Today we have a guest blog from one of Gaiasdream’s friends, campaigner Simon Bradshaw.
Simon writes about the history of proas and why there’s life yet in this traditional and time-honoured design.
The first European explorers to reach the Pacific were astonished at the speed and agility of the native sailboats. Antonio Pigafetta, a crewman on Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition of 1519-1522, wrote how these peculiar craft would “change stern and bow at will …and resemble dolphins which leap in the water from wave to wave.” In 1686 William Dampier estimated that a proa’s speed sometimes exceeded 24mph. James Cook, who’s Endeavour, then the cream of European ships, was lucky to make 8 knots, was no less impressed.
Nonetheless, it took a further two centuries for Western academics to unravel the mystery of how the Pacific was first settled. Despite these early encounters, historians and anthropologists had vastly underestimated the sophistication of the islanders’ sailing technology, unaware among other things that these master navigators and boat builders had long ago cracked the problem of sailing into the wind.
Today proa refers to almost any boat with two unequal-length hulls. A proa does not tack but rather “shunts”, flipping its rig around to sail off in the other direction, always keeping the same hull to windward. While most associated with Micronesia, variations may be found as distant as Sri Lanka and Madagascar and from as far back as the first century CE. The Pacific alone is home to innumerable variations from tiny fishing canoes to giant voyaging craft built for inter-atoll travel. Some show extraordinarily advanced features, including asymmetric hull shapes designed to reduce leeway and create lift to windward.
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2 comments
james
July 1, 2012 at 9:23 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
nice work simon, great to see how project is coming along.
jc
Pete Nuttall
October 13, 2012 at 8:36 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Good to see your new site, good luck with the next adventure – fair winds.
Just some additional historical information. For a number of reasons the term proa has become associated with Micronesian vessels. There is direct connection between these vessels and the Fijian Drua and Camakau (also called Kalia in Tonga and `Alia in Samoa) of central Oceania. We’ve been working with Fiji Islands Voyaging Society (www.fijivoyaging.com) and the University of the South Pacific over the past 3 years researching the written and cultural records of drua. Additional information on this research can be sourced from http://www.sailingforsustianability.org. A report on our cultural history research in the Southern Lau will be posted shortly. USP is hosting a 3 day Talanoa on sustainable sea-transport looking at both heritage and future use of sail in the Pacific from 28-30 November 2012 in Suva. Contact sailingforsustianability for further details.