Hoolaha ia kekahi manao e George Avlonitis, he Elenika e pili ana i na huakai Polineka i ka wa mamua. I kona manao iho, aole he "revival of the Polynesian navigation" no ka mea he oiaio ole no ia i ka hooholo ia e Mau Piailug i ka 'ike 'ana o ka palapalaaina, e hooholo ehia mila mai ko Hawaii pae aina mai a hiki i ka pae aina o Kahiki.
Eia kona hoolaha i ka nupepa o Honolulu Advertiser:
Professor Ben Finney conceived the Hokule'a canoe experiment in order to prove the feasibility of accurate long-range two-way canoe voyages, using the ancient Polynesian navigation system.
In his book "Hokule'a: The Way to Tahiti," he states that the 1976 first successful voyage from Hawai'i to Tahiti with the Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug has proven the star navigation researcher Andrew Sharp wrong. The latter is the most vocal proponent of the belief that two-way Polynesian navigation could not be used in such a voyage due to lack of the means for fixing position (latitude/longitude).
This conclusion concurs with the extensive survey about the above subject by Kjell Akerblom of the Ethnographical Museum of Stockholm.
The questions Professor Finney did not answer are: (1) Why, after discovery of Hawai'i by the Tahitians and/or Marquesans in the fifth or eighth century, was the next contact with Hawai'i in the 12th century (possibly a rediscovery)? And (2) why, after European contact in the 18th century, did the Tahitians not know the remote islands of Hawai'i, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) — the three most remote Polynesian islands?
The answer is that Mau Piailug's voyage to Tahiti did not prove the ability of the ancient Polynesians to successfully complete two-way long-range voyages because he used techniques not known in the Pacific.
First, he estimated latitude by the height of Polaris above the horizon, used by ancient Arabs and Chinese.
Second, he used Polaris and the Southern Cross to take north/south bearings, although the ancient Polynesians could not do that because a thousand years ago, the Polaris was five degrees off the true north (precession).
Third, he used detailed data, collected by the navigator/researcher David Lewis, about ocean currents and winds. Lewis used the data to calculate displacement of the canoe and told Piailug that the displacement would amount to 600 to 800 miles westward.
Those data are crucial, and lack of them on long voyages would turn into a voyage of no return. Displacement of a vessel by ocean currents can only be calculated in relation to visible nearby land.
Piailug's successors, Nainoa Thompson and others, went a few steps further: They used "latitude sailing," which increases the chances to hit the target, but needs mathematics beyond the ability of the ancient Polynesians. It was used by ancient Arabs and Europeans.
Thompson also converted the 5,000-year-old tried-and-true irregularly spaced Micronesian star compass to regularly spaced magnetic star compass configuration less the needle. He also discarded the important Micronesian "Etak" or reference island principle, and he invented the principle of double stars to replace the zenith-stars, which are not a Polynesian principle anyway. Of course, as K. Akerblom states, "there are considerable differences between Polynesian and Micronesian navigation."
And then there is the Hokule'a canoe/catamaran with the graceful European sails!
So, then, this is the "revival of the Polynesian navigation," according to the Polynesians.
Nui ko'u hoonaukiuki i na mea naaupo no ka mea i kakau hoi o lakou i ka nupepa me ka manao pono ole. No ke aha la? No ka mea hooluhi hewa o na kanaka maoli.
Aole maopopo hoi iaia aia kekahi Taata ma ka moku o Kapena Kuke, i hoike oia ia Kuke i ka hookele ana mawaena o Polineka. Aole maopopo hoi iaia ka moolelo o na Maori a pehea la i pau ai, i hoopaaia ai ka hookaaike ana me na Polineka. Aole maopopo hoi iaia ka moolelo mai na Taata o Raiatea pili ana i ka wehe ana hou o keia hookaaike me ka hiki ana o Hokulea!
