Lesu Tale - the homecoming voyage of Drua i Vola Sigavou

by Daria Blackwell 28 Aug 2020 16:56 NZST

The voyage has the full support of Sea Mercy, and Jonathan and Donna Robinson will be donating time and vessel in support. They are currently seeking sources of humanitarian aid to deliver en route.

Boats connect us to our ocean. They enable oceans to be our highway, connecting people from different islands and cultures, and giving us access to our marine resources. Boats are our lifeline - but today our boats are unsustainable.

In the past, Fiji's remote Lau islands were the boatbuilding hub of Oceania. The last drua sailed to the capital 30 years ago in search of livelihoods in the modern world. As the next step in his dream to set up a Fijian canoe building and traditional navigation school in Fiji, Setareki Ledua (one of only two trained traditional navigators in Fiji and captain of the drua) will sail a modern drua to its, and his, ancestral home to share and collect knowledge, recording this homecoming and cultural re-association through e-talanoa and social media.

Rationale and objectives

Canoe culture underpins history, iconography, heritage and connectivity across Oceania. True canoe knowledge has faded over time with only a few communities holding the fragile remnants of these traditions. Simultaneously, these remote communities desperately seek new solutions to maritime transport, ones that are sustainable, affordable and support their vision for ocean stewardship.

Vulaga, over 200 miles by sea from Fiji's bustling capital, is a limestone atoll with few natural resources. Yet for hundreds of years vesi loa, the premier boatbuilding timber found only on the islands of the Southern Lau, made this the epicentre of a thriving shipbuilding industry.

Setareki's ancestors built giant sailing canoes, then the fastest ships on the planet, and exported them throughout central Oceania. These ships allowed for a prosperous connected Pacific, centuries before colonization. Today, Vulaga is among the most marginalised and isolated of Fiji's communities. No drua have been built here in this generation.

Setareki's goal for this homecoming voyage is to connect two research themes:

• safeguarding traditional knowledge of boatbuilding and seafaring culture, and
• employing traditional knowledge to create informational systems and advance ocean stewardship to develop sustainable low carbon maritime transport.

He will achieve this by sailing a modern drua back to the Lau to engage with communities, raise awareness of traditional boatbuilding, and research solutions, reconnecting the most marginalised in society, elders, women and youth.

Through raising awareness of seafaring traditional knowledge, running youth drua training programmes, he will foster dialogue on future drua building to inform community decision-making on sea transport options.

Setareki and his crew of Fijian traditional sailors will record traditional knowledge on sail weaving and rope construction by women and youth (previously poorly researched). Finally, they will host an e-talanoa via social media and produce a documentary to raise awareness across Fiji and other small islands, revitalizing connectivity with their oceans through sustainable boatbuilding and seafaring practice.

Learn more here.

Links:

• Go Fund Me page
• Fiji Sun article

This article has been provided by the courtesy of Ocean Cruising Club.