Tahitian Vaʻa (Outrigger Canoe)
Ocean-going sailing canoe of the Tahitians, built as a dugout hull with a single outrigger float lashed on booms and a lateen sail of pandanus matting. The vaʻa was the vessel of the great Polynesian navigators, who read the stars, the swells and the flight of birds to cross the Pacific and settle island after island, and the hull was shaped by carvers working from inherited knowledge of timber and lines. Today the same outrigger canoe races on as a sport in the vaʻa of French Polynesia, where crews paddle long ocean-going canoes in competitions such as the Hawaiki Nui Vaʻa, keeping the voyagi