 | This article has an unclear citation style .(January 2022) |
Canoe sailing refers to the practice of fitting an Austronesian outrigger or Western canoe with sails.
| This article has an unclear citation style .(January 2022) |
Canoe sailing refers to the practice of fitting an Austronesian outrigger or Western canoe with sails.
The outrigger canoe was one of the key technological innovations of the Austronesian peoples. Although there is little archeological evidence due to perishable building materials, comparative reconstructions indicate that Austronesians already had the distinctive outrigger and crab claw sail technology from at least 2000 BCE. These boats (as well as derivative technologies like the catamaran) enabled them to colonize the islands of Southeast Asia and then later on to Madagascar, the Pacific Islands, and New Zealand. [1]
Outrigger canoes like the va'a , paraw , jukung , vinta , and proa are still used today by traditional fishermen and traders in most of Southeast Asia and Madagascar, and in parts of Oceania. They are constructed from traditional materials, though most incorporate motor engines instead of a sail.
In other regions like Hawaii, Tahiti, and New Zealand, outrigger canoes are generally restricted to sport sailing and racing. Modern sailing outrigger canoes are usually made from glass-reinforced and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer, with sails made from Dacron and Kevlar.
Hōkūleʻa is a modern interpretation of a Polynesian voyaging canoe. It is made from modern materials such as fibreglass, plywood, resin glue, terylene sails and ropes with modern fittings and safety equipment. In contrast with smaller outrigger canoes meant to stay within sight of land, Hōkūleʻa and other double hulled canoes are large and capable seagoing vessels typically in excess of 40 feet in length. A wide array of these double hulled or voyaging canoe are documented in ethnohistoric sources which note a wide variety in size, hull shape, rigging style, and aesthetics. [2] These large voyaging canoes are the main mechanism by which the wider Pacific Ocean was first peopled and in their modern capacity often serve as educational tools both preserving and communicating ancient voyaging techniques. [3] While Hōkūleʻa is undoubtedly the most famous Austronesian sailing canoe, there are many other examples across the Pacific.
John MacGregor of Scotland is generally believed to have developed the first modern sailing canoes. During the 1860s, he had at least seven boats built that he called Rob Roys and sailed and paddled them in Europe, the Baltic and the Middle East. He also wrote a book which popularized the design and the concept: "in walking you are bounded by every sea and river, and in a common sailing-boat you are bounded by every shallow and shore; whereas, ...a canoe [can] be paddled or sailed, or hauled, or carried over land or water" (1000 Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe).
MacGregor founded the British Royal Canoe Club (RCC) in 1866.
The New York Canoe Club followed about six years later.
The American Canoe Association (ACA) was founded in 1880. In 1883, ACA Secretary Charles Neide and retired sea captain “Barnacle” Kendall paddled and sailed over three thousand miles from Lake George, New York to Pensacola, Florida.
In 1886 the ACA and the RCC held the first international canoe sailing regatta.
In 1991 American Howard Rice sailed and paddled a sailing canoe solo around Cape Horn, Chile considered historically to be the Mount Everest of sailing challenges. He was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Chilean Navy and inducted into the Cape Horners Society.
There are several racing classes of sailing canoes: Cruising Class or 4 Meter, C Class or 5 Meter, International Decked Sailing Canoe, and the American Canoe Association Class.
A kayak is a small, narrow human-powered watercraft typically propelled by means of a long, double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Greenlandic word qajaq.
A multihull is a boat or ship with more than one hull, whereas a vessel with a single hull is a monohull. The most common multihulls are catamarans, and trimarans. There are other types, with four or more hulls, but such examples are very rare and tend to be specialised for particular functions.
A catamaran is a watercraft with two parallel hulls of equal size. The distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts resistance to rolling and overturning. Catamarans typically have less hull volume, smaller displacement, and shallower draft (draught) than monohulls of comparable length. The two hulls combined also often have a smaller hydrodynamic resistance than comparable monohulls, requiring less propulsive power from either sails or motors. The catamaran's wider stance on the water can reduce both heeling and wave-induced motion, as compared with a monohull, and can give reduced wakes.
A trimaran is a multihull boat that comprises a main hull and two smaller outrigger hulls which are attached to the main hull with lateral beams. Most modern trimarans are sailing yachts designed for recreation or racing; others are ferries or warships. They originated from the traditional double-outrigger hulls of the Austronesian cultures of Maritime Southeast Asia; particularly in the Philippines and Eastern Indonesia, where it remains the dominant hull design of traditional fishing boats. Double-outriggers are derived from the older catamaran and single-outrigger boat designs.
An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts heavy loads.
Outrigger boats are various watercraft featuring one or more lateral support floats known as outriggers, which are fastened to one or both sides of the main hull. They can range from small dugout canoes to large plank-built vessels. Outrigger boats can also vary in their configuration, from the ancestral double-hull configuration (catamarans), to single-outrigger vessels prevalent in the Pacific Islands and Madagascar, to the double-outrigger vessels (trimarans) prevalent in Island Southeast Asia. They are traditionally fitted with Austronesian sails, like the crab claw sails and tanja sails, but in modern times are often fitted with petrol engines.
Proas are various types of multi-hull outrigger sailboats of the Austronesian peoples. The terms were used for native Austronesian ships in European records during the Colonial era indiscriminately, and thus can confusingly refer to the double-ended single-outrigger boats of Oceania, the double-outrigger boats of Island Southeast Asia, and sometimes ships with no outriggers or sails at all.
Waka are Māori watercraft, usually canoes ranging in size from small, unornamented canoes used for fishing and river travel to large, decorated war canoes up to 40 metres (130 ft) long.
A tepukei, tepuke or TePuke is a Polynesian boat type, characterized by its elaborate decking, its submerged hulls and symmetrical "crab claw" sail slender foil or radically extended tips claw sail. Tepukei boats are produced primarily by the Polynesian-speaking inhabitants of Taumako, and have been occasionally borrowed by other Polynesian and Melanesian societies.
The American Canoe Association (ACA) is the oldest and largest paddle sports organization in the United States, promoting canoeing, kayaking, and rafting. The ACA sponsors more than seven hundred events each year, along with safety education, instructor certification, waterway conservation and public information campaigns. There are more than four thousand ACA certified canoe and kayak instructors. More than two hundred local paddling clubs and fifty thousand individuals are members. The Association publishes the bi-monthly Paddler Magazine.
The term beachcat is an informal name for one of the most common types of small recreational sailboats, minimalist 14 to 20 foot catamarans, almost always with a cloth "trampoline" stretched between the two hulls, typically made of fiberglass or more recently rotomolded plastic. The name comes from the fact that they are designed to be sailed directly off a sand beach, unlike most other small boats which are launched from a ramp. The average 8 foot width of the beachcat means it can also sit upright on the sand and is quite stable in this position, unlike a monohull of the same size. The Hobie 14 and Hobie 16 are two of the earliest boats of this type that achieved widespread popularity, and popularized the term as well as created the template for this type of boat.
The crab claw sail is a fore-and-aft triangular sail with spars along upper and lower edges. The crab claw sail was first developed by the Austronesian peoples by at least 2000 BCE. It is used in many traditional Austronesian cultures in Island Southeast Asia, Micronesia, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. It is sometimes known as the Oceanic lateen or the Oceanic sprit, even though it is not restricted to Oceania, is neither a lateen sail nor a spritsail, and has an independent older origin.
The vinta is a traditional outrigger boat from the Philippine island of Mindanao. The boats are made by Sama-Bajau, Tausug and Yakan peoples living in the Sulu Archipelago, Zamboanga peninsula, and southern Mindanao. Vinta are characterized by their colorful rectangular lug sails (bukay) and bifurcated prows and sterns, which resemble the gaping mouth of a crocodile. Vinta are used as fishing vessels, cargo ships, and houseboats. Smaller undecorated versions of the vinta used for fishing are known as tondaan.
Paraw are various double outrigger sail boats in the Philippines. It is a general term and thus can refer to a range of ship types, from small fishing canoes to large merchant lashed-lug plank boats with two outriggers (katig) propelled by sails
Camakau are a traditional watercraft of Fiji. Part of the broader Austronesian tradition, they are similar to catamarans, outrigger canoes, or smaller versions of the drua, but are larger than a takia. These vessels were built primarily for the purposes of travelling between islands and for trade. These canoes are single hulled, with an outrigger and a cama, a float, with both ends of the hull being symmetrical. They were very large, capable of travelling open ocean, and have been recorded as being up to 70 ft in length.
Lakana, also known as la'kana or laka, are traditional outrigger canoes of the Malagasy people of Madagascar. It is a single-outrigger canoe with a dugout main hull.
Bangka are various native watercraft of the Philippines. It originally referred to small double-outrigger dugout canoes used in rivers and shallow coastal waters, but since the 18th century, it has expanded to include larger lashed-lug ships, with or without outriggers. Though the term used is the same throughout the Philippines, "bangka" can refer to a very diverse range of boats specific to different regions. Bangka was also spelled as banca, panca, or panga in Spanish. It is also known archaically as sakayan.
Polynesian multihull terminology, such as "ama", "aka" and "vaka" are multihull terms that have been widely adopted beyond the South Pacific where these terms originated. This Polynesian terminology is in common use in the Americas and the Pacific but is almost unknown in Europe, where the Anglo-Saxon terms "hull" and "outrigger" form normal parlance. Outriggers, catamarans, and outrigger boats are a common heritage of all Austronesian peoples and predate the Micronesian and Polynesian expansion into the Pacific. They are also the dominant forms of traditional ships in Island Southeast Asian and Malagasy Austronesian cultures, where local terms are used.
Micronesian navigation techniques are those navigation skills used for thousands of years by the navigators who voyaged between the thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean in the subregion of Oceania, that is commonly known as Micronesia. These voyagers used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. These navigation techniques continued to be held by Polynesian navigators and navigators from the Santa Cruz Islands. The re-creations of Polynesian voyaging in the late 20th century used traditional stellar navigational methods that had remained in everyday use in the Caroline Islands.
Austronesian vessels are the traditional seafaring vessels of the Austronesian peoples of Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Hainan, the Comoros, and the Torres Strait Islands.
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