Tuvaluan Paopao (Fishing Canoe)
Small sailing canoe of the Tuvaluan islands, fitted with a single outrigger float and a triangular sail, used for fishing on the lagoon and the open reef and for the short voyages between the atolls. Built by hand from island timber, with the hull lashed with sennit to the outrigger booms, the paopao is light enough to be beached above the tide and sailed by one or two men. Its design, like that of the canoes of the wider Pacific, was carried by navigational knowledge passed down across the atolls, and the paopao remains both a working fishing craft and a symbol of Tuvaluan seamanship.