Hi Jim,
Thanks for posting that very informative write-up. They are amazing craft.
By the way, when is that variable twist/pitch/camber prop going to be available? I've been saving up :-)
Mark
Santa Cruz
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "jim_ranger_26" <jim_manley@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> Since I live about 10 minutes from Del Monte Beach, where the six Vaka Moana beached Friday night through Tuesday morning, next to the harbor in Monterey, I made a point of going there and was able to sail on "Hanui" with the crew for about an hour. It was a very worthwhile and informative experience, and if anyone will be in Malibu later this week, or San Diego next week through early January, there will be opportunities to see them there. The crews will be going back to the 15 island nations they come from for rest after about five months of open-ocean sailing from New Zealand (where they were built), the Solomons, Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and Hawaii (where the seventh remains for education and training for building and sailing more Vaka from there). They will be tended by a skeleton crew in San Diego from mid-September until early January, when they will return to their respective South Pacific homes for local education and training of young people in construction, sailing, and traditional inter-island celestial navigation of additional Vaka. The overall design is based on an ancient Marquesas Islands traditional ocean-sailing canoe-boat, which was the epitome of at least 8,000 years of evolutionary development of such craft, starting with the earliest Asian sailors populating the Pacific islands outward from modern-day China, most likely initially from Taiwan, based on current genetics, archaeological, and paleontological research.
>
> The two 10 KW motors and six-bladed, ~24-inch diameter, carbon-fiber props swing up and down via block-and-tackle accessed by through-deck doors, and are powered by a bank of ~2,000 amp-hour Li-ion batteries that are charged via eight ~2 x ~4 foot ~250 watt solar panels mounted flat across the stern between the two 72-foot long pontoons. They can run about four knots for an hour at full discharge rate to ~80%, or about four hours at almost two knots, and can recharge the batteries from 80% to 100% during a full day of average sunlight. They can also recharge via regen at about four knots, but, that takes days of sailing to get from 80% to 100%.
>
> The crew of 16 sleeps eight in each hull (without hot-bunking - as a former submariner, that's nice! :) in two-high bunks that are located four on each side of the inside of each hull. I'm 6' 3", and could walk the entire length of the berths with at least six inches of headroom, and each berth was about 6.5 x 2 feet, so, the hulls are about 5.5 x 7.5 feet W x H in the berthing areas, and narrow at the bows to about four feet high (with a a vertical knife-edge to slice through the waves). They only carry 10 gallons of fresh water, which is plenty for their intended typical 1 ~ 3 day inter-island trips, but, is obviously not enough for the three weeks from Hawaii to San Francisco they recently completed, but, they collected rainwater and filtered it and, if needed, seawater, through a reverse-osmosis purification system (all fresh water is kept in collapsible 2.5 gallon jugs to prevent single-point-of-failure contamination by seawater, biological matter, or other substances).
>
> The ~15 x ~8 x ~5 L x W x H foot semi-cylindrical deckhouse contains a small nav table, chart and other paper document storage, all of the electronics, and a couple of places to sit, as well as the propane stove and sink, accessed through an aft door and sliding top hatch (normally open to allow for standing, except during rough seas/weather), and the forward 1/4 of the deckhouse has a standard-size toilet in its own space, accessed via a forward door, that flushes via electrically or manually pumped saltwater to a holding tank, that is then pumped off to shore facilities (I suspect they flush it overboard, after chemical treatment, during the longest voyage legs).
>
> There are identical rectangular cross-section wooden main and mizzen masts, and two sets of wooden forked booms - a long set to accommodate the Pacific islands traditional proa-rig, V-shaped sails that are usable in up to 25-knot winds, and shorter forked booms that support Bahama-style triangular sails many of us know and love, that are used in higher winds, and that have three sets of reef points for heavier weather. They also often rig moderate-sized jibs, staysails, and after-sails from the extensive number of stays that support the masts - the proa-rig does an excellent job of catching undisturbed air aloft when running downwind wing-and-wing, making spinnakers unnecessary.
>
> Other than crew rest, the other reason for the hiatus from Sepember to January in San Diego is to wait for more favorable late Summer and Fall winds in the Southern hemisphere, since they will be heading South along the coasts of Central and South America, before heading West to the Galapagos Islands, and then proceeding beyond to their home islands, where they will separate among The Marquesas Islands, Fiji, Tahiti, Samoa, The Solomons Islands, and New Zealand. The construction of the boats (about $800,000 USD, each) and costs of the entire voyage have been paid for through the non-profit Okeanos Foundation, from its founder, German multi-millionaire Dieter Paulmann, and the goals of the voyage are primarily educational - to bring attention to the deterioration of the Pacific Ocean in terms of chemical and garbage pollution, rapid sea life population declines, effects of widespread seaborne acoustic noise, and the decimation of Pacific Islands populations' sustainable, traditional lifestyles. The initial seven boats are intended to be the launching point for the establishment of indigenous Vaka construction, maintenance, sailing, and traditional visual celestial navigation skills among all of the Pacific island nations, leading to a source of income via ecologically-sustainable tourism, transportation, construction, marine research, education, etc.
>
> Their successful crossing of the Pacific on such minimal craft without incident is a major accomplishment, and it's pretty obvious that they've become a source of pride and inspiration to not only their own people, but, the world at-large, especially where resources are very limited. Their intent is to continue exploring how traditional and modern methods can be combined to increase their economic self-sufficiency, and it should be noted that some of the captains are European-descendant, New Zealander Kiwis - the captain I sailed with on Hanui, Dunc(an) Morrison, was Engineer on the U.S. America's Cup challenger, "America" a few challenges ago. These people are going to be very much worth watching!
>
> All the Best,
> Jim
>
>
> --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "acsarfkram" <acsarfkram@> wrote:
> >
> > Has anyone been following the progress of the 7 Polynesian sailboats that have been sailing from New Zealand to San Diego? http://www.pacificvoyagers.org/ I sailed down to Monterey from Santa Cruz this weekend (3 hrs of motorsailing then 2 hrs of regenerating)and was treated to the sight of a Vaka sailing near the Monterey Harbor as we pulled in.
> >
> > I had a chance to talk to a few of the crew and to my surprise the auxiliary power (required for entry into USA ports according to one of the crew) are two retractable 10kw electric motors. They have a large solar display on each of the boats and can motor at 2.5 knots with solar alone. There are also batteries on-board that they can recharge when sailing 4+ knots.
> >
> > Sound familiar,
> >
> > I'll add a photo of one of the Vaka's beached
> >
> > Mark
> > Santa Cruz
>
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
[Electric Boats] Re: Vaka sailboats
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