Hōkūleʻa and her crew are sending their thoughts and prayers from Canada to the ʻohana waʻa on Maui. The Maui voyaging community lost their oldest double-hulled canoe, Moʻolele, to the Lāhainā wildfires.
The group’s other voyaging canoe was evacuated safely to Molokaʻi, but the canoe house and some of the crew members’ homes have also been lost to the flames.
Hui O Waʻa Kaulua Captain Timi Gilliom was with Moʻolele in Lāhainā when the fire broke out. He called fellow Hui member Kalā Tanaka saying he had to flee because the fire was moving so fast, and he wasn’t sure Moʻolele would survive.
By Thursday, Tanaka said, the Hui confirmed, "that indeed everything was just ua pau i ke ahi, there really was just nothing left."
"That’s pretty tough you know because when I think of our Hui, Moʻolele really was… she made the Hui become a Hui because of her because of the building of her," Tanaka said.
Tanaka learned everything she knows about navigation from her father, the late Pwo navigator Kālepa Baybayan. She said he learned to navigate aboard Moʻolele.
"That’s not just his story. There are so many others in the community that have put their hands on this canoe and have either helped to build her, to do the dry-dock or help to educate on her or been educated on board that canoe. And so it is a huge, huge loss to us," Tanaka said.
The 42-foot, single-mast wooden canoe Moʻolele was built in 1976 — at a time when voyaging and traditional navigation was beginning to be revived here in the islands.
While future generations will not have the opportunity to learn aboard Moʻolele, Tanaka said they will know the canoe’s story.
"Moving forward it’s so important that we continue to tell her story. We are all her moʻo, her moʻopuna I guess, it is just so important that we continue... practicing and voyaging in her honor and just carry on her legacy," she said.
Tanaka said the Hui’s larger voyaging canoe Moʻokiha O Piʻilani is safe in Pūkoʻo, Molokaʻi.
For additional coverage on the Maui wildfires, see below:
