A New Tack

Master boat builder John Kawakami unfurls the sail on the new Ailuk catamaran. Photo: Karen Earnshaw

In an age when everyone-including islanders in remote Pacific nations-is eager for sleeker, faster transportation, the residents of Ailuk Atoll in the Marshalls want to keep things slow. Eighteen months ago, the atoll's Senator, Maynard Alfred, asked the Majuro-based canoe program, Waan Aelon in Majel (Canoes of the Marshall Islands), to design and build a catamaran for moving copra from the atoll's islands to the main town for shipping to the capital of Majuro. The choice of a catamaran, rather than a traditional Marshallese outrigger canoe, was made because the latter are generally too small and light for hauling heavy cargoes such as copra.

"This design also simplifies the work needed to sail an outrigger, because the mast doesn't have to be moved to change direction," says Alfred. He was describing the rig of a traditional canoe, which requires the foot of the mast to be moved from end to end of the boat during a tack.

The hull is white, representing the Ratak (sunrise) chain of islands on the flag of the Marshall Islands; the deck is orange, signifying the Ralik (sunset) chain of islands, and the trim is the flag's background blue.

Alfred used about $11,000 of a $100,000 grant from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to build the boat. Like many outer islands of the Marshalls, the 500 or so residents of Ailuk rely on making copra, handicrafts and fishing to get by. And when you consider that gasoline on Ailuk costs between $3 and $4 a gallon (if there's a supply) and copra currently brings in only 12-cents a pound, relying on the vagrancies of the wind makes sense.

The builders of the boat were the program's youth trainees, with master builder John Kawakami playing supervisor and lending a hand every now and then.

These trainees are young people who were in all likelihood heading for a life of trouble in this country of enormously high unemployment. "We've trained them to work with fiberglass-particularly getting their resin mix right-and wood," says Kawakami.

Now that the Ailuk boat is finished, the canoe program and the fiberglass boat building team are working on eight 15-foot Marshallese sailing outrigger canoes for the C.A.R.E. after school program.

"Our program is all about keeping kids off the street," says C.A.R.E.'s Terry Sasser, explaining that the best way to do this is to make their program fun and interesting. "The aim is to teach the kids how to sail the canoes and then have races between them."

The canoe program's Dennis Alessio says the canoes will be a blend of the traditional and modern: "The main hull will be fiberglass, but all other parts of the canoe will be made from indigenous materials."