By Nāʻālehu Anthony

Despite the weather staying in the 50s today, the dry dock crew has accomplished much. Almost all of Hōkūleʻa has been sanded and is ready to prep to paint. Kekaulike came today with the painting supplies and started to paint some of the detail parts like the railings so that the lashing can begin.

Uncle Elvis Kealoha is in charge of prepping the new steering sweep to match the size and hopefully the weight of the last one. He is like an engineer using string, rulers and other guides to find the right line across the two sweeps.

Our work in the barn, at the Mariners’ Museum and Park, is like a streamlined factory. Big bill sands all day long – he has the job of refinishing all the sticks in the barn and the paddles. This is an incredible amount of surface area to cover and, luckily for us, Bill has the patience as well as the attention to detail to make everything look really, really good.

Irish Mike has an unending supply of cleats and donuts to sand. Just when he thinks all of the donuts are sanded, another pair will turn up. Same for the cleats. But Mike won’t give up, rather he has a servant’s heart – he is happy to be here and loves the work.

Moani is on her last set of hatch covers. She has applied epoxy and “pud” to all the covers where they are damaged by the cleats that hold them down. Moani, Bob or Nakua mixes epoxy for each job that needs it, and the rest of the team goes through the punch list each day as Captain Bruce assigns. We all chip in and consult in our areas of expertise and overall it has been a great system for working together.

I would like to point out that we have had a few amazing volunteers come out to help. Georgia and John are volunteers that have come out all day for multiple days now. They set up and sand all day long. Quiet and soft-spoken, they are great to have down at the canoe for help. Georgia has a copy of Sam Low’s book that she asked each of us to sign. They know the story of the canoe and are thrilled to be interacting with us at dry dock.

Also, we had our friend Duane come over for the weekend. He lives up in DC but comes from Maui and spent time with us when we were at Washington Canoe Club. Duane came down on Saturday and stayed Sunday to help out as well. We thrilled for the extra labor and more so to meet new people and learn about this place that we are in.

Finally we want to thank all of you back at home supporting us as we go through the process to get Hōkūleʻa ready to go back in the water to begin the long trek back to Hawai’i. From the staff in the office of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, to our leadership, navigators, kūpuna and supporters, mahalo nui iā ʻoukou pākahi a pau.

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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