We, the Navigators

The title plays on We the Tikopia, a classic study by New Zealand anthropologst Raymond Firth of a tiny South Pacific island of that name, whose Polyesian inhabitants are gifted navigators.

David Lewis, after circumnavigating the world in a catamaran, decided to test his understanding of Polynesian navigation techniques by sailing the 2200 miles from Tahiti to New Zealand without any modern instruments (except the smallest of charts and a sky map).

These navigators spoke very little English, were illiterate and did not understand maps but were able to take him eventually on a 450-mile trip from Puluwat to Saipan and to return and teach him many of their techniques.

But generally the very idea that people without instruments, charts or writing, could have developed an elaborate and effective art (or "pre-science") of navigation was so utterly foreign as not even to enter the minds of most Europeans.

Since then there have been the traditionalists such as Percy Smith who have uncritically accepted the migration legends of the Polynesians as literal history and those, such as Thor Heyerdahl, who dismissed these and emphasised drifting and one-way voyages.

It is harder to use the sun during the day because of the changes in its position during the seasons, and it is necessary to use the swell of the ocean as an aid (not waves, which are local and variable).

Their estimates of distance made good seems to be largely intuitive, based on long experience, and their sense of position derives from keeping in mind where 'home' and other islands are, which can be maintained even when blown far in a gale.

The memory of the relative position of islands is passed down the generations using the star compass so that a grandson might use a course that hasn't been followed since his grandfather used it.

Observing the behaviour of seabirds which fly out to their feeding grounds in the morning and return in the evening is one of the most well-known of the techniques.

The swell of the sea can be both reflected by an island and refracted round it, giving clues to the experienced navigator in excess of 30 miles.

Another sign which works best on dark rainy nights is deep phosphorescence causing flashes in the sea originating from the island and observable up to 80–100 miles away.

The hulls were generally V-shaped made of planks held together by coconut fibre, which would be replaced after a long voyage.