Wa’a Kaulua by Glen McGuire – FINISHED - 1/100 - BOTTLE - Traditional Hawaiian Ocean Voyager

[Glen McGuire]

I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of doing different water effects for the base of my last two projects – the Kraken and Archimedes’ Claw.  I wanted to continue along those lines with the next project, but still try something new.  I’ve always loved waterfalls, so why not try to build a SIB project around one?  

OK.  Waterfall for the base.  Now what?  When I think of waterfalls, I think of Hawaii.  So I decided that I’d go for what I consider a typical Hawaiian waterfall – ribbons of water bouncing down a broken rock face into a pool of pristine water surrounded by lush greenery.  Something like this:

  

As for the ship in the bottle, my first thought was a traditional age of sail ship with a historical connection to the Hawaiian islands.  One option was Captain James Cook’s HMS Resolution, which he was aboard when he discovered Kauai in 1778. Another possibility was Cleopatra’s Barge which was a two-masted brigantine purchased by King Kamehameha II in 1820.  However, after doing a lot of reading about ancient Hawaiian and Polynesian ocean travel, I became fascinated with the early voyager canoes that were used by natives to travel long distances between islands on rough, open seas.

 
I was also fascinated by the almost spiritual reverence the Polynesians held for these vessels, which was evident in both their construction methods and subsequent care.  Polynesia encompasses almost 120,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean and includes over 1000 islands.  The names, construction and function of the voyager canoes varied depending upon where in this vast expanse they were primarily used.  For the ancient Hawaiians, the traditional name for a canoe was Wa’a.  The design of the Wa’a evolved from earlier Polynesian ocean canoes called Vakas.  The Wa’a was designed for propulsion by both sail and oar and tailored to the geography surrounding the Hawiian islands.  With no barrier reefs protecting the Hawaiian Islands, the Wa’a had to be able to navigate large ocean swells closer to shore.  For my project, I made the decision to build a double-hulled Hawaiian canoe which is called a Wa’a Kaulua.

 

OK.  Waterfall base – check.  Wa’a Kaulua canoe in the bottle – check.  Now, does the bottle just sit in the pool of water at the base of the waterfall?  Hmmmmm.  That seems kind of boring.  Then an idea popped into mind – what about having the bottle opening nestle up against the waterfall’s cascade, but a portion of the falling water splashes off a small outcropping and diverts into the bottle as it it’s filling up the bottle with water?  Crude powerpoint illustration:

 

So that’s the plan!  And without further ado, here we go!
 

[Glen McGuire]

For this project, I’m going to start with the ship itself.  

As mentioned in the previous post, the Polynesians, and in particular the Hawaiians, held a special reverence for their ocean voyagers.  Hawaiian historian, artist, and founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Herb Kawainui Kāne described it as such, “The Wa'a shaped the Hawaiian people physically, intellectually and spiritually as much as the Hawaiians shaped the logs that became their canoes.”

This spiritual bond began with the selection of the tree used for the hulls.  On the Big Island, the Koa tree was large enough so that it’s trunk could be hollowed out to form a one-piece canoe hull.  Thus, the koa became the tree of choice for the Wa’a hulls.  Most Wa’a hulls were between 20 feet and 30 feet long, but some extended as far as 60 feet in length.  My hulls will be 3.5” long, so I am pegging the scale at 1/100.

Actual construction of the Wa’a involved many people as well as sacred cultural and spiritual traditions.  The website https://www.hemakeewaa.org describes the beginning of the construction process as follows: “First, a kahuna, or Hawaiian priest, had to search for the perfect site and tree by following the ‘elepaio, or Hawaiian forest bird, into the forest. Since the ‘elepaio was attracted to rotting Koa wood, if the bird began pecking at the tree, that meant the wood was not solid and the tree would be useless for the strong structure it took to build a canoe. Once finding the perfect tree, the kahuna would then gather the canoe builders and workers, staying throughout the building process to offer prayers and blessings.”

I want to be as historically accurate as I can (within reason), so I thought it would be cool to make my hulls out of koa wood.  I scrounged around the internet and found a company in Hawaii that sells exotic wood blanks, including koa.  I ordered a sampler pack and received in interesting mix of hardwoods – koa, sapele, macadamia nut, pride of India, Queensland maple, and mango. 

 

I think the one piece of koa is large enough to give me a couple of tries at making my hulls in case I mess up the hollowing out process.
 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[JacquesCousteau]

Looks like a very cool project, I'm looking forward to following along!

[Knocklouder]

Pulling up a chair my friend,  looks like another fantastic idea coming to life, Good luck on your journey.    Success 

[Louie da fly]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

For the ancient Hawaiians, the traditional name for a canoe was Wa’a.

Interesting. In New Zealand, the Maori dug-out war canoe is called a Waka, and the building process (including the ceremonial and religious aspect) was very similar to that of the Hawaiians - see John Allen's fascinating build at 

 

[Glen McGuire]

52 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

Interesting. In New Zealand, the Maori dug-out war canoe is called a Waka,

Interesting indeed, Steven.  In my research, I ran across a number of terms for these types of canoes that seemed somewhat interchangeable - ama, aka, vaka, waka.  I guess this should not be surprising given the wide geographical reach of Polynesia and the variety of cultures within.   Vaka seemed to be the most prevalent term so that's what I referenced in my post.

 

52 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

see John Allen's fascinating build at 

Thanks for sharing that build log.  @John Allen did an absolutely marvelous job with his Waka-Maori war canoe.  I had actually run across an aborted build log of his that he apparently started before tackling the Maori war canoe.  He started a log on the Holukea, which is a modern replica of a Wa'a Kaulua - https://modelshipworld.com/topic/13001-polynesian-canoe-holukea/#comment-395968.  But unfortunately, there are only a few posts.

 

The Hokulea was built in 1975 with the purpose of making long, ocean voyages in the tradition of ancient Hawaiian voyaging and navigation traditions.  To date, it has reportedly sailed over 162,000 nm across the Pacific.  While I am not trying to duplicate the Holukea (no solar panels on my Wa'a Kaulua!), there are some decent plans available for it that I may draw from for my build.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[GrandpaPhil]

Glen,

  Looking forward to this build!

[Jim Lad]

Glen, it's interesting that the Hawaiian (Polynesian) word for canoe is wa'a - the Gilbertese (Micronesian) word is wa. The Gilbertese, being very innovative with their language for European objects, call an aeroplane 'wa ni kiba' - flying canoe!

 

John

[Javelin]

Although I'm following you, I didn't see this one pop up. 

Happy to see another bottle-project started. 

Already curious how you'll tackle that bottle-waterfall connection! 

[Ian_Grant]

Glen, glad you're back with another unique project. Looking forward to seeing it evolve. And at 1/100 scale this could be your first bottle ship where you could have an actual crew!

[Landlubber Mike]

Another creative project, I'm in!  Love the idea and use of native woods, this is going to be another Glen special!

[Ian_Grant]

6 hours ago, Landlubber Mike said:

Another creative project, I'm in!  Love the idea and use of native woods, this is going to be another Glen special!

Glen, as a precaution please be sure to check out these tropical woods for potential toxicity when sanding! Safety first ..... 🐘 <- (Elmer the safety elephant, who my kids never heard of from school).

 

ps I know a guy who built cabinets from some unusual wood or other, and rubbed sawdust all over his forearms to prevent him sweating on his sanded surfaces. His whole body broke out in hives for several days and he swore he'll never touch that wood species again.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Ian_Grant

[BANYAN]

A great, and very interesting, concept for this build Glen; another exciting project to follow.  I'll be right up in the front stalls with my popcorn and will do my best not to spill any onto the project

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Glen McGuire]

Whenever I start one of these build logs, I know I am going to learn some interesting things from the comments.  Such as: 

 

On 11/21/2023 at 6:59 PM, Jim Lad said:

The Gilbertese, being very innovative with their language for European objects, call an aeroplane 'wa ni kiba' - flying canoe!

That is fascinating, John!  I guess it reinforces how centric the canoe was to the Polynesian thinking and way of life.

 

 

On 11/22/2023 at 6:47 AM, Javelin said:

Already curious how you'll tackle that bottle-waterfall connection! 

Than makes two of us, Javelin!  I don't really have a plan yet which is why I started on the canoe first.

 

 

On 11/22/2023 at 8:55 AM, Ian_Grant said:

And at 1/100 scale this could be your first bottle ship where you could have an actual crew!

Only if you promise to do the same and outfit your quadrireme with a full rowing crew, Ian!!  😃

 

 

On 11/22/2023 at 12:06 PM, Ian_Grant said:

Glen, as a precaution please be sure to check out these tropical woods for potential toxicity when sanding! Safety first .....

I had not thought of that.  Thank you for the heads-up!

 

 

[Harvey Golden]

Looks like an interesting project!  If you can find Haddon & Hornell's "Canoes of Oceania" or Dodd's "Polynesian Seafaring," you'll see the incredible variety of Pacific sailing canoes in great detail.  The variations of the word Vaka (waka, va'a, wa'a, waga, etc. ) are essentially all the same word, just with regional accents and/or people from different backgrounds and 'ears' putting it into writing, thus creating these orthographical spellings.  Specific to Hawaiian canoes-- a copy of Tommy Holmes' incredible book (I forget the name) would undoubtedly smooth the way and further inspire.  Looking forward!

H-

[JacquesCousteau]

Not to overload you with recommendations, but this site may also have something: https://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/?m=1

[Glen McGuire]

7 hours ago, Harvey Golden said:

 Specific to Hawaiian canoes-- a copy of Tommy Holmes' incredible book (I forget the name)

Thanks for the info, Harvey.  I actually did run across Tommy Holmes in my research as another one of the original founders of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (in addition to Herb Kawainui Kāne who I quoted earlier).  Mr. Holmes' book was appropriately titled "The Hawaiian Canoe".  I would have loved to buy it, but $76 used on Amazon was a bit pricey for me.

 

6 hours ago, JacquesCousteau said:

Not to overload you with recommendations, but this site may also have something: https://indigenousboats.blogspot.com/?m=1

Thank you, Jacques!  A very interesting site indeed - particularly the dragon junk ship.  My son will be wanting me to do something like that next!  

[Glen McGuire]

The first step for me is to shape and hollow out the hulls.  The Hawaiian word for hull is ka'ele.  Each ka'ele was hollowed from a single koa tree so it had to be a large and very old tree, likely 150-200 years old.  After a suitable tree was found, the main canoe builder would meditate and sleep at the base of the tree to from a bond with the tree and obtain its consent to be used for the ka'ele.  After felling the tree, it was partially hollowed out in the forest, then hauled to the shoreline to complete the construction process.

 

The ka'ele was rounded like a U and did not have a keel.  This made it easier to land and launch in the surf along shoreline as well as navigate in rough seas.    

 

To hollow out my ka'eles, I used a dremel with a round bit.

 

The ka'ele also had an upsweep at the bow and stern called a kupe.  It was a separate piece carved and added after after the ka'ele was shaped.  That will be my next step.

  

Edited November 25, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Ian_Grant]

Looking great already.

[Glen McGuire]

My guide for construction of the Wa’a Kaulua is the website: https://www.hemakeewaa.org. "He Make'e Wa'a" translates to "having great affection for the Hawaiian Canoe."   It gives a nice description and purpose of the main components. 

 

As mentioned in a previous post, the next step is making the kupe, which was a separately carved piece added to the bow and stern.  The upsweep of the kupe is called the manu.  The purpose of the kupe was to keep excessive water from splashing into the ka’ele.  The purpose of the manu was to slice through waves and help the ka’ele to rise up and over large swells.  I started with small blocks of koa, glued them onto the bow and stern, and then sanded them to a final shape.  I don’t know if the kupe was supposed to be made out of koa or a different type of wood, but I decided to use koa.    

 

 

Another piece that was separately constructed and attached to the ka’ele was the gunwale.  I was going to skip on the gunwale because it's such a small effect and may not even be visible once the wa'a kaulua is in the bottle.  However, when I saw the Hawaiian name of the gunwale, I knew I had to include them.   The Hawaiian name for the gunwale is "mo’o" (of course my longhorns love the name too!).  The mo’o helped protect the edges of the ka'ele from damage.  It was made of wood denser and sturdier than the koa.  

 

I made mine out of a thin piece of maple veneer.  Here’s where I did not think things thru very well for my construction process. It would have been much easier had I thought of the mo’o before carving, shaping, and hollowing out the ka’ele’s.  I could have glued it to the koa blank for each Ka’ele and then shaped and hollowed out as a single piece.  But since I didn’t figure that out first, I had to glue it to the ka’ele between the kupe’s and then shape/hollow it out.  

 

For the finish, I brushed a coat of gloss varnish on the ka’ele, and the mo’o.  Even though the kupe was made out of koa like the ka’ele, I wanted the kupe to stand out visually so I gave it a coat of slightly darker stain before hitting it with the varnish. 

 

 

Overall, I am pretty happy with how things have turned out so far.  There are some rough edges, but I think that’s maybe even a better look for a boat that was hand carved from a whole tree.  The biggest challenge for me was to make 2 boats that were as identical as possible.  They are not perfect, but I believe both came out fairly uniform. 

    
 

[Knocklouder]

Great looking Mo'o  Mo'o s , now your telling me your long horns are bilingual . They Mo'o in Hawaiian and Texan  lol. Your long horns are as amazing as your work. They look awesome.       

[Ian_Grant]

Well on the way to another heirloom work of art.👍🤙Hang loose!

[Boccherini]

Off to a great start. They look good. The koa has a pleasing colour.

I thought we might be spared livestock and penguin references this time. You've let the longhorns in...........

 

Regards,

Grant.

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, Boccherini said:

I thought we might be spared livestock and penguin references this time.

 

  Grant, surely the Bovquin found on the Hawaiian Island Mooey Mooey can be allowed.

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Keith Black

[Glen McGuire]

10 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Grant, surely the Bovquin found on the Hawaiian Island Mooey Mooey can be allowed.

I have no words...🤣

 

10 hours ago, Boccherini said:

I thought we might be spared livestock and penguin references this time. You've let the longhorns in...........

I apologize, Boccherini!  I just could not help myself when I read about the mo'o.  On the other hand, instead of livestock and penguin references, I thought about bringing up Hawaii's feral chicken problem.  It was just starting to be a nuisance in Maui last time I was there about 10 years ago and has apparently gotten much worse:  https://www.courthousenews.com/foul-fowl-hawaii-locals-overwhelmed-by-wild-chickens/

Edited November 28, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 

2 hours ago, Glen McGuire said:

Hawaii's feral chicken problem

 

 Hello, General Tso? 

 

 

 

[Ian_Grant]

We were there last year. The chickens hang around outdoor eating places, like the food wagon circles, hopping up on tables sometimes before people have even left. They are strolling along everywhere. They didn't bother me, in fact a hen with her chicks following is pretty cute, and some of them are beautifully coloured. But the roosters cock-a-doodling at 4:30am got old, especially one fellow living beside one of our rented places who started at 3:30am each morning.

[Keith Black]

 I've raised chickens, they're not all that bright. I'm having a difficult time understanding why this would ever have become a problem in the first place. That picture Glen posted of them sitting on the carts, hell they're already in the production line albeit at the end but never the less. Splain to me, Lucy. 

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Keith Black said:

I'm having a difficult time understanding why this would ever have become a problem in the first place.

From what I've read, domestic chickens were introduced to the islands by the sugarcane plantations in the 1700s.  When the plantations died away in the late 1800s/early 1900s the chickens were simply let loose and became feral.  There have been numerous efforts to control the chickens, but people feeding them exacerbates the problem.

 

OK, enough about chickens for now cuz it's making me hungry.  On to the next step of construction, which is the "wae's" or spreaders.  Wae's are pieces of wood that are fitted into the ka'ele between the mo'o's at spaced intervals.  At first, I thought they were seats for paddlers but they actually are a structural component that adds strength to the sides of the ka'ele and spreads out the stress of waves hitting the sides in rough seas.

 

  

The next step in the construction process is the "kūanueneu's" which are arched blocks of wood that connect both ka'ele's.  In addition to connecting the ka'ele's, the kūanueneu's support the "pola" which is the deck/platform that sits between the ka'ele's and houses the masts and sometimes a small structure.

 

Up to this point I had not really thought much about how I was going to fit everything into the bottle.  But now it was time to figure that out before I got too far down the construction path and built myself into a corner I couldn't get out of.  I quickly found out that, based on the length of my ka'ele's, a proportional width would be too wide for my bottle opening.  Once again, my up front planning and design is a big fail.

 

My first thought was to just try and assemble all the pieces inside the bottle.  But this particular bottle has a pretty small opening (3/4"), so I didn't like the idea of trying to line everything up perfectly parallel and then try and drop a bunch of small pieces into place.  The solution I finally came up with was to connect the kūanueneu's to the ka'ele's with pieces of thin music wire.  The wire would act as a spindle, running thru the kūanueneu and thru a small block glued to the bottom of the Ka'ele.  That would allow me to slide one ka'ele forward, bringing it adjacent to the other ka'ele while still connected.   Then, once inside the bottle, it would  be easy to slide them back apart and maintain perfect symmetry.  Pictures probably explain it better:      

 

I will clip the wire down to size so it does not protrude above the kūanueneu as it does in the last few pics.  I will also add the pola (deck) inside the bottle.  That should not be too difficult.

  

 

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Glen McGuire

[Keith Black]

 Nice solution, Glen. Very convincing modeling. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Keith Black