By Nāʻālehu Anthony

Today was a very productive day. Uncle John is just about finished with the rough work on the steering sweep. Uncle Sam has finished the work on the kiʻi and they will be reinstalled on the canoe before splash in a couple of weeks. Moani, Uncle bill, and the volunteers are still working diligently on the sticks and sweeps.

The natural beauty in the wood is really starting to show as the coats of varnish are applied. Lashing starting today. Bruce and the boys lashed on the navigators’ seats and some other small parts so as to allow for some of the painting and electrical work to take place. I reinstalled the VNF radio under the navigation platform. The entire electrical system is finished being installed and the systems are being checked out tomorrow.

We said goodbye to Tom Cunningham and Dr. Ben Tamura today. Tom left today and Dr. Ben leaves first thing in the morning. Bruce and the crew want to mahalo the both of them for their hard work and commitment to making sure that the canoe is in the best shape she can be in before the homecoming. Uncle Sam and I leave Sunday morning early to start the long journey home. We also picked up Kaleo Wong as our latest addition to the crew. He will be helping bruce with the reloading and manifesting the canoe.

We had a couple of new volunteers make it over to the dry dock today. Wendy and her ʻohana came to visit today. They brought the crew Spam musibi! A welcomed snack from home. Art Harris is also back to help out in the process. He has spent months with us at sea on the east coast and came by to put in some more volunteer time over the weekend.

We are very thankful for all the help from our Hawaiʻi ʻohana here on the East Coast.

Hōkūleʻa’s Dry Dock Fundraiser

Every year since embarking on the Worldwide Voyage in 2014, Hōkūleʻa has taken several weeks of downtime annually to ensure she is safe, seaworthy and beautiful for the thousands of nautical miles that lay ahead.

Please help fund Hōkūleʻa’s 2016 dry dock efforts.

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