Polynesian Voyaging Society
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The Polynesian Voyaging Society is a non-profit research and educational corporation based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. PVS was established to research and perpetuate traditional Polynesian voyaging methods.
The Hawaiian voyaging canoe, Hokuleʻa, arrives off Kailua Beach on May 1, 2005.
Hokuleʻa off the coast of Honolulu, January 2009
Mau Piailug
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Pius "Mau" Piailug was a Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal, best known as a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wayfinding methods for open-ocean voyaging. Mau's Carolinia
Polynesian Voyaging Society
…and crew. Named the Hōkūleʻa, it left Hawaiʻi on May 1, 1976 for Tahiti in an attempt to retrace the ancient voyaging route. Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, using no instruments, successfully navigated the canoe to Tahiti, arriving there on June 3, 1976. After an attempted voyage to Tahiti in 1978 was…
"Mau Piailug is from the island of Satawal. It's a mile and a half long and a mile wide. Population 600. Navigation's not about cultural revival, it's about survival. Not enough food can be produced on a small island like that. Their navigators have to go out to sea to catch fish so they can eat." (Nainoa Thompson)
Mau's name carved into the back of the navigator's seat aboard Hokule'a
Ipanitika