Women Increasingly Take The Helm To Perpetuate Polynesian Voyaging Traditions 0 Meet the wahine leaders navigating thousands of miles on voyaging canoes, using the natural world as their guide.
“Wake up, there’s a tear in the sail,” are the words Vance Kaleohano Farrant woke up to early one morning, five days at sea and thousands of miles away from the nearest landmass.
Farrant and other crew members aboard Hokulea jolted out of their below-deck cots, donned headlamps, and rushed to lower the spar to change the sail before they drifted any nearer to incoming squalls.
Once the spar was lowered, Capt. Lehua Kamalu slashed the sail ties with her knife, rather than waste time untying each tangled knot.
