroa into the stream and anchored him ready for our next outing.

Toroa provided us with everything I have been wanting from him and I am very happy.

Sunday 28th Feb

2010-03-02T19:15:00.004+13:00

I decided to take Toroa out to test the newly repaired outboard motor.

After the Chilean Tsunami alert was downgraded to an advisory I thought it would be safe to enter the water to retrieve Toroa from anchor in the tidal stream at Rawene.
I had not counted on the king tide (the highest in 7 years) and the force of the outgoing tidal flow.

I was immediately impressed and mildly fearful that I had not judged my swim trajectory to Toroa across the current.

I just made it.

Once on board I lifted the anchor in a dying south easterly. The breeze was completely gone by the time I raised my mainsail.

Toroa would not respond to any force I could exert without a paddle or out board motor (still on shore) me in my speedos waiting for the wind and heading off toward Australia at a respectable 4-5 knots.

No paddle, no PFD, no clothes, no sun block, no water and no wind.

Poor Julie was dwindling into the distance, a lonely anxious figure on the wharf. Mercifully a light breeze came up and I was able to regain control.

One hour and several shunts later I was fitting the outboard motor at the beach, 20 meters from where I first set out.
Julie took the opportunity to berate me for leaving myself (and her) so vulnerable.

"Just honing my skills mate"was my glib (though somewhat sheepish reply).

The motor started first pull of the starter cord!
We climbed on board with all our gear and provisions and set off up the Waima River against the tide with the idea in mind that should the motor fail we would still have the current to bear us homeward.

Toroa runs better than expected under power. The Dierking foil works a treat and the new prop, 7 1/4"x 5" is just the right pitch for my set up. I estimate we made around 7 knots of boat speed with 2.5 Hp. with the mast stepped. That will do me.

I received an informal complaint later made by Mrs Fish from the Hokianga Takeaway shop (Mrs Fish and Mr Chip have a commanding view of the area where our little drama was playing itself out) that a man of my age in speedos was pushing the boundaries of respectability. I remarked later that had I been a buffed, bronzed athlete the speedos could not have been brief enough.

Harmen & Julie at Rawene

Photo by Rose Dierking

Toroa rides again, again

2010-02-21T18:13:00.000+13:00

Today Sunday was much like yesterday with light variable winds to begin with settling in to a sea breeze around 1.00. pm. Julie and I sailed out past the Rawene peninsula on port tack and headed for Motukaraka where there is a beautiful little Catholic Church on the hill. There we shunted through to starboard tack and sailed past Rawene across the mouth of the Omanaia river. With abuilding breeze of around 12-15 knots we shunted again with the intention of heading back home. Unfortunately I got the shunt sequence wrong by failing to release the mainsheat from the old starboard tack position and got everything caught up. We very nearly got put aback before I figured out what I'd done wrong. Luckily I was able to unclip the sheet and uncross the lines. Once that was done the proa came back under control and we were able to set off again.
Lesson: Despite vast past experience, one over site on my part and the whole system goes badly wrong.
I'll have to tattoo the instructions on to the inside of my eyelids. either that our set up a tape of subliminal shunting suggestions whilst I'm asleep!

I'll be working on Paul Bowker soon to convince him to come along with his little video camera and GPS for some vital statistics and footage.

Until then

Harmen

Toroa rides again

2010-02-20T19:54:00.003+13:00

Today Saturday dawned bright and clear. The cyclone blew itself out and has now become a high pressure cell.
The sea breeze set in at Rawene around 11.00 am. Julie and I loaded our gear in the car and set off to the beach.

We paddled out and returned Toroa to the shore and I set about making the last changes and adjustments to the rig that I planned last night.

Once set up we caught the high tide and we set off up the Waima River on starboard tack in 10 to 12 knots of breeze.

We put in a shunt which was trouble free and we set off up river. Toroa covers the ground very quickly now so it wasn't long before we were turning back.
Now I have enough confidence to have another go tomorrow.

I added a new endless shunting line which keeps the tack of the sail from moving about whilst I walk the rig from end to end.
I have managed to stay true to my goal of having no rotating parts all the control lines run through dead eyes and thimbles.

The mainsheet is based on the Kiribati style with a single and double purchase rigged to create a 1, 2, or 3 purchase sheet.
This system allows me to run only the one sheet for either tack, unlike Toroa's old twin sheet line set up. I have set up a clip to secure the main sheet dead eye block to either tack position on the lee gunwale with a light retrieving line tied to the centre cockpit scupper hole. That way I don't loose the end of the sheet through the shunt.

Toroa back in his element

2010-02-20T08:29:00.001+13:00

Julie and I relaunched Toroa last week.

The outboard motor however would not run. After several hours of mechanical work I was still unable to solve the problem so I finally relented and took Julies advice. We delivered it to the Sail outboard dealer in Kerikeri. Tony diagnosed a blown head gasket! He assures me it will be ready to collect mid next week. The machine came with a bag full of parts which contained all the gaskets needed for the job which was fortunate.

Toroa's re cut sail looks very good and sets well.
I spent some time yesterday sticking non skid strips on to the decks to give me more reliable footing. I've added a tacking line and I'm experimenting with the shunting set up. I'm concerned that my mast, although sturdy is too heavy which makes the shunt a more demanding process than it should be. I may yet have to replace it with something lighter.

In the mean time Toroa patiently sits at anchor in the harbour at Rawene awaiting a day when there is less wind. Friday I took some time off work. Ironically for me, after weeks of hot settled weather the late summer cyclones have started forming. One has been moving south east down the East Coast of the North Island and affecting the pattern over the north. Overnight on Thursday the wind came in from the south at around 25 gusting 35 knots. I'm hoping for better conditions tomorrow Saturday for a trial sail.

I'll post some photos later.

Harmen

Domestic sewing machine does the job!

2010-02-01T22:56:00.001+13:00

I got down on the floor today and set up our little "Brother" sewing machine. It handled the coated nylon sail thread and Novathene fabric quite well.
I had to set up the industrial sized spool of thread on a rod supported by two saw horses above the machine but that was the only problem I encountered other than setting up the thread tension correctly.
Once I'd done some practice runs on some scraps of cloth I sewed up the seams. I only broke 3 needles!
Lastly I sat down to hand sew the two joins in the bolt rope with waxed sail makers twine.

The sail now only needs bending back onto the spars and then I can set up for another dry run.
I'm learning patience which does not come naturally to me.
I do love the process of sewing by hand, there's something hypnotic about the activity. The result is so satisfying, so strong. I like to think of the power this inanimate sail is capable of producing, quite magical.

January 2010 progress on Toroa

2010-01-31T20:25:00.006+13:00

Work on Toroa's sail and motor has begun again.
Since November 09 I've been distracted by my physical condition which has affected my wrists and hands.
I've also been very busy at the Rawene Hospital solving problems.

My outboard motor now has the Dierking foil fitted and I've ordered a new 7.1/4'x 5'' prop which arrives next week. (It's a Yamaha prop)

A funny thing about the New Zealand importers of Sail Outboards. When I made an enquiry about a replacement prop they tell me the manufacturers never made a long shaft 2,5 Hp 4 stroke outboard!
The outboard motor catalogue published in a recent NZ Boating Magazine lists 2 prop sizes for a Sail brand 2.5 Hp, 7,1/4"x5" and 7,1/4"x8". They tell me they've never stocked a 5" pitch prop either.

I wonder how my long shaft came into existence? Perhaps it's a figment of my imagination. I've posted some pictures of it, can you see it? It measures 19" from the bracket hook to the bottom plate.
Even the Sail brochure/ hand book that it came with says "Long Shaft, Barge Model 4 stroke, 2,5 Hp."!
Has anyone else got one / seen one or am I alone in the world?
Please let me know.

The reason for the foil is to reduce drag and turbulence around the surface piercing shaft. When unchecked the turbulence allows air to make its way down the trailing edge of the leg causing the propeller to cavatate or loose laminar flow over the blade, thereby reducing thrust.
The foil mitigates this problem increasing motor efficiency by a large factor.
Outboard motors are designed to sit behind a transom so the manufacturers only create a foil for the immersed section of the stern leg. The proa presents the unique problem of a surface piercing outboard which this foil answers very well.

I measured, cut and folded a piece of aluminium panel and wrapped it around the stern leg of the motor.
I do not want this structure to be a permanent part of the motor because I need to gain access to the ports for leg lubrication and water pump. I riveted a v section tab down the trailing edge of the foil and screwed the other side with s/s p.k. screws so that I can unfasten it any time I need to.

I've laid out Toroa's sail on the workshop floor and I've started the modifications I've been planning.

I've removed the swallow tail tips from Toroa's old red sail (which is featured on youtube) and I've added them as an extension to Takapu's old sail. This procedure results in giving me more sail area down low allowing me to attach the boom much lower on the yard closer to the tack.

I grafted the fabric together using double sided tape which I will then sew with a zig-zag triple stitch. The stitch pattern is critical to the success of this modification as the sail cloth has been laid up diagonal to the angle of the bias to allow for stretch. If the fabric stretches without the equivalent stretch in the stitching the seam will fail or poor set will result. I'm going to try our domestic machine and if it doesn't cope I'll visit our nearest sail maker in Kerikeri next week and ask them to stitch it up for me.

To Clarify

2009-11-24T18:03:00.003+13:00

    Just recently Julie and I attended the New Zealand Proa Congress at Whangaparaoa a few miles north of Auckland city. Several people asked me about my motivation to build and develop proas and if I had plans that could be followed.

    My answer?
I've covered some of this already in my dissertation "Takapu the Proa"

    My motivation is to understand the people and the thinking behind this very unique sailing paradigm, so different from the one I grew up with.

    I believe that the only way gain insight and to understand is to do what others have done before me, not just read about it through the experience and observations of others or observe myself (although that too may be part of the process). Whilst engaged in the process of doing I find that I begin to have a conversation, both with myself and with something outside of myself. I rarely calculate or draw my solutions but rather I draw from materials and solutions around me with the idea in mind that the universe provides more solutions than the problems that we can create. Many solutions already exist or existed which we either have not yet seen, have forgotten, never knew about or will never know. Toroa has emerged from this process in his current form. There are still details that need addressing, the solutions, already known or awaiting discovery.

    I have not provided plans for Toroa as I'm unwilling to support any potential demand because of the amount of work involved in drawing and publishing them. I don't see this as part of my journey. Toroa is also something of a one man horse, emerging simultaneously with me. I have also developed sailing instincts and experiences that take years to acquire and hone. For me the process of building and sailing go together. I would encourage that others try a similar approach.

    Toroa resonates to the pattern set out by the ancient Micronesians however he is a product of my own vocabulary of skills. I am familiar with my chosen materials and processes, all of which are derived from my surroundings. In this way I am no different from any boat builder who has gone before.
Different from modern boat builders I am following a pattern in an improvisational sense rather than following a specific set of predetermined instructions, this in my opinion is the timeless way of building.

    The more I learn from my experience the more I value this intuitive approach which informs so much else of what I do.

Harmen

"If" By Rudyard Kipling

2009-11-08T07:50:00.005+13:00

My Father read aloud to us when we were young.
Our favourite stories were among the writings of Rudyard Kipling.
As long as I can remember, during the course of my father Roelof's working life, he had this poem framed and hanging on the wall beside his desk.
He knew it off by heart as we came to know it too.

Recently I was reminded of the sometimes bitter struggles that emerge from the quest for possession of the riches derived from the various things that we all strive to achieve, creativity in all the varying arenas of human activity from the arts, science, music, historical research, etc.

There are always those people who are envious of our achievements, bitter from a perceived lack of recognition who would seek to undermine the work and worth of others rather than take the risk to sample the opportunity of striving for themselves.

Kipling states it succinctly in this poem.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

Joni Mitchel recognised the power of these words and has put this poem to music.
It features on her latest album, "Shine"

Proa Toroa on Youtube

2009-11-07T17:46:00.003+13:00

Toroa as he was in 2000-2006 with steering foils demonstrating a shunt on Lake Pupuke, Auckland NZ.

Takapu's old sloop rig

2009-11-04T21:37:00.009+13:00

The sloop rig was adapted from an old
Olympic class Tornado Catamaran

Here is Takapu on his second fit out in 1980.
By this time I had set up the roller furling jibs and as you can see by the outrigger extensions to leeward I was trialling sheeting positions and ideal jib/mainsail slot relationships.

The roller furling jib system I developed did have exactly the characteristics
you describe Kevin re partial furling at mid roll.
However when at a mooring I needed to separate the furling line to allow a
complete furl at each end. for this I used stainless steel "sister clips" do you
know what they are over there? Perhaps you have a different name for them? Two
identical "C" shaped claws that are sahped so that when you hold one at right
angles to the other presenting the mouth of the "C" to each other you can hook
them together. The furling line is spliced or tied off on a hole at the base of
each "C". We used the for cliping spinnaker sheets to the sail in dinghy racing
in the 1960's & 70's.

This arrangement allowed me to separate and cleat each sheet independently when
needed.

Not too long after this image was taken Takapu was rolled over on his mooring at Whangaparaoa during a severe tropical storm. The mast was broken in two in the rough shallow bay so I had to splice it back together using a tubular sleeve and pop rivets.
It was then that I decided to replace the old windward strut with a longer, more rigid, tubular T6 aluminium tube and lengthen it to support the mast on an improved swivel joint at the fore and back stay hounds.

The mast attachment that I built was similar in most ways to a boom goose neck
fitting. I adapted the mast attachment plate from a cast aluminium goose neck
fitting rated for a 30 foot keel boat. The bracket had two beckets with
pre drilled holes for a pivot block. It also had a concave base in the vertical
axis so it fitted neatly to the leading edge of the mast at Jib hound level.

I made up 2 stainless straps to fit the inside of the 40mm (about 1 1/2 inch)
T6 aluminium tube that I chose for a compression strut/windward shroud. The
straps were 150mm long dinghy chainplates with predrilled hole (where shackle
pins were intended to be fastened) which I bought inexpensively at a local
marine hardware shop. The straps were riveted into the tube opposite each other
to protrude abot 50mm out of the upper end of the tube creating a gap of about
25-30mm. I then made up a block of Tuffnel (a high density resin fabric
composite that was commonly used in the electrical industry as a non conductive
distribution board panel)I'm sure that any tough composite or even ultra high
density plastic will do.

The block measured 25mm thick and 100 mm deep and 60mm wide shaped like a "D" I
drilled two holes in that block, 1 down the length of the back of the D and one
more through the side of the D in the middle of the curve. I then pinned a
stainless bolt through the chainplate strap holes in the end of the compression
tube and through the thickness of the block, (the one through the side of the D
in the middle of the curve).This attachment point also took connections for the
two forestays.

The second attachment was a stainless bolt passing vertically through the two
beckets of the gooseneck fitting on the mast and through the vertical hole
drilled down the back of the D. I made sure to not over tighten the nuts on
either bolt to allow freedom of movent. This created a kind of universal fitting
allowing mast rotation through every possible axis without the fouling problem
you describe.

With the forestays attached slightly to windward on the compression
strut/windward shroud, the mast was able to rotate freely to follow the sail
through 180 dgrees to either tack.
This gooseneck fitting never failed in the whole time it was in place.
If you build one ensure that the holes and pins are a snug fit with no slack.

The wishbone boom was built from an old extruded aluminium luff foil from a damaged racing keel boat rig which I scored from the scrap bin outside the rigging shop where I used to work in Auckland. The boom lasted for the 20 year life of that rig!

Takapu was launched as Seabird in the late 70's up until the time of the dismasting
after the rebuild he became Takapu.
In this image taken in 1979 "the second incarnation" The old shallow V stich and tape ama
still features. Note also the slender compression strut. Bloody useless!

My rudders were built to house in center board slots. These were designed to
act as both rudder and center board. The slots were built in to the hull at a
point where Mike and I felt they would balance the rig at a reasonable CLR and
would still be far aft enough to steer as well.
My rudders were ogive in cross section (flat on the lee side and a section of an
arc on the windward side) through the foil so they would work in either
direction when partially housed.

They were counterbalanced as well so that they had some almost neutral balance
when strong lateral loads came on. The stainless steel shaft was 5/8 inch round
bar on to which I had welded flat bar tangs which were bolted to the flat panel
on the lee rudder suface and imbedded during construction in the curved surface
of the blade 1/3 back from the leading edge.
The shaft was supported and pivoted in a wooden space frame which supported the
whole assembly in the center board slot through to the bolt on tiller and
extension.

They were vulnerable to being grounded when fully down though they were not very
deep (500 mmm), 2ft below the hull so I could sail close in to shore and use my
inertia to carry me in to wading depth with the rudders fully or partially
housed.

The shafts were badly bent and fatigued after a series of groundings and impacts with submerged objects by the time I retired them.

Mike and I discovered that the ogive section was so efficient as a lifting foil
that the pivoting action was not needed at all to steer the boat so we went to
fixed ogive section foils that were controlled by small tackle lines. Instead of
a tiller Toroa had a second sheet.
The control line allowed me to pull the foil down through the hull against the
tension of a bungy cord which always retrieved the board flush into the hull
when there was no tension on the control line. The method proved far superior
to the old one so I adapted the idea for the new proa Toroa as well. Now though,
since I have extended the length of that boat Toroa no longer needs rudders at
all. I'm on a perpetual quest to remove moving components and on
towards my goal of simplicity in all things.
It has been that initiative that persuaded me to abandon the sloop rig in favour
of the lateen on my proa which I now favour over all the other rigs I have
tried.

"Now the winter's done"

2009-09-26T10:14:00.000+12:00

Praise the stones below my feet
& the walls on the street
say good morning to everyone
recognising none

Was it June or July?
we couldn't think of anything
& though the path is always round
our feet were buried in the ground

I'm going to die & when I die I'm going to wake up
there's a flower in a field & a bee wants to climb in her ear
he'll only tell her things she cannot hear
now the winter's done

People come & people go
whatever stays I don't know
she took her clothes off in the bus
& the evening fell like dust

morning sun, blinking eyes
holograms, getting wise
now the weather's turning clear
dots like you just disappear

I'm going to die and when I die I'm going to wake up
a flower in a field & a bee wants to climb in her ear
he'll only tell her things she cannot hear
now the winter's done.

"Now the Winter's Done" a song written by my old friend and fellow musician Tim Heraud.

As I write the promising spring weather here in Northland has given way to a very wintery fit of driving rain and wind laced with orange dust from the desert of Australia.

My new job as Rawene Hospital facilities maintenance manager has been very demanding and rewarding but it has left me drained of energy for anything extra. Julie and I have decided to put our Waima Lodge house on the market and retire to the coast in the little harbour side town of Rawene in the Hokianga district, not far from where we currently live. We are motivated by a need to simplify our lives and reduce the amount of work we need to do on gardening and lawn mowing to free up some recreational time to go sailing.

Perhaps it is the shock of our impending change combined with the stress of marketing our property for sale, perhaps it's the effect of the relentless low pressure systems lashing the country over winter, whatever it is the Rheumatoid Arthritis that affected me so badly several years ago has returned with a vengeance and has left me badly disabled at times. I'm hopeful that, with our new choice of lifestyle, I may recover enough to complete the last remaining tasks on Toroa before summer and have the physicality to be able to sail the demanding proa.

Our new place in Rawene is a small modern cottage elevated on a North facing, 1/4 acre site with an unbroken view of the harbour. Toroa will sit on his summer mooring within sight of our lounge window 100 yards away from the cottage.

Takapu has been gifted to Paul Bowker and Will Ngakuru (both of the Hokianga district) on the understanding that they will pool their skills and resources to make him ready for sailing in order that together with Toroa we might create a small core of sailing waka ama from which we can impart some sailing and water skills to people willing to learn.

The so called "First NZ Proa Congress" on the 7th of November at Arkles Bay, Whangaparaoa, Auckland is looming as well, (by my reckoning it's actually the fourth) but hey, who's counting, its always a first for someone right? All things being equal we should be ready to attend. I'm looking forward to it.

Just as soon as I have more images to share I'll post them here.

That's all for now I'm off to listen and to play some music with our friends.

Harmen R Hielkema

Toroa gets the final treatment in preparation for next season

2009-06-28T15:12:00.000+12:00

Toroa is going back in the workshop for the finish coat of paint.
My wife Julie and I recently visited my brother Ron & his partner Annie in Te Anau in the Fiordland region of the South Island of NZ.
Ron runs a Kayak adventure company there called Fiordland Wilderness Experiences
http://www.fiordlandseakayak.co.nz/

I discovered a neat trick he uses on the keels and chines of his fleet of glass kayaks.
They obtain silica flour and carborundum which they mix with epoxy resin. The resulting impervious surface makes a tough rubbing strip.

I've been wondering what to do for a protective surface on the high chafe areas of Toroa's hull so here goes.

Before I apply the last coat of paint I will mask the keel line area after roughing up the surface and then apply a strip of the epoxy abrasion resistant compound. Once it's cured I'll mask that material and paint up to the keel strip with my marine enamel finish.

More work needs to be done on my beach trolley which requires more strengthening in the area of the axles now that Toroa has put on weight.

My original concept sketch of my beach trolley, 1998
For simplicity I eliminated the wheels under the lee side of the hull.

My new outboard motor shows promise but will need a finer pitch of propeller before it gets used again. After all that the hull graphics will go on and we will be ready for the proa gathering at Arkles Bay.

Outriggers 1969 A.Y.R.S. Publication # 68 by Chris Hughes

2009-06-28T14:40:00.000+12:00

I've been sitting on this article for many years. Mike Toy gave me a copy in 1976 when we were building Takapu.
As I follow the thread on the yahoo group proafile it occurs to me over and over that people continue to walk a treadmill with proa ideas, so much has been solved before but so few ever publish what they learn. So here's a story by Chris Hughes who provided a solution to the three part hull and the steering issue in one.

The proa Kia kia

Toroa rides again

2009-06-01T20:50:00.002+12:00

Todays sail was by way of a shake down to sort out those things that I added to make myself feel as though I know more than the old ones did.
Hah! every single extra control line tangled and fouled so I untied them and made a note to throw them out at the next opportunity.
The KISS principle prevails!

Paul Bowker was down at the Rawene ramp with a small but keen group of budding sailors in optimists and he was also on standby for the first trip out. Because Paul has gained so much experience on Te wheke his proa instincts make him my ideal choice of crew for a first time out. Our local librarian Mark was on the patrol boat, a reassuring presence on the water thanks Mark.

The weather was cold but with a favourable afternoon outlook, 10 - 15 knots of southeasterly breeze and cloudy.

Right off I got my shunting line crossed up so before we could shunt we had to re tie the line.
Toroa is much more docile than previously so the need for control lines seems unnecessary.
Toroa sits quietly with wind abeam waiting for me to sort myself out. It's been awhile OK?

From now on with this tacking mast I'm going to walk the tack of the sail from end to end myself and simply belay it at each end with a short line.

Toroa responds well and easily to butt steering.

Once I've de-cluttered I'll put my steering boards back in place.

All photos by Julie Holton.

Butt steering

& more butt steering

Butt and paddle steering

Looks to me like we can carry much more sail area.
Stand by for an order Gary

June progress on Toroa

2009-06-01T10:31:00.001+12:00

Thanks to Queen Elizabeth I now have a day where I can take Toroa down to the water with a rig that should work!
Here are some images of Toroa with rig standing, taken in our garden this morning.

That's all for now. I'm off to put Toroa back on the trailer and then off to Rawene to catch the afternoon tide.

We'll talk soon.

Harmen

Another outing on Toroa

2009-05-17T19:42:00.000+12:00

Rawene; Saturday 16th May.

On board is my second son Arien who came with his girlfriend Nicole from Auckland to visit the old man.

This is how I transport Toroa

Mast stepped for the first time Sunday
Toroa on our front lawn

Some thoughts

2009-05-10T11:25:00.000+12:00

The weather was awful with a squally, cold southwesterly wind gusting to gale force. The sunny intervals allowed for photography, thanks Julie!
Several brave souls turned out. Julie my long suffering and patient wife, my son Robert and his girlfriend Hannah, Paul and Liz Bowker, their daughter in law Ha ping and her two daughters Anna and Madelaine also in attendance was a colleague of mine from the Hospital, Louise and her son.

The launch went as planned but for unexpected problems with Toroa's old trolley.
Mike and I had built this trolley to roll Toroa on and off the road trailer (road trailers and salt water do not mix well).
The day before the launch I inflated the tires on the little trolley to a pressure I judged suitable.
We rolled Toroa off the trailer at the Rawene boat ramp but as soon as we began maneuvering there was an enormous bang as one of the wheels exploded. The rims are of a red plastic material quite faded after 10 years in the sun. The faded outer rim decided to give up the fight for gestalt and defaulted to its equilibrium (in this case several jagged pieces).
We continued the launch and successfully motored around the boat ramp staying well inside the sheltered area. On retrieval the second wheel joined its partner in a terrifying under water explosion that covered Robert in water. Getting Toroa back on the trailer was achieved thanks to the support of the onlookers.
I discovered later that the motor was limited to half throttle which I adjusted at home.
Even at half throttle Toroa easily motored at 6-7 knots with the 2.5 horse motor.
As expected a little slow to turn to starboard (against the ama) however maneuvering to Port away from the ama went well.
Some cavitation occurred whilst turning which was expected. I'll modify the shaft with a fairing at Gary Dierking's suggestion.
The next step is for me to set up on the lawn and re assemble the rig. I'll chose an auspicious day and re launch with some pomp and ceremony, perhaps even a Maori blessing if I can persuade one of our local elders to attend.
I'll keep you posted.

A few thoughts after the launch of Toroa

2009-05-10T10:52:00.001+12:00

Unofficial launch of Toroa

2009-05-10T10:17:00.000+12:00

The unofficial launch of Toroa at Rawene Boat ramp Hokianga, Northland, New Zealand.
All photos by Julie Holton

Robert (Harmen's oldest son) and Harmen

I'm adjusting the trim bracket.

Harmen & Paul Bowker

Harmen, Hannah & Robert

Paul Bowker and Toroa

Paul Bowker and Robert Hielkema with Toroa

Toroa painted and ready for assembly May 8th 2009

2009-05-07T21:08:00.000+12:00

Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post I appreciate all your contributions.

No Time for graphics before my trial launching on Saturday.
Julie, my son Robert and his girlfriend Hanna are coming to assist me with the launch. I can hardly wait!

I'll post pictures of the day on the water once I have them.

This image shows the slip on outboard bracket that I contrived.
It slides off and stows in the cockpit.

Hull asymmetry

2009-04-25T17:32:00.000+12:00

"I saw the new pics this morning. It must be exciting to see it that way at last. In one photo I can even see the "Kiribati dimple". Isn't it time for you to release this dirty little secret into the blogosphere?" Gary Dierking

O.K. Gary you asked for it!

I've been asked this question many times, over many years and after much practice, research and reading I think I'm ready to answer.

The so called Kiribati dimple is a feature of some of the variants of proa characteristics found around the Pacific past and present and is most pronounced in the proas of Kiribati.

In the late nineties I was fortunate enough to have been able to converse with several of the great aero-hydro dynamics experts of our time. In Auckland these were professor Peter Jackson and Tom Schnackenberg. These conversations lead to hours of reading in the engineering library at the University of Auckland. I was preparing research material for my thesis to contribute to an advanced degree in design.

Kuchemann was a German professor of aerodynamics invited to continue his research in the United States after the Second World War. During the 1950's he was experimenting with supersonic aircraft design for McConnell Douglas. One of his papers talked about delta wing flow dynamics. This was interesting enough to me however I then came across some experimental wind tunnel work on supersonic fuselage design. The "Coke bottle" profile of several jet fighter bombers solved the problem of shock wave development at the wing root where the wings joined the fuselage. This is an area of dramatic increase in fluid displacement. It was found that where this secondary drag inducing shock wave developed, the fuselage could be "waisted" or reduced in circumference to improve the overall aerodynamic efficiency of the airframe at sub and supersonic speed. It was explained to me that supersonic air has similar flow characteristics to water when compared to fluid flow over a hull.

I made the assumption that a hull with significant rocker and combined proximity to the widest section of the hull of an asymmetric proa (or any displacement sailboat hull for that matter) would benefit from a waist on the high pressure (or leeward) side in order to reduce drag.
I had already had my curiosity aroused on this subject by J.S. Taylor many years before when Mike and I were building Takapu. Taylor published a series of articles in the NZ Seaspray Magazine in which he wrote about his experiments on the hull of a proa with just such a dimple. I recall him relating his experiments which involved the filling and fairing of the dimple on his trial hull. The hull was slower and lifted less after the treatment than before!

Mike and I have since that time incorporated the dimple in our proa design work with good and satisfying results. Both Takapu and Toroa are faster than their predicted maximum hull speed, based on prismatic coefficient calculations, by a significant factor. Furthermore we have found that our hulls are not as susceptible to broaching when sailing down wind in a following sea.

Of course the artists right side of my brain also has a say. Intuitively I know that in nature pure symmetry is anathema in living organisms. Where symmetry appears to present itself there, on closer detailed inspection (on the other side of the coin), you will find variation.

Both the United States Navy and Jaques Cousteau carried out experiments on the form drag of fish and marine mammals. When towed (dead) at their known respective speeds, the from drag of their streamlined bodies was far greater than their musculature could possibly propel them.
I believe that we have been looking at the dynamics wrongly.
No fish dolphin, shark or seal is ever symmetrical when swimming at speed. They are always at any given moment either asymmetric one way, or the other. Whilst asymmetric at the extreme extent of flex the body is curved on one side and hollow on the other (in the case of a dolphin the same is true though of course the asymmetry is in the horizontal plane). Whilst in the fully curved stage of motion, at speed the lift generated is slightly forward of lateral in a similar way that a sail generates lift. The body is inclined to generate a zone of low pressure on each oscillation which reduces drag and effort.

I believe that the canoe builders of Oceania either observed this phenomenon or generations of builders stumbled on the benefits of asymmetry thousands of years ago. Either way the fact remains that it works and it works very well. I would not consider building a shunting proa without this feature when there is so much to gain and so little to loose.

Harmen R Hielkema.

Toroa paint project

2009-04-23T18:41:00.001+12:00

Remember to click on the images if you want a larger view.

This image clearly shows the beak head with the tack peg protruding from the lee side, there's one at each end to arrest the rig as it shunts from one bow to the other.

Ben coving internal corners (viewed from Toroa's leeward starboard hand end).

Sanded and ready for primer

Ben glassing the boom sprit end

Priming the kiato

Ama primed

Hull and decks primed

Here you really see for the first time the asymmetry of Toroa's centerboard dagger rudder slots & hull. Note the hollow in the lee (left hand) waterline.

April update

2009-04-12T16:42:00.000+12:00

image by Juha Merila

These images are of the Toroa, or Mollymawk, after which a headland in the area I grew up was named by the ancient Maori.
Regrettably these beautiful birds are no longer found on our mainland, they have dispersed themselves to remote offshore islands. I believe that there are less than 300 breeding pairs left.

Toroa is completely glassed over and after a heavy sanding is ready for a coat of primer.
Things are progressing more slowly presently as I have had to find full time employment.
I'm so drained after a days work I find it impossible to get out to the proa project at night. Ben Tombs (a local boat builder and musician friend, Ben plays wood wind instuments) has kindly been assisting me with the really toxic stuff and has got me over a major hurdle. I've decided to get him back to finish the paint aspect of the project. I'll post some images soon to illustrate the progress shortly.
Not too long now and we'll be ready to launch.
I've assembled the luff spars which are second hand carbon sailboard spars. The luff spar has been glued butt to butt with a sleeve, the boom has one spar telescoped inside the other.

The trailer has its new draw bar extension and is now waiting for me to take it to the local vehicle service center for a warrant of fitness.

Last thing on the list is the colour scheme which will mimic the colours of the mollymawk.

More later

Harmen

February progress on Toroa

2009-02-21T08:11:00.000+13:00

Ama connection as featured on Gary Dierking's blog

Cockpit details: note the lee deck and rib, mast base and rib at right of picture

Mast scarf details

Kiato connection: The protruding pegs are shaped to retain a lashing around the kiato.

Leeward self draining cockpit scuppers cut.

Now to finish coving.
I'm off to Whangarei to collect my first ever outboard motor, a 2.5 hp. long shaft 4 stroke. Once I have that I can build the motor bracket and the all the structure is complete. Not too long now and we'll be sailing (and motoring) again

Toroa Update.

2009-02-06T07:49:00.001+13:00

Now for the boring (& toxic) bit.

I've finished all the structural work & the mast base is fitted, the only thing now left to complete is the windward deck to provide access out to the ama which I want to construct out of lashed bamboo. The interior is glassed so it's fairing, glassing, filling sanding, painting of all the exterior surfaces. I'll post more pictures shortly when there is more to view.

Madagascar outrigger canoe

2009-02-01T09:28:00.001+13:00

And now a small break from the Toroa surgery

My brother found this in a Dutch "Zeilen" magazine, January 08 (photo by Edo & Joanne Ankum)
I always understood from my friend Steven (who's father was a military courier in Africa During the second World War) that outrigger canoes were common in Madagascar, he viewed them from the bubble observation window in the PBY Catalina in which he flew regularly
Here's a nice example of a tacker (not a shunting proa)
What's revealing for me is the way the lateen sail is set down wind.

Back to work, finishing the coving and glassing on the interior of Toroa's hull today.

More soon.

Work continues on Toroa

2009-01-29T08:24:00.000+13:00

I was finally able to fit the recycled 9 mm, 5 ply pine panels to Toroa's bridge deck.
The work remaining to be done includes coving all the interior joins with epoxy dough (mixed flour and epoxy), then sanding and glassing the new planking from the keelson up to the cockpit floor, after which I will glue the cockpit floor panels into place with their barrel top hatches already glued in place.

I'm laminating 2 layers of 9mm ply over the kiato splints to ensure adequate compression strength.

Next bore the holes in the ama stanchions to accommodate the pegs on the ends of the kiato.

The plywood covered the entire bridge deck area generously. I pinned it down temporarily and trimmed it to follow the profiles of the cockpit top, kiato splints & knees with my router ensuring a perfect match fit. Tomorrow I will glue and screw the decking in place, remove the screws when the glue has cured and plug the holes with doweling as before.

The large hatches are the tops of plastic olive barrels with the screw top lids. The topmost part of the barrel is cut off, glued and screwed to the cockpit floor with sealant. They are watertight, very strong, dark polyethelene plastic (UV resistant and cheap)!

Toroa and Sparky the talking chicken.

2009-01-20T15:13:00.001+13:00

Hmmm nice tidy workshop floor.

Kiato beam splint support & gunwale reinforcement detail

Open areas to be decked with 9mm 5 ply.

Framework prior to fitting of ply deck and covers.

Interior prior to glassing and cockpit floor placement.

Hmmm, not quite so tidy over there.

Is this where I perch?

Or here?

What a funny shaped egg box

Where's the bedding

What! no bedding? I'm outa here.

Toroa progress

2009-01-18T21:41:00.000+13:00

No Photos today though I had one of our chickens come in to the workshop today, she jumped up and investigated my handy work (which she seemed very impressed by) after which she jumped down again and went on her way in search of insects.

I have now finished gluing all the internal framework and kiato supports with all the associated fiddly bits of timber which are intended to reinforce the connections to the hull. My next step depends on a source of plywood which I am currently demolishing from an old hospital utility shed nearby.

All my timber is sourced from recycled native wood from my ever growing collection. I sometimes wish I was as good at collecting money as I am at collecting wood. Perhaps I will build my next proa out of money! On the subject of money this rebuild has just passed the $150.00 threshold and is rising slowly with every tube of glue I finish. I'm working myself up to the purchase of 20 meters of 8oz glass cloth which I'm dreading, (both the process and the spend).

I dry fit all the components including drilling all screw holes & pre-fit screws, after which I sand the mating surfaces and then apply the adhesive. I use square drive screws to hold the components and clamp where possible. Once the adhesive is cured I remove the screws and drill out the hole with a 6 - 8mm drill. I then cut a length of 6 or 8 mm doweling which I coat with glue and drive it in to the hole. This forms a tree nail which reinforces the joint with tremendous shear strength. I prefer this method to leaving screws in the wood. Metal and wood are never very comfortable together, they seem to irritate each other. The added bonus is that the screw hole is filled with wood and this sands and fairs perfectly with the rest of the wood work, no filler needed.

More soon.

Toroa rebuild

2009-01-15T20:50:00.000+13:00

Ribs installed at the intersection of the old and new sections, the kiato extensions (splints) are glued on and extend to windward as a permanent fixture of the main hull. The red kiato will be removable and will be lashed in place under the bamboo deck when on the water. I intend to continue transporting Toroa on his side with the kiato and ama removed.
I have yet to cap the extensions with timber after which they will be fiberglassed along with the deck and hull.

The blue painted void will be covered with plywood decking to form a small watertight compartment under the beam at either end. It seemed like good use of the redundant cockpit floor & will add considerable and desirable stiffness in just the right place.

Diagonal braces will be glued in from the foredeck to the end of the kiato extensions as part of the permanent deck structure, the resulting triangle will be filled in with bamboo decking.

Dry fit of all components to verify sizes and dimensions.
Note the final scarf jointed infill on the lee gunwale rail

Paint removed from hull on lee side

Mast planed and faired ready for glassing.

Ascertaining height for ama stanchion connection point.

New year progress on Toroa

2009-01-02T19:01:00.000+13:00

It's great to have a few days straight to dedicate to boat building. I now have Toroa turned over and I've dry fitted all the components in order to determine the nature of some of the connection details. The inversion gives me a totally fresh perspective and ideas are flowing fast and free.

Lee side, starboard tack end.

lee side, port tack end.

Windward side planked up to the gunwale.

I've finished shaping the ama and I've been able to put some time into lengthening the mast by 1200mm.

The masthead figure "God of wood shavings"
Those gray painted aluminium brackets are the old deck kiato sockets from Takapu which I have retired to the "good thought bad idea" bin. They seized with salt within the first 3 weeks of use back in 1996 and have stayed that way until I took the hacksaw to them to transport Takapu to our new home in Northland in 2005!

An old spruce mast base I've been carrying around "in case it came in handy!"

I spliced the base socket over the tapered foot of the existing mast by splitting the white painted section length ways down the center line, opening it up, scribing the taper on to the cut and gouging out a tapered trough. I used carbon paper to mark the mating surfaces to identify the high spots and adjusted the fit several times before gluing the two halves back together around the existing mast base.

The difference in diameter between the two sections is equalized using strips of ceder cut like long barrel staves and glued to the section, nailed with panel pins temporarily.

Once the mast flitches have been glued on I will plane the whole surface even to match the taper of the old section then I'll glue on some thin ceder strips to cover the butt joint followed by faring and sanding.

Toroa stretch job mid December

2008-12-15T13:50:00.000+13:00

unfinished interior shot showing plank overlap and keel graft.

Toroa: Lee side planked and faired to keel line, I'll be continuing from the waterline to the gunwale with slightly wider planks (50mm) as the curvature is less through that section on both sides. I will also be scarfing a panel in to the gunwale strake to continue the sheer line through which will complete the structural integrity of the hull graft.
The cockpit floor extension will be fitted later to add strength and stiffness after glassing inside the hull is completed.

Toroa's asymmetry becomes clear as I fair the new planks to the existing hull shape.

Planked ceder ama with Toroa in the background.

Ama after planking and planing. Stanchions are offset because I glued them to the side if the center stringer.

Stanchions are to be rounded off and peg hole drilled prior to glassing.

Toroa stretch surgery further pics

2008-11-24T13:41:00.000+13:00

Toroa is back in one piece. I'm slowly planking up to the keel line one strip at a time.
I'm using Holdfast Gorilla Grip which gives me the confidence for immersed surface laminating. Even though the hull will be fiberglassed Toroa will sit for extended periods on a mooring so I want to feel confident that the seems will hold even if they get damp from bilge water and capillary soaking through the inevitable scratches in the hull surface.

9 planks per side in place, working from the mid line up to the keel.

Ama stripped and ready for ceder strip planking from waterline up.
I've glued two stanchions in preparation for gluing into ama before planking starts.
I'm setting up the stanchions with the same spacing as on Toroa so that I can interchange amas
and connecting structures between both Takapu & Toroa hulls.

Windward side planking.

Lee side planking.

My old companion Takapu is resting against the opposite wall watching progress on Toroa.
Occasionally he whispers in my ear to tell me when I go off track, he's also a wonderful source of inspiration and memories to keep me moving towards my goal of finishing, ready to sail.

Toroa Gets a facelift

2008-11-03T17:39:00.000+13:00

The time has finally come when I can devote some time to Toroa again.
I am fortunate that my physical condition has improved and my circumstances are such that I now have the space and resources to start again.
Toroa has been in storage and has deteriorated from having been left partially in the weather.
I have decided to lengthen his hull to increase length to beam ratio from 12:1 to 15:1, to improve performance, increase load bearing and generally improve his overall proportions. Toroa was alway intended to be around 6.5 m in length, however space restrictions during his initial build plus the potential need to fit Toroa into a 20 foot container with other contents were our primary consideration so he ended up at 5.3 m overall.

My first thought was to focus my attention on Takapu my first canoe however on further consideration I decided that for the kind of sailing I want to do in the future more free board and a deeper V hull were desirable. Takapu at 7 m was designed with a U shaped hull section and straighter run through the keel line more suited for sailing in shallow sheltered waters and controlled by Jzero style rig and rudders. (Russ and Mike came to the same design solution at the same time though on different sides of the planet with no contact!)

I have since cut Toroa in half through the mid section and separated the two ends by 1200 mm, inverted and supported on a building jig through the center board slots.

The space is our workshop which is an old country store.
The ogive dagger boards which I use for steering and to aid windward lift are protruding through the inverted hull. These assist me with visual alignment of the two sections of the hull in the X Y & Z axes. The boards are graphite gray in colour because I added graphite to the epoxy when I was finishing them in order to reduce friction in the center board cases.
The partially completed hull in the foreground is Takapu's ama which I am also rebuilding concurrently. I am reducing the topsides by 300 mm and creating a strip planked, triangle section top with connective stanchions aligned in such a way as to allow for interchangeability of the two amas from Toroa to Takapu in the future.

I then decided on a suitable medium with which to plank the mid section.
Since moving to our premises in Northland I have accumulated a large quantity of demolition timber which we have been steadily using in the refurbishment of our historic home.
Now that that project is drawing to a close some of those materials are surplus to our needs.

The timber I have chosen is New Zealand Kauri which comes from a 100 + year old building which was demolished in the area several years ago.

I rendered some planks down to 30 x 16 mm x 1500 mm lengths. I then cut 150 mm steps in both extremities of the plank and offered them up to fit into the space against the molded ply skin at each end.

Strip planking will proceed up both sides simultaneously until I reach the keel which I have lengthened with a vertical plank of kauri 70 x 25 mm glued into a slot which I cut into the existing keel halves to a depth of 150 mm each. My planks are glued to each other edge to edge using bamboo skewer dowels at 50 mm intervals. Once the planking is completed I will fair the surface with a plane and a sanding board until the hull continuity is achieved after which I will fiberglass inside and out and paint finish.

The proa Toroa & hydrofoil steering

2008-10-14T18:29:00.006+13:00

"Ogive section" hydrofoil steering board.

I get many inquiries about my steering system.

I have highlighted in blue text my explanation of rudderless steering in a previous post;
"Takapu The Proa, a dissertation" under "Proa-dynamics, in the water"
The last paragraph in the chapter also highlighted in blue is headed "Dagger board steering"

Tim Anderson also explains Toroa's steering system very well in his "Home away from home page" site.
His explanation and photos can be found here:

http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Etim/pix/2004_nz/50_nz_4-15-04/_nz13.html

or alternatively click on the "Tim Anderson" link box at the top left of this page.

Best

Harmen

US Patent office link: 1938 kite rig by J.T. Rowland

2008-05-23T08:13:00.000+12:00

Patent link : 1938 kite rig by J.T. Rowland

1938 kite rig by J.T. Rowland

2008-05-21T05:08:00.000+12:00

1938 Yachting magazine article.
I include this article because of the obvious derivation of this experimental rig from the Polynesian oceanic lateen and to illustrate my point that there really is not much new under the sun.
Collection of Mike Toy

The following are J.T.Rowland's old US Patent applications for the Kite rig.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/regkey/kaAVeJNWuG0jo.html

I hope to finalize my references and post an account of Admiral Lord Cochrane who, in 1820, sailed a 36 gun Royal Navy frigate across the Atlantic. En route to Britain from the Caribbean he describes how he ordered the construction of a large kite made from a mizzen tops'l which was successfully flown ahead of the ship.
Cochrane was the man upon whom the C.S. Forester character Horatio Hornblower was based.

Takapu The Proa. A Dissertation

2008-04-13T19:49:00.008+12:00

"Takapu" Maori for Gannet
Illustration by Harmen Hielkema

INTRODUCTION

I have lived all my life with a deep longing for a place to call home..
This inquiry goes some way towards the understanding of where in this great ocean I belong. The product of a culture that has many differences from that of New Zealand, I was born the son of Dutch immigrants in Auckland on the twentieth of December 1957. My father immigrated to New Zealand from Holland in a great iron troop ship called The Sibayak in January 1953.

Sibajak in her heyday: Capetown 1930’s.
A WW2 troop ship which became an immigrant ship in the 1950's

My mother followed in September of the same year in the Waterman. There was something alien about our family that set us apart from our community. I have felt this difference profoundly throughout my life.

Waterman: Dutch immigrant ship, 1950's

My ancestors were part of a seafaring tradition not too dissimilar from that of the pacific people. The Dutch were among the first Europeans to venture into the Pacific.

What this image does not show is the attack by Scouten and his men on this waka which is under fire from a ships boat. This one got away but the early explorers were in the habit of acquiring artifacts for close study by force with no regard for the lives of the "natives."

Great sailors and ship builders, explorers and adventurers, in search of knowledge, fame, and wealth, they built a powerful colonial empire on what came to be known as the VOC the Dutch East India Company. The relationship of the Dutch with the sea was an area of great interest to my father, whose passion for sailing history and love of all sailing craft awoke a similar interest in me.

Flax wood model of proa: by the author.

As a boy I felt compelled to make sailing models of outrigger canoes, whittled out of the dry, woody flowering stems of the flax plant that flourishes in the coastal areas of New Zealand. My friends and I would send them racing across the bay and watch them longingly, wondering where they might eventually end up, as they dwindled from sight; out to sea.

Harmen with a flax model scratch built from found objects off the beach.
Photo by Sasha Stollman

My first experience with an outrigger canoe came when my parents took me to the Auckland Museum. In the Pacific Canoe Hall I saw my first Micronesian proa. I was captivated by the beauty of its design and was quick to see that the proa was different from western sail boats. For me the process of understanding these differences has become a link between my own experience and the cultural diversity around me, leading me to a new way of seeing the world and my place in it.

Pacific Canoe Hall: Auckland War Memorial Museum. 1962

Above & below, Louis Choris Sketch: Marshallese Walap, 1822.

The first drawing of a proa I ever saw from a book on Captain Cook that my Father gave me for my 10th birthday. I built a sailing model of this canoe out of a ceder weather board which sailed very well and got me hooked for life! See if you can spot the error he made in the plan and front elevations.

A mutual admiration of the proa was shared by at least two other people whose paths were to eventually cross with mine. In 1974, at seventeen years of age, I met Mike Toy. We were both accomplished yachtsmen, having experience in a variety of small racing and recreational sail boats. Our shared interest of high performance sailing came from an obsession with sailing literature and discussions with weekend race competitors. We all made observations based on the experience gained by building and testing models and full scale vessels. Mike is a talented designer with great practical experience who, along with my father, showed me much of what I know about boat construction. The other person is Jefferson Chapple who I met at the National Maritime Museum in 1993. Jefferson has contributed greatly to my world-view by sharing his philosophies and unique insights with me.

Mike's first drawing of Quiet Cook. 1976.

Takapu the proa is a design by Michael Toy, a design he originally called Quiet Cook. My father and Mike helped me to construct the hull of my new boat over a form built up of stringers on sections. We cold-molded in mahogany veneer with epoxy adhesive.

Takapu soon after launching 1978
Photo by Richard Van Alphen

Takapu, launched in 1978 at Waiake beach in Torbay, was crudely rigged with a Tornado catamaran sail and a disparate collection of gear, bought, bartered, begged & borrowed from my surroundings at the time. [In the true spirit of the pacific builders of such vessels.] I bought my experience dearly, as we all do. After about five years of persistent trial and error I had something that worked. Takapu's reincarnated and most successful form, utilising only the existing main hull, was launched in February 1995.

Takapu at the National Maritime Museum, "Waka Moana" Symposium 1996
Photos by Peter McCurdy.

(In common with many Pacific cultures is the naming of a vessel in the masculine gender, hence my reference to He when referring to any oceanic vessel)
The basis of this article is the result of experience combined with applied research into the subject of the sailing culture of the pacific region, an investigation into the many virtues of an ancient traditional water craft, and an exploration of its place in a contemporary setting. My task is to develop my skills in design and communication to bring my emerging understanding of people, cultures and artefacts in and around New Zealand to you. Join with me in the process of looking at the descriptions by some of the early observers and consider my analysis of their observations. Many of those who come from outside the pacific sailing paradigm find it difficult to accept some of the ideas associated with proas as a sail boat design. My findings concerning design details of the physical features of the proa and how they work should, to some extent, de-mystify the strangeness of the proa. By planting this small seed in fertile ground, let us see what kind of tree will grow.
I invite you to consider what I now understand about sailing outrigger canoes and sailing craft generally in the new light cast by my research. This may require that you step out of your present understanding into an alternative pathway: the Micronesian single outrigger sailing canoe, or proa.

Takapu with Harmen at Shoal Bay Auckland 2005.
Photo by Tim Anderson

WHAT IS A PACIFIC PROA?

My drawing of Takapu at his winter mooring Ngataringa Bay Auckland.

A proa is a double-ended sailing outrigger canoe unique to the western pacific especially Micronesia where it reached the pinnacle of its development prior to western incursion. A proa is a vessel whose ABA line of symmetry is at 90 degrees to its keel line. [in contrast to a western vessel who's ABA symmetry is in line with the keel]. In order to change direction, the proa is turned end for end, this enables the outrigger to always remain on the windward side on all points of sailing and on either tack. A proa is a mono hull with a buoyant counter-weight attached to a long horizontal keel. Many people see the proa as a multi-hull and categorize it with the catamaran and trimaran, however this is not accurate. The modern trimaran and the catamaran are best seen as hybrids derived from early observations of Pacific sailing craft. This has, at times, resulted in an uncomfortable marriage between contemporary technology and an ancient, highly evolved pattern.

The generic Pacific word for a canoe is waka; [It's outrigger an ama] Variations are waga, wa, va'a, vaka however the term proa [sometimes flying proa ] may be derived from a different origin.
Prau is a Malay word meaning small boat. An other commonly used name is prau, prahu, proe. The word pirogue, (Spanish derivative Peragua, periagua for small boat or log canoe, from the Caribbean), is used by the French, Spanish and Portuguese. Owing to early influence in Indonesia and Malaysia from these countries, I am tempted to speculate that the Malay word prau could have come from this source. The Portuguese sailors may have named the proa from the same word which in their tongue means simply, "bow". The proa has two bows so they may have named the vessel "proa" because of this unique feature. Another translation from Portuguese may be "proa voador" which means flying bow
As a shunting vessel the outrigger is carried on the windward side on both tacks. When early Portuguese first saw how these vessels manoeuvred they might have concluded that technically the ama or windward counterbalance was actually the bow. This definition would presuppose that the leading ends could be thought of as the port and starboard sides and the lee side of the canoe the transom!

Design Brief

“Create a vessel to carry people quickly and safely over water utilizing the energy of the wind with maximum efficiency and the minimum of materials.” This reads like a design brief whose criteria is very adequately answered in the form of the Micronesian proa. They are among the simplest and most refined of sail craft.

Walap of Rongelab, Marshall Islands. Photo: Courtesy American Museum of Natural History.

“The smaller sailing canoe, 20-30 feet as a rule, but sometimes larger, used for deep-sea fishing primarily, but also for short inter island voyaging, usually equipped with a balancing platform, the vaa ta'ie. Beautiful vessels these were, works of sea going art, for they were all utility, marvelously efficient with the minimum of material.
The larger sailing outrigger canoe, 30-50 feet, most of them Micronesian, useful for long-range, deep-sea sailing between island groups. And these as refined sailing machines were the best of all ... they were the most efficient sailing machines ever designed. It will not be long before we recognize that our Americas cup contenders are clumsy in comparison”. (Dodd E., Polynesian Seafaring, Dodd, Mead & Co, USA, 1972)

The proa is the design result of a very different worldview from that which I was nurtured with. The pacific sailing paradigm comes from a sense of being at one with the world and everything in it; land, wind, water, animals, plants, etc. The European comes from a belief that they are individual, isolated and separate from their environment from which, it seems ever greater efforts are being made.

THE PROA.: A New Zealand context.

Left: The Proa "Te Hau" by Jefferson Chapple.
Middle: Waalap "Waan Aelon Kein" Marshall Islands.
Right: Waka Tete "Hou" By Neill Beken. at "Waka Moana," Auckland. 1976.
Photo by Peter McCurdy.

The proa is not a stranger to New Zealand waters. According to Elsdon Best, relics of this type of vessel, which he calls wakatiatia, have come to light in this country suggesting early use of the proa with definite Micronesian origins.
(Best E. Polynesian voyagers, Dominion Museum monograph #5, second edition.1975)

Kiribati canoe model N.Z. National Maritime Museum.

At present there are a number of beautiful Waka ama held in museums throughout New Zealand representing nearly every Pacific sailing culture. The New Zealand National Maritime Museum has a four-meter and a twenty-five-meter Kiribati proa on display in its canoe hall. The Auckland Institute Museum has a five-meter Kiribati proa in storage along with a large collection of models. The Canterbury Museum has an eight meter Kiribati proa. All the proas I have mentioned are micronesian. However, apart from a handful of people, like myself, who own a proa, there is little contemporary use of this highly successful design in this or any other country.
The outrigger canoe association of New Zealand is currently following the world trend toward the sport of Hawaiian and Tahitian paddling waka ama racing. (Waka ama is the name given to the outrigger canoe by the Polynesian people waka = canoe, ama = outrigger)
The sport of wakatere (canoe racing) here in New Zealand is gathering momentum with enthusiastic support from people of all ethnic origins and gender. Dear to the hearts of these people is the desire to create an international Waka ama sailing program, a development project in which I am currently involved. Simply rigging a mast and sail to their existing paddling canoes is only a temporary solution to the design problem of a serious outrigger canoe sailing program.
When the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman encountered the Maori, he discovered a culture that had already established at least a thousand years of history in this country. Most of what is understood about the origins of the Maori is based on myth, legend from a strong verbal tradition, sketchy archaeological evidence and speculation. Maori artifacts vary in detail but their basic cosmology is universal down the length of New Zealand. Like all the pacific people they share an oral tradition of legends and histories. With a sophisticated sense of aesthetics expressed in carving, painting and weaving, they embody the spiritual in everything they make to the extent that they regard their creations as individuals who are named, respected and spoken to. The scale of their expression in terms of the sheer size of their artefacts as well as investment in terms of resources and manpower demonstrates the Maori's commitment to their cosmology. They worked with a highly advanced understanding of the characteristics of timber. Trees were utilized for the construction of buildings, canoes, weapons tools and ornaments.
The life force of the tree was deeply respected and blended with the spirits of their ancestors. Unfortunately much of what remains of this rich legacy is contained in museum collections; ancestors in jail. Expression of the unseen spiritual realm and the dependence on intuition to solve complex problems is where my interest lies. Elaborate carving of structural and decorative elements in their constructions is a feature of many Pacific cultures (making the supernatural world visible) and is also true of the Vikings of northern Europe (comparisons between these cultures have often been made in the past; Sir Peter Buck called his famous book on Polynesian culture Vikings of the Sunrise (Whitcombe and Tombs, New Zealand,1958) This ornamentation features swirling patterns resembling turbulence and vortices which demonstrates a sophisticated awareness of the powerful yet subtle energies at work in the world around them. There is a connection between these art forms and recent scientific photographs of turbulence in the study of fluid dynamics. This will form the basis for further discussion with regard to proa dynamics

THE PROA : a history.

The history of sail is an area of research where it is difficult to find a basis on which to model theories. The earliest graphic evidence being of Egyptian origin; five thousand-year old depictions of relatively sophisticated sailing vessels rendered on tablets excavated by archaeologists during the 19th and 20th centuries.
"Every culture with very few exceptions, somewhere in its past has some connection with the sea and a technology for moving or sailing on it. The sailboat was the first machine to give men freedom of motion without muscle power. Few of us any longer recognize that the sailboat was truly the first instrument which freed us from bondage to the land ... the first sailboat that could move up wind. This invention made the whole world accessible to man, ... Neither do we recall, unless our attention is drawn to it that the sailboat was the first machine to achieve powered motion without rotating parts." Smith B., The 40 Knot Sailboat, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1963.
The pioneering nature of the ancient people of the Pacific is made evident by the emerging understanding of their migratory paths across the island-studded Pacific. They had a highly successful, dynamic, neolithic technology. They ranged freely in canoes that were simple, safe, fast and seaworthy. Technology was, as always affected by the constraints of available materials. Concern about creating accurate reproductions of these ancient craft down to the original materials used in their construction may be a bit pedantic. When James Dina set out to build an American Indian birch bark canoe he worried about being unable to find one species of timber he knew had been used in a particular application in the canoe's construction:

"You don't have to worry about keeping it pure, the Indian was a true child of the forest, so he had many ways of doing things. If one material wasn't there he found another; Man is a survivor: he always did what made the most sense at the time."
[ Harold Tantaquidgeon, Mohegan Indian chief, from Voyage of the Ant, Dina. J, Stackpole, USA,1989 ].
Their vessels were designed for their needs out of the materials at their disposal. Trees, coconuts, driftwood. Tools were of shell, fire, and stone (where available). Evolution, ingenuity and ritual guided their hands as they created craft of elegant, functional simplicity. Lives were invested in these canoes, time and resources. A person's mana or status determined by the quality size and speed of the vessel. This assured their future in the equilibrium of their relationship with Tangaroa the sea god, the evolution of a flexible pattern. The quality of the canoe, all that protected its occupants from the awesome power of the ocean, was in many instances, sculpted from the trunks of living trees, pacified and sacrificed with deep respect for their life force.
"Conserving any resource, no matter how abundant." (Dina J. et al)
Small wonder that pacific canoes were (and still are) regarded as living beings in their own right, endowed with the status of an important community member. Canoes were consulted by their owner, communication taking place in meditation and ritual at a deeply personal level. Imagine, if you will, a view of the world in which matters of great significance are discussed with the spirit of a canoe!

The following quotation by respected European anthropologist, Malinowski, confirms my view.

Canoes setting out from Mailu, Papua New Guinea. Photo: Rev. W.J.V. Saville, London Missionary Society, 1827.

"A canoe is an item of material culture and as such it can be described, photographed and even bodily transported into a museum. But and this is a truth too often overlooked the ethnographic reality of a canoe would not be brought much nearer to a student at home, even by placing a perfect specimen right before him.

Lakatoi under sail, port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Photo: J.W. Lindt, 1885. La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

The canoe is made for a certain use and with a definite purpose: it is a means to an end and we, who study native life, must not reverse this relation and make a fetish of the object itself. In the study of the economic purposes for which a canoe is made, of the various uses to which it is submitted, we find the first approach to a deeper ethnographic treatment. Further sociological data, referring to its ownership, accounts of who sails in it, and how it is done: information regarding the ceremonies and customs of its construction, a sort of typical life history of a native craft all that brings us nearer still to the understanding of what his canoe truly means to the native. Even this however does not touch the most vital reality of a native canoe. For a craft, whether of bark or wood, iron or steel, lives in the life of its sailors, and it is more to a sailor than a mere bit of shaped matter. To the native, not less than to the white seaman, a craft is surrounded by an atmosphere of romance, built up of tradition and of personal experience. It is an object of cult and admiration, a living thing, possessing its own individuality.
We Europeans, (oops! apologies on behalf of Mr Malinowski for excluding people of other ethnic origins from reading his material.) whether we know native craft by experience or by descriptions, accustomed to our own extraordinarily developed means of water transport, are apt to look down on a native canoe and see it in a false perspective regarding it almost as a child's plaything, an abortive attempt to tackle the problem of sailing, which we ourselves have satisfactorily solved. But to the native his cumbersome, sprawling canoe is a marvelous almost miraculous achievement and a thing of beauty. He has spun a tradition around it and he adorns it with his best carvings, he colours and decorates it. It is to him a powerful contrivance for the mastery of nature, which allows him to cross perilous seas to distant places. It is associated with journeys by sail, full of threatening dangers, of living hopes and desires to which he gives expression in songs and story." ( Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, E.P. Dutton, USA, 1961 )

Trading canoe with traditional matting sails, Siassi Islands, Papua New Guinea.
Photo: Philip J. C. Dark.

In this millennium, and certainly from the late fifteenth century it was the Portuguese who, in their clumsy ships, made bold voyages of discovery contributing to the colonisation of the Pacific by Europeans.
In my view proas have been misrepresented because of their basic lack of understanding of the pacific sailing paradigm applied to proas by European observers. Over the centuries, since the first reports of these canoes to emerge from explorers such as Magellen, Drake, Tasman, Schouten, Dampier, Cook, and Anson to name but a few, an erroneous opinion has been formed by outsiders based on the observations of these great navigators.

Dampier describes, with great accuracy, the features of the outrigger canoe of the Mariana group of islands in Micronesia but fails to notice an error when he reported that the outrigger float was carried to leeward. William Dampier wrote in his journal, The New Voyage on May 21 1686:

"The natives are ingenious beyond any people, in making boats, or proes, as they are called in the East Indies, and therein they take great delight, these are but built sharp at both ends; the bottom is of one piece, made like the bottom of a little canoa, very neatly dug, and left of good substance. This bottom part is instead of a keel. It is about 26 or 28 foot long; the underpart of this keel is made round, but inclining to a wedge, and smooth; and the upper part is almost flat, having a gentle hollow and is a foot broad; from hence both sides of the boat are carried up to about 5 foot high with narrow plank, not above 4 or 5 inches broad, and each end of the boat turns up round very prettily. But what is very singular, one side of the boat is made perpendicular like a wall, while the other side is rounding, made as other vessels are with a pretty full belly. Along the belly side of the boat, parallel with it, at about 6 or 7 foot distance, lies another small boat, or canoa, being a log of very light wood, almost as long as the great boat, but not so wide, being not above a foot and a half wide at the upper part, and very sharp like a wedge at each end. And there are two bamboos of about 8 or 10 foot long, and as big as oneÕs leg, placed over the great boat's side, one near each end of it, and reaching about 6 or 7 foot from the side of the boat: by the help of which, the little boat is made firm and contiguous to the other. These are generally called by the Dutch and by the English from them outlayers. Because the wind here being in a manner constantly east, (or if it were west it would be the same thing) and the range of these islands, where their business lies to and from, being mostly north and south, they turn the flat side of the boat against the wind, upon which they sail. And the belly side consequently with its little boat is on the lee; (this is one example of misrepresentation of the facts by this observer, in fact these boats have always sailed with the outrigger to windward) ... and the vessel having a head at each end, so as to sail with either end foremost, (indifferently) they need not tack, or go about, as all our vessels do, but each end of the boat serves either for head or stern as they please. When they ply to windward and are minded to go about, he that steers bears away a little from the wind by which means the stern comes to the wind which has now become the head, only by shifting the end of the yard. This boat is steered with a broad paddle instead of a rudder. I have been more particular in describing these boats because I do believe they sail the best of any boat in the world. I did hear for my own satisfaction the swiftness of one of them; sailing by our log we had twelve knots on our reel, and she run it out before the half minute glass was half out which if it had been no more, is after the rate of 12 miles an hour: but I do believe she would have run 24 mile in an hour. It was very pleasant to see the little boat running along so swift by the others side."

Kiribati Proa: Photo by Peter Carmichael.

Anson assumed that the outstanding windward performance of these vessels was a result of their extreme fineness and flat leeward side, not far off the mark but not the whole story.
Quote from Anson's Voyage Around the World, J.M. Dent, London, 1911.
October 1742 ... These Indians are no ways defective in understanding, for their flying proas in particular, which during ages past have been the only vessels employed by them, are so singular and extraordinary an invention that it would do honour to any nation, however dextrous and acute. since, if we consider the aptitude of this proa to the navigation of these islands, which lying all of them nearly under the same meridian, and with the limits of the trade wind, require the vessels made use of in passing from one to the other to be particularly fitted for sailing with the wind upon the beam; or if we examine the uncommon simplicity and ingenuity of its fabric and contrivance, or the extraordinary velocity with which it moves, we shall in each of these articles, find it worthy of our admiration, and deserving a place amongst the mechanical productions of the most civilised nations where arts and sciences have most eminently flourished. As former navigators, though they have mentioned these vessels, have yet treated them imperfectly, and, as I conceive that besides their curiosity they may furnish both the shipwright and the seaman with no contemptible observations, I shall here insert a very exact description of the build, rigging, and working of these vessels, which I am the better enabled to perform, as one of them fell into our hands on our first arrival at Tinian, and Mr. Brett took it to pieces that he might delineate its fabric and dimensions with greater accuracy; so that the following account may be relied on. The name of flying proa, appropriated to these vessels,. is owing to the swiftness with which they sail ... I cannot help believing that with a brisk trade wind they will run near twenty miles an hour ... a prodigious degree of swiftness. But let us give a distinct idea of its figure. The construction of this proa is a direct contradiction the practice of all the rest of mankind; for as is customary to make the head of the vessel different from the stern, but the two sides alike, the proa, on the contrary, has her head and stern exactly alike, but her two sides very different; the side intended to be always the lee side being flat, whilst the windward side is built rounding, in the manner of other vessels: and to prevent her from oversetting, which from her small breadth and the straight run of her leeward side, would, without this precaution, infallibly happen, there is a frame laid out from her to windward, the end of which is fastened to a log fashioned into the shape of a small boat, and made hollow. The weight of the frame is intended to balance the proa, and the small boat is by its buoyancy to prevent her oversetting to windward; and this frame is usually called an outrigger ... the proa, by sailing most excellently on a wind, and with either end foremost, can run from one of these islands to the other and back again only by shifting the sail, without ever putting about; and by the flatness of her lee side and small breadth, they are capable of lying much closer to the wind than any other vessel hitherto known, and thereby have an advantage which no vessels that go large can ever pretend to. The advantage that I mean is that of running with a velocity nearly as great, and perhaps sometimes greater than what the wind blows with..."

Anson's drawing credited to his ship's carpenter. If you followed this drawing, as so many museum curators do, it would never sail.
Not until late last century did we begin to understand what we were looking at!

Both witnesses reported very high speeds, higher in many cases than the recordings of proa performance characteristics today, in the range of twenty nautical miles per hour.
What Anson couldn't see, was that the close winded performance of the proa was partly the result of invisible aero-hydrodynamic forces.

PROA-DYNAMICS: In the wind

The Oceanic lateen, sometimes referred to as the crab claw sail, (because of the obvious similarities some variations of this sail type bear to a crabs claw) may be derived from the square sail. Perhaps ultimately this sail-form could have Phoenician and even Egyptian origins since it is known that these civilizations had ancient contact with the Chinese. The Chinese had contact with the Pacific down through the Indonesian archipelago since ancient times. (I have deliberately avoided providing references for these ideas as I have yet to see information that was verifiable and not just speculative.) Of course these sail forms could have evolved independently from each other.
The Oceanic lateen sail is triangular in profile. The angle at the tack where the two longest sides converge is always between fifty to sixty degrees. Jefferson Chapple, a proa specialist and owner from Auckland, has measured these convergent angles from evidence collected from models and photographs comparing them to modern delta wing jet aircraft and found that they correspond. Further reading of advanced aerodynamic principles has provided me with the understanding that the delta wing is a simple solution to the problem of providing stable powerful lift. According to Marchaj lift may be the result of two large lift-producing vortices on the sail's leeward surface. Practical experience has shown me that vortex lift may occur when the sail is over sheeted when reaching (this practice produces no discernible stall characteristics) and laminar flow lift occurs when hard on the wind.

A discussion about airflow over a sail must begin with a brief overview of aerodynamic theory and how airflow over a surface generates lift, in the case of a sail-boat, thrust (still referred to as lift) and drag. These are the primary forces that influence the shape of a sail.
"Nature's wings, designed to suit the needs of the individual bird, dictate the type of flying the bird may perform. ( Gyford Stever, Flight, Time-Life Books, The Netherlands, 1970. ) Long narrow wings for soaring; like those of the albatross, or short broad wings like those of the humming bird, for high energy bursts of speed and maneuverability."
The same is true for both sail and aircraft.
Lift is actually produced by the difference in air pressures above and below a surface. In 1738, Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli formulated the principle of pressure variation on a surface based on the velocity of the fluid (in this case air). In the case of a bird (or aircraft)'s wing its upper surface is convex. When presented with airflow across its surface from front to back, the surface splits the flow of air which then reconnects behind. During the transition, air over the upper curved surface must move faster to make that connection. This has the effect of reducing the ambient air pressure on the upper surface, the wing moves toward the resulting area of reduced pressure under the influence of relatively higher ambient pressure below.

Low pressure zone

Plan view of air flow over sail:
perpendicular lines indicating lift.

High pressure zone.

Modern yacht sails are engineered to maximize the potential energy of this phenomenon.
Operating on the same physical principle is lift created by vortex flow. (Kuchemann, D., The Aerodynamic Design of Aircraft, Pergamon, 1978) The awesome lifting power of this force in nature is demonstrated by the tornado, a meteorological phenomenon capable of lifting heavy objects off the ground. The vertical cone of this vortex is spinning at extremely high speed causing a reduction in air pressure creating lift. Any movable object whose surface area is affected by this force will defy gravity and rise if the upper surface pressure is reduced enough to neutralize the weight of the object.

My drawing of vortical turbulence over a triangular planform.

Vortical lift also exerts a lifting force when the vortex is parallel to a surface. Vortical lift is the phenomenon the Concorde relies on to fly at subsonic speed. In fact the paper dart and the classic diamond and delta kites all owe their flight capability to vortical lift.

End view of Concorde showing vortices.

Plan view of Concorde showing vortices.

The triangular, double-boom, lateen sail of Micronesia is another example of this vortex-producing sail shape.

My drawing of vortex development over an oceanic lateen sail.

My drawing: cross section of above illustration.

Recent wind tunnel tests conducted by C.A. Marchaj on a variety of contemporary sail shapes showed that under some conditions the oceanic lateen sail created, at its best, thirty percent more lift than the only other high performing sail in the experiment: the Marconi or Bermuda sloop sail. These performance data were recorded at a wind speed of twelve knots on model rigs at various angles to the wind. The oceanic lateen showed its superiority at between ninety and one hundred and fifty degrees off the true wind. ( Ref. Marchaj C.A. Aerodynamics of sails. Adlard Coles 1996 ).
I interviewed Tom Schnackenberg, Team New Zealand's aero-hydrodynamics specialist. He was involved in the development of the winning Black Magic boat design that won the America's Cup. on the subject of aero-hydrodynamics, questioning him on the issue of vortex lift as it related to oceanic lateen sails. He tended to be dismissive of this theory and was not impressed with Marchaj's tests and conclusions, saying that turbulence and vortices were, in his experience, drag forces only.

My drawing of undesirable tip vortices.

These same undesirable forces are none the less described as forces and as such represent a potential energy source. It is my belief that, based on further reading and recent experiential research on the subject, the native people of the Pacific managed to develop a sail and rig combination successfully harnessing these phenomena. Tom Schnackenberg agreed that the oceanic lateen provided a very satisfactory solution to the problem of a simple aero-foil design that would supply lift with the minimum of sail trim fittings with good performance characteristics at all angles to the wind.
The work of Dr David Lewis is of great international significance. He dedicated his life to investigating the ancient seafaring traditions of the pacific people. Lewis is the author of such books as "We, the Navigators", a definitive work on the non-instrument navigational techniques of the ancient Pacific seafarers; "The Voyaging Stars, secrets of the Pacific navigators"; and many other books and articles. David Lewis was near his home in Auckland working on a new vessel in which he intended to make a voyage to China.
He listened carefully to my explanation for my visit. I knew from reading his material that he had experienced first hand, several extensive voyages on a variety of Pacific island sailing craft.
I questioned David Lewis closely about several aspects of performance and features of Micronesian outrigger canoes. Dr Lewis told me the story of an inter island trip he took in a Kiribati proa, the crew of which were in a constant state of fear. He reported that the vessel continually rounded up into the wind and seemed to be in danger of being caught aback. (A bad situation in a proa because the rig has no support when filled with wind from the lee side of the sail. This can lead to capsize to windward or damage to vessel and occupants from falling spars.)
"The men on board sailed very conservatively and would haul hard in on the sheet to make her bear away." David's comment intrigued me and resulted in my investigating the reason why they would have this problem. It is my belief that if this vessel were set up correctly it would have behaved in a much more predictable manner. Most of the contemporary pacific lateens utilize cotton or synthetic sails. I believe that inappropriate use of cotton sails severely limits the performance potential of the lateen sails in use today. With the advent of introduced technology the characteristics of these highly refined sailing craft was compromised. With no technical basis on which to critically analyze the consequences, and with the influence of an incompatible western paradigm, today's Oceanic lateen sail is only a remnant (pardon the pun) of its former self.
On closer inspection of models and actual canoes I was able to determine that there is a fundamental difference between the characteristics of cotton and pandanus as a sail fabric. That difference is in how the cloth is manufactured and in its subsequent orientation in situ. In order to demonstrate this it is helpful to look at the manner in which a pandanus sail is made. The weavers prepare uniform widths of fibre and begin by diagonally plaiting one piece over the other at 90 degrees to each other creating as they do so a pattern of squares at forty five degrees to the straight side of the panel.

Warp, weft & shear diagram: from Jeremy Howard-Williams' "Sails"

In the case of cotton, the warp and weft (the names for the longitudinal and lateral threads), by virtue of the looms on which they are created, run parallel and at right angles to the straight edge of the panel. When bolts of cotton fabric are used as a substitute to hand woven pandanus the economical considerations call for the material to be sewn up parallel to the leech (trailing edge of the sail). Because of the longitudinal lines of thread the cloth remains taut at the leech of the sail where the fabric has been hemmed, this tripling of the material at this point renders this zone resistant to stretch. The leech, as the trailing edge, is the critical area of the sail where the most drag occurs. If this region is tight it will cause the airflow to deflect and create a stall condition which is detrimental to sail performance. A sideways force results in the vessel rounding up into the wind and coming to a stop. The body of the sail stretches and creates a belly with the force of the wind acting on it. At every join in the cloth these zones of tension prevail with alternate areas of fullness. This lumpy aerofoil is not conducive to supporting lift. This, in itself, is enough to throw out the subtle balance of forces that allow a sailboat to perform to its potential. Conversely, lift-inducing vortices form readily on the uniformly straight conical section inherent in the case of a hand-woven sail.
The diagonal weave of the pandanus sail allows for stretch to occur even at edges where the fabric is hemmed or joined. This stretch evens out the sail and its shape actually improves under tension. Unlike western sails, oceanic lateens are not cut with any shape (or draft). The optimum shape is like that of a slice cut off a cone from the apex to the base. Jefferson Chapple of Auckland, the designer and owner of Te Hau, a six-meter micronesian proa, has proven that, with draught sewn in to his lateen sail in the traditional European fashion, his proa proved; ..."completely unmanageable, I have subsequently recut the sail twice to further eliminate draft." He told me.

Example of a cotton sail with extreme leach "hook."
Photo: James Sears.

Tim Bartlett is a renowned, internationally successful, 12-foot skiff sailor. I asked his opinion on the matter of leech hook (the tendency for a sail to develop a tightly curved trailing edge detrimental to performance and control). His words were; "Sails are the engine of a yacht, too much leech hook is the best way I know to park a sailboat".
Further investigations on the question of vortical lift relating specifically to the Micronesian canoe have been conducted at the Auckland University in a wind tunnel at the School of Mechanical Engineering by I.E. Atimalala. and Keith Bailey. Their 1992 paper describes the performance predictions based on the model of a seven-meter mariana proa from western Micronesia. This document supports the claims made by Dampier and Anson that the speed potential of the proa was indeed at least as great as that of the wind.

With the benefit of hindsight (it has been 5 years since I first researched and wrote sections of this article) I can confirm from my own recently applied research on my new proa Toroa that this discussion has made several valid assumptions. That the crab-claw sail is powerful and effective as a plan-form there can no longer be any doubt. That the sail can be assembled without camber but for a small amount of luff curvature to accommodate spar bend, this has the resulting effect of contributing a certain amount of camber in the sail, which has been proven beneficial for close-hauled situations. When close-hauled the sail seems to operate under laminar flow ( Bernouli lift ) conditions. As the proa's head comes off the wind the sheeting angle remains relatively unchanged and yet does not stall as one might expect of a marconi mainsail. As the proa accelerates the apparent wind moves forward. It is at this time when I believe that the vortices form and contribute to the sudden change in performance and resulting increase in power and speed.

PROA_DYNAMICS: In the water.

Tara, a 1/5 scale model of Takapu showing hull asymmetry. (Fish eye view)

My Drawing of a vortex street in fluid.

Longitudinal hull asymmetry is a feature of the proas of the western pacific. Both Dampier and Anson accurately represent this characteristic. Sir Arthur Grimble was a missionary on the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now called Kiribati) in the 1920s. His journal writings compiled by his daughter Rosemary Grimble in her 1972 publication "Myths Migration and Magic from the Gilbert Islands", are regarded by scholars as a definitive text on the features and performance of proas from that region. I have a problem however with his assumption that longitudinal hull asymmetry (the characteristic lop-sidedness of the micronesian proa) was intended to counteract the drag induced by the outrigger float.
(If this were true then they would surely have built hull asymmetry into their paddling canoes, which would have been as problematic to control as a sailing canoe, following this assumption). Another consideration is that the outrigger float was designed to fly above the surface much of the time. My experience with both Takapu and Toroa bear this out.

My drawing of Hull asymmetry. The example is of Takapu.

Hull asymmetry takes various forms throughout the Pacific. In Micronesia, where it was most highly developed, the backbone of the canoe is bent in two directions during construction. In other instances keels are straight but sides are built with parabolic cross sections, one side made rounder than the other and featuring a shallow concave indentation in the lee side of the hull below the waterline. Michael Toy designed the hulls Takapu and Toroa with this feature. He understood that asymmetric hull curvature works as a hydrofoil designed to counteract leeway. My personal experience is that, as the vessel gathers speed, it begins to make ground to windward to the extent that I always have to head below my objective so as not to over shoot the mark.
I described my observations to Tom Schnackenberg, Tom agreed that because of pressure reduction over a curved surface (Bernoulli's principle) the hull shape would definitely have a tendency to lift to windward. In regard of this matter many authorities still hold to Grimble's original interpretation. Tom Schnackenberg's conclusion was that the proa was a simple yet sophisticated design, making the most efficient use of the energy and materials available to oceanic people. I am sure that the performance and design characteristics of the outrigger canoes of today suffer from the influence of an incompatible sailing paradigm.
This is the one beneficial aspect of hull design that often overlooked in the many the new proas that are being built and sailed in all parts of the world at this time.

The crab claw sail or oceanic lateen, as previously discussed, generating lift in two quite different ways is mounted on the lee hull. Its effort is distributed along a significant portion of the hull from the bow where the tack is fixed, to the boom end roughly corresponding in length to the hull. Combined with the long narrow hydrodynamic hull, which dynamically resists leeway with increasing efficiency as the wind increases. This is combination contributes to longitudinal stability, allowing the vessel to be steered without rudders, by crew weight and sail trim alone.
The problem of changing direction on a conventional sailboat is solved by means of a rudder. This dynamic hydrofoil is situated at the rear of the boat and is directly linked to a steering device such as a tiller (lever) or a wheel via a series of pulleys. These mechanisms are complex and vulnerable.

Rudderless Steering
To understand rudderless steering it may help to look more closely at the dynamics involved. The process is a very simple matter. Maneuvering a proa has its parallel in the modern sail board or wind surfer. On any sailing vessel, the area of aerodynamic lift occurs in an area of low pressure on the leeward side of the sail. This force is exerted sideways and slightly forward. The sideways force on the hull of a proa is resisted by virtue of its deep profile and asymmetric waterline shape. Because there is some forward component in the driving force of the sail the vessel tends to follow the path of least resistance and move forward. If the force exerted by the sail is balanced in the center of the area of lateral resistance of the hull the boat will sail straight (given steady wind and flat water).
The area of lateral resistance versus the area of effort (side force or lift) is part of the equation that determines the longitudinal balance of the boat. When this dynamic changes, e.g. with a shift in crew position a resulting change in waterline occurs the boat quickly changes direction. The proa with its narrow water line and fine ends is extremely sensitive to pitch; that is, rocking forward and back in a vertical plane. If the vessel is trimmed with crew weight forward the bow will depress deeper into the water, this will lift the stern into the air. Consequently the back of the vessel begins to get pushed sideways away from the wind and the bow tends to move closer to the wind direction. Because the underwater hull profile is elliptical (keel rocker) the wetted area changes dramatically in relation to the sail. The area of lateral resistance moves forward relative to the area of lift. Because the area of lift is now effectively behind the under water balance area, the boat begins to deviate. The reverse of this with crew weight moving aft has the opposite effect. The back of the vessel is depressed into the water and the centre of lateral resistance of the hull moves back in relation to the area of force exerted by the sail. This causes the boat to deviate away from the wind. The degree and speed of course change is governed by the weight distribution along the length of the hull. The faster and further the weight is moved the quicker and more extreme the change in direction.
The advantage of this system is the reduction of mechanical parts and the associated complexities and potential for failure. (Of course a paddle is always carried to facilitate immediate course changes and as an auxiliary power source.)

The proa has its keel and ballast above the waterline reducing drag, its counterweight exerting maximum righting moment even at rest. This makes for a very stable vessel. As the wind increases the crew move out on to the outrigger platform which effectively increases the leverage against the increased heeling moment of the sail. The mass of the outrigger is a minute fraction of that of a ballast keel, therefore requiring less energy to move. The result is that the proa is capable of both rapid acceleration and high top speed. The buoyant prancing motion of the proa through the water is a familiar characteristic. The resulting ride is comfortable and exhilarating; if a little wet.
Relatively small forces on the rig allow for less rigid, more flexible and subsequently low cost and simple construction. When sailing and shunting the rig stays to leeward leaving a large deck area free to move around on.
Flexibility is another virtue of the proa pattern. Forces of torsion and shear occur as the hull and float encounter different wave patterns. These forces are absorbed by the spring-like qualities of flexible beams secured with lashings. This technology is accessible and easily maintained.

My drawing of vortex streets illustrating underwater wake turbulence behind a proa.

TOROA: Where to from here ?

Toroa: Lake Pupuke. Photo by Mike Toy.

Our latest project Toroa is built in cold molded meranti plywood. Toroa is made entirely of recycled demolition timber, abundant where we live. There are almost no metal fastenings, everything is glued or lashed. The running rigging consists of rope and deadeyes only, no rotating parts. The sail is Novathene , (P.E. or polytarp). Spars are of radiata pine.
Toroa is a seaworthy, efficient, sheltered water vessel. Its application is only limited to the skill level of the crew. Its appeal lies in its safety and ease of handling. Suitable as a recreational or racing sailboat, the proa can be scaled in size anywhere from 5 meters to 20 meters without compromising its basic qualities.

Steering dagger boards.

Toroa has been modified to carry two dagger boards fitted through centre cases near the ends of the hull. The dagger boards feature asymmetric cross sections (ogive section) with the rounded surface presented to windward.

Ogive section foil (section of a circle with flat lee side)

The boards are controlled vertically and independently to provide steerage. When a board emerges through the keel it has a profound effect on the direction of the boat. Three things happen, leeway force is counteracted, hydrodynamic lift from the board's asymmetry occurs and the centre of lateral resistance is moved aft. Variations in depression of leading and trailing boards combine to cause dynamic course alteration. This modification was made to allow me to sail Toroa single handed so that I can focus on the important task of keeping the boat upright, a job which would otherwise be performed by a crew.

THE TOROA EXPERIENCE

New Zealand: a sparkling Waitemata harbor day and a 15-knot offshore breeze. Sailing with the wind on the beam, (at ninety degrees to the keel-line) my proa Toroa tracks along with his bow slightly down, under the press of his crab claw sail. A rainbow shimmers in the fine misty spray sent up by the prow, cutting a neat swathe through the textured surface of the flat sea. The water parts and closes around his slender hull and passes with the slightest disturbance, leaving only bubbles trailing off to leeward, to mark his path. Toroa is travelling at wind speed. The outrigger float flies half a meter above the surface casting a darting reflection over the flashing facets of the water. Control at this speed is second nature for me now. The unity of sail, boat, and man, fused into one entity. In the context of this experience one cannot be without the other. The extended periods away from sailing Toroa are filled with sustaining memories of times like these, of thinking about the form, the simplicity of concept and design.

Toroa at speed: Lake Pupuke, Auckland, NZ.
Photo by Nigel Holton.

Toroa & Harmen, Waitemata Harbour: (Maori for Sparkling waters)
Photo by Russel Brown '03

To conclude the sailing waka ama or proa is a pattern much maligned and misunderstood. Further research and development I believe will result in new approaches to sailing and yacht design in this century as people turn to alternative paradigms.
Proa racing would be intriguing and exciting. Imagine a round robin series featuring 20 meter proas flying around a course with two markers set one up wind of the other where their strongest points of sail would be showcased. Tacking upwind and down wind. Running flat off is not practical (this being the case with most multi hulls) the fastest course down wind between two points is not always a straight line.

"The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust.

Takapu logo. Derived from plan view of Takapu's waterline intersected by the sail profile. Design by Harmen Hielkema, 1996.

Harmen Hielkema

....and more

2008-03-03T09:08:00.000+13:00

My drawing (from a badly damaged photo) of Takapu in 1979

Takapu as Seabird rebuild #2 1980
note furling jibs on fore and back stays.
This incarnation lasted for 10 years and thousands of miles.

Takapu in a thunderstorm 1978 (one of two surviving photos)
Auckland NZ. We capsized were rescued by a fisherman after 5 hrs in cold water!

Toroa on a North Island Road trip
2003। We did 1200 miles together teaching waka ama sailing to students around the North Island.

Takapu at Wakatere, Auckland 1995

More Pictures Takapu & Toroa

2008-03-02T19:18:00.000+13:00

Takapu 1978

Tara my model of Takapu at Waiheke Island, Auckland 2000 and below Takapu & Tara together New Years Eve 1999 before the "Day One Millenium Great Fleet" re-enactment.

2007-09-17T22:01:00.001+12:00

My name is Harmen Hielkema
My background is in music, sailing, art, design, and education. I am naturally inclined toward experiential practical research activities. I'm drawn to the problem of defining and teaching the mysterious inward process of intuitive design. My inclination is to search out the unique and unusual
I am also passionate about efficiency and sustain ability as philosophical positions from which to view problem solving in design, both in theory and in practice.
My extensive practical back ground has put me in touch with some of the great creative minds in New Zealand today. By observing and interacting with these people during the course of my career I have been fortunate enough to have shared with them a variety of philosophical ideas and approaches to problem solving.
This diversity has enabled me to experience first hand the connections and similarities in designing solutions and creating new and original outcomes.

So many of the worlds' classic designs are utterly simple. The knife, the wheel, the pen, the hammer, refined for the work they were designed to do, reduced to the bare minimum of parts, these designs endure because of their simplicity. (I mistrust the inherent vulnerability of complexity)

My philosophy of design simplicity is strongly influenced by my relationship with the waka ama Toroa

Toroa is the name of my canoe. Toroa is the Maori name for the wandering albatross.
A 5.6 metre sailing waka ama or outrigger sailing canoe, Toroa is of a type common to many of the cultures of Oceania. The result of the combined intuitive design approach of generations of equatorial Oceanic people they are unique to the Pacific region, isolated parts of the Indian Ocean and the Indonesian Archipelago. This particular variety of Waka ama is also known as Prahu, Proa, Vaka, Va-a, Wa, depending on language use and regional dialect, whether Micronesian, Melanesian or Polynesian. In New Zealand the name "waka ama" is most commonly used.

Every culture with very few exceptions, somewhere in its past has some connection with the sea and a technology for moving or sailing on it. The sailboat was the first machine to give men freedom of motion without harnessing muscle power. Few of us any longer recognize that the sailboat was truly the first instrument which freed us from bondage to the land ... the waka ama, the first sailboat that could move up wind. This invention made previously inaccessible areas of the world accessible to man, ... Neither do we recall, unless our attention is drawn to it that the sailboat was the first machine to achieve powered motion without rotating parts. Bernard Smith, The 40 Knot Sailboat, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1963.

Vessels were designed for peoples needs out of the materials at their disposal. Trees, coconuts, driftwood. Tools were of shell, fire, and stone (where available). Evolution, ingenuity and ritual guided their hands as they created craft of elegant, functional simplicity. Lives were invested in these canoes, time and resources. A person's mana or status was determined by the quality size and speed of the vessel. This assured their future in the equilibrium of their relationship with Tangaroa the sea god, the evolution of a flexible pattern. The quality of the canoe, all that protected its occupants from the awesome power of the ocean, was in many instances, sculpted from the trunks of living trees, pacified and sacrificed with deep respect for their life force. Small wonder that pacific canoes were (and still are) regarded as living beings in their own right, endowed with the status of an important community member. Canoes were consulted by their owner, communication taking place in meditation and ritual at a deeply personal level. Imagine, if you can, a view of the world in which matters of great significance are discussed with the spirit of a canoe!

There is much to know about the material sailing culture of the Pacific, most of which has been diluted or destroyed by Western influence, leaving a large void in the understandings of how such vessels were built and sailed. This is especially true in the more remote and isolated centres of Pacific culture such as those found in Auckland and Los Angeles. Of these very large populations few now retain or practice the ways of their ancestors.
The son of immigrants myself I have come to identify with some of these issues. My love of sailing and the secrets I have uncovered along the way, is in part a personal healing process.

. The closer I look at these extraordinary vessels and their intuitive designers the more humble I feel. It is far too easy to overlook the obvious when it comes to artifacts of a different culture, immersed as we are in a highly technological belief system. Arrogance and complacency can blind us to the benefits of new [and old] ideas and possibilities. Of course this is a universal problem and not confined just to the people of the Pacific.
There is no doubt that the invasive arrival of the European brought bewildering and devastating change to the culture of the Pacific people. The consequences of this clash of cultures is manifesting itself in issues such as land and resource ownership, intellectual property rights, pertaining to traditional art forms. History teaches us that this process is fraught with difficulty, causing division and misunderstanding, in some cases, violation of basic human rights, revolution and even genocide.
Contemporary generations representing these pacific cultures have in common an indomitable and aggressive spirit which has commanded national and international respect in their struggle to reassert themselves. A renewal of cultural awareness is encouraging individuals to recreate the artefacts of their ancestors in the hope of finding a renewed sense of connection to the pacific region.
"Doing what someone else has done before is the best way to start feeling like they did, and I want that feeling as much as I want a finished canoe" (Dina J., Voyage of the Ant, Stackpole, USA, 1989

We as individuals in a world of constant and bewildering change each from societies, derived from a multiplicity of cultures are seeking answers to some fundamental questions about what it is to be human; as if we are searching for some kind of connection between ourselves and the world, from which I believe many of us are experiencing an ever increasing sense of disconnection. Does this cause us to quest for knowledge of our history, to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, to create for ourselves the experiences of our ancestors through the re-creation of their artifacts; the only clues they left us?
"You don't have to worry about keeping it pure, the Indian was a true child of the forest, so he had many ways of doing things. If one material wasn't there he found another; Man is a survivor: he always did what made the most sense at the time". Harold Tantaquidgeon, Mohegan Indian chief, from Voyage of the Ant, Dina. J, Stackpole, USA,1989.
1989)
In my view the so-called primitive and civilized cultures both have qualities to offer in the process of maturation that improve the chances of our continued survival.
I am convinced that the European way of imposing powerful control systems over populations and the technological domination of nature are far from the optimum conditions under which we as individuals can thrive. Much is lost when a dominant culture imposes itself upon another and prevails.

Perhaps understanding the relationship between cultures is the next great challenge for humanity. This process begins with the individual and from there permeates out into the collective experience.
"So the future lies in opposites, or at least, in the different coming together. (Obiso C., First Light, Heinemann, Auckland, 1987)

It is my belief that the ability to intuit is inherent in us all. Exposing ourselves to the ways of our ancestors and the ancestral ways of other cultures broadens our vocabulary of ideas and material techniques.
In a contemporary pacific context the waka ama Toroa is a seaworthy, efficient, sheltered water vessel. Its application is only limited to the skill level of the crew. Its appeal lies in its safety and ease of handling. Suitable as a recreational or racing sailboat, the proa can be scaled in size anywhere from 5 meters to 20 meters without compromising its basic qualities.

Intuitive design is the aspect of design that requires a vocabulary of thoughts and ideas upon which one draws in the process of finding creative solutions to design problems. This is my special area of interest at this time.
Intuition is defined in the Collins English dictionary ..........

" intuition(,intju'ishen) n !. knowledge or belief obtained neither by reason or perception. 2. instinctive knowledge or belief. 3. a hunch or unjustified belief. [C15; from LL intuition a contemplation, from L intueri to gaze upon, from tueri to look at]"

The word suggested to me "the tutor within" yet, to my surprise, the literal translation is something quite unrelated associated with looking or gazing. Investigating the word "tutor" cleared this up; the root tueri can also be taken to mean to supervise or watch over.
If you were to visit me in my workshop when I'm problem solving you may find me staring, squinting or looking peripherally at the work in progress, sometimes for hours; peacefully, in a kind of mental neutral gear. At other times invoking and asking questions of an imagined spirit or ancestor.
Answers and solutions come at odd times Sometimes an answer will enter my mind there and then at others whilst I am engaged in another activity; a conversation, reading, sleeping; all of a sudden !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eureka heuriskein
"I've found it" or Greek for to find
This, in my experience, is one of the most exciting in the process of solving the problem from a designers point of view. Intuition is also the most difficult thing to quantify, define and teach yet, as an aspect of the creative process, it plays an essential part; in equal measure, alongside theory and research activity in the design arena.

I think of the ability to intuit as a natural part of my life. and work. Once developed and practiced intuition can be drawn upon in all aspects of life not just design.

There is value in conveying the idea that intuition can be awoken, practiced and developed in all people regardless of situation.
The way I see it this sense is a part of the human metabolism, part of the spectrum of energy that we conduct in our bodies at the same level as thought.
Thought is energy It consumes energy and transforms it to a higher frequency than that of light and consequently is able to be transmitted. uncontrolled by the minds of origin they radiate out into the conscious and subconscious to everyone around us. We have largely lost the ability to control this level of operation but I believe that one can learn to become receptive. thought energy has infinite speed and is instantaneous in the process of transmission and reception. So often I have experienced an incoming idea and not recognized or acted on it and then days or weeks later someone else has.

Toroa was designed and built by Michael Toy and Harmen Hielkema
Both designers from Auckland.

Canoes of Oceania

2007-09-17T21:34:00.000+12:00

Harmen & Toroa off Rangitoto by Tim Anderson

Toroa Lake Pupuke 2002

Old pics of Toroa
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Toroa @ Porirua by Ole Maiava '03

Toroa image by Russel Brown '03

Toroa image by Russel Brown

Toroa on port tack by Russel Brown

Toroa on display 2002

Toroa on display at Auckland University of Technology 2002

Toroa @ Coromandel photo Gary Dierking

Julie & Toroa Lake Pupuke, Auckland
(Proas are natural magnets to glamorous women)

Various scanned images Toroa

Harmen & Toroa Lake Pupuke, Auckland 2002 by Julie Holton

Toroa Harmen & Gary @ Coromandel. by Julie Holton

Gary Dierking & Te Wa Coromandel 2000 by Harmen Hielkema

Takapu Laid up and neglected during my illness. by Harmen Hielkema

Takapu Shoal Bay 1998 by Harmen Hielkema

Takapu 1998 @ Shoal Bay, Auckland by Harmen Hielkema

Takapu @ Tindals Bay Auckland 1982