Pacific Colonisation and Canoe Performance: Experiments in the Science of Sailing

Authors

  • Geoffrey Irwin University of Auckland
  • Richard G.J. Flay Yacht Research Unit, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.124.4.419-443

Keywords:

Pacific voyaging, colonisation, canoe performance, naval architecture, wind tunnel

Abstract

We report on a collaboration between archaeology and the Yacht Research Unit at the University of Auckland to investigate the sailing characteristics of Pacific canoes, both ancient and modern. Archaeology provides a chronology for the colonisation of Pacific Islands, but one mystery that remains is how well the canoes could sail. We describe the first phase of testing reconstructed model hulls and sails. By combining aerodynamic and hydrodynamic information it was possible to compare the performance of three different kinds of canoe representing simple and more developed forms. We offer tentative suggestions about the sailing performance of canoes of the Lapita period and also conclude that canoes involved in the colonisation of East Polynesia were able to make return voyages between islands on passages that encountered adverse winds as well as fair ones.

Author Biographies

Geoffrey Irwin, University of Auckland

Geoffrey Irwin is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Auckland. He has carried out fieldwork in New Zealand, New Guinea, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and Fiji. He has long-standing interests in wetland archaeology, settlement pattern archaeology, and in the prehistory of Pacific colonisation and inter-island voyaging. He grew up on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour and has sailed ever since. In the 1970s and 1980s he was fortunate to sail on the double orou canoes of the Mailu on the south coast of Papua New Guinea and on outrigger canoes in the Massim. He later took his own 11-metre yacht Rhumbline across the western Pacific, along routes first taken by Lapita sailors. These experiences have influenced his views about voyaging in prehistory.

Richard G.J. Flay, Yacht Research Unit, Faculty of Engineering, University of Auckland

Richard Flay is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Yacht Research Unit at the University of Auckland with research interests in wind engineering and yacht aerodynamics. He has been responsible for many wind tunnel investigations of large buildings and high performance yachts and has been involved in several successful America’s Cup campaigns. He has helped organise five High Performance Yacht Design Conferences and designed a large Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel recently constructed at the University of Auckland. His interest in the performance of Polynesian sailing vessels, and its impact on the settlement of the Pacific, is a natural complement to his work on the innovative modern high performance vessels which have been the traditional focus of the Yacht Research Unit.

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Published

2016-01-29

Issue

Vol. 124 No. 4 (2015)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright © 2022 by the Polynesian Society (Inc.)

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

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The Polynesian Society
c/o School of Māori and Pacific Studies
The University of Auckland
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New Zealand

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