and long steering paddles enabled Polynesian mariners to keep it sailing on course. A medium-size voyaging canoe 50 to 60 feet long could accomodate two dozen or so migrants, their food supplies ...

“Paddle,” he yells ... lost for centuries until the arrival of Hōkūle on June 4, 1976 in Tahiti. This double-hulled canoe had been reconstructed in Hawaii by experimental archaeologists.

May 1, 1976, was the first time in more than 600 years that a Polynesian voyaging canoe sailed down Kealaikahiki ... who as a young man in 1976 quietly helped paddle crew members from the shore ...