This is such an important history to our ocean, maka'ainana fishermen, and our ralationships with the ocean and it's people. So much respect, traditional practices, and healthy people in the Pacific Ocean. I hope that Mr. Ohai and all the fishermen will take up the challenge and preserve this vessel for our future generations to see, feel, and smell the real warriors of the Pacific Ocean. Humanity would have been lost in Hawaii had it not been for the 'Aku' boats and their families continuing to care for the people living in Hawaii.
HONOLULU -- The last of Hawaii’s sampan fleet sits in Kewalo Basin, but not for long.
The Kula Kai which was one of the first wooden aku boats built, is now the last of its kind. The vessel’s owner recalled his dismay when the U.S. Coast Guard broke the news that the Kula Kai was no longer seaworthy.
“I was very hurt because we fished it. We took the fish to market, and we used whatever was left to repair the boat. No money, no repairs. It’s the last of its kind in the entire world,” said Stanley “Butch” Jacobe.
Jacobe was ready to give up, but the agency that is charged with oversight of the Kakaako area thought it was worth exploring if the vessel could be saved from sinking.
“We have to take care of this in the next six months, with the bilge pumps kicking in something bad could happen, something catastrophic at any time,” said HCDA executive director Anthony Ching.
“It’s 88 foot long. It’s 75 tons. It’s about 8 feet deep. It’s too big to just stick anywhere and yet it‘s too much and too important a part of history to let go,” said Kewalo harbor master Charles Barclay.
A nonprofit that works with disadvantaged youth is among those trying to brainstorm what is possible.
“We are looking, not just at the restoration of a boat, but preserving history and restoring people’s lives, giving them opportunities in math, applied sciences so they can take these skills and go to college or do whatever,” said KUPU executive director John Leong.
The Kula Kai represents a proud time in Hawaii's fishing history. Aku fishermen and their boats once filled Kewalo Basin, but no more. The boat was a lifeline for more than a thousand families over seven decades and its owner is heartsick its days at sea are over.
“Trashing it is the last resort,” said Jacobe.
“If a vessel like this sinks here in the harbor, the cost of raising the vessel and removing it go up dramatically. Granted this vessel has had the fuels and petroleum products taken off, but there is always the pollution damage to the environment,” said Barclay.
Past and present sit side-by-side in Kewalo harbor. The Kula Kai is docked next to the steel hulled Nisei, now the only working aku boat around.
“There is a recognition that the past can’t keep up with the modern advances, but there is no reason for us to forget, or abandon it,” said Ching.
Copyright 2011 by KITV.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read more: http://www.kitv.com/news/27048961/detail.html#ixzz1X7LAHhqY
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The View From the Deck
Tales of a Lowly Jack Tar
Kula Kai vessel last of its rugged kind
A friend in Hawaii shared some pics of the Hawaiian sampan Kula Kai. Apparently she is thelast know vessel of its type in the region, an effort to preserve was made several years back to no avail. Still, she lives apparently.
Courtesy of Susan Yamamoto
Courtesy of Susan Yamamoto
A further article by the late Bob Krauss and photo gallery can be found here:
Preservation or Disposal of the Kula Kai Fishing Vessel
a. Shall the Authority Authorize the Executive Director to: (l) Accept the
Donation of the Historic Kula Kai Fishing Vessel; (2) Waive All
Outstanding Kewalo Basin Harbor Mooring Fees; and (3) Expend No
More than $50,000 in Kewalo Basin Harbor Funds for Removal of the
Vessel from the Water for Preservation or Disposal?
b. Upon Successful Removal of the Kula Kai Fishing Vessel from the
Water, Shall the Authority Authorize the Executive Director to Transfer
Title of the Vessel to the Kewalo Keiki Fishing Conservancy?
Staff Report
August 3, 2011
Background:
Kula Kai first sailed the seas in 1949 and like others of her kind is distinctive for its sharp
high prow, long narrow hull, live bait well, low stern and high house amidships. The 80-foot
vessel is characteristic of the locally designed and constructed fishing vessel that was the
backbone of the State’s aku fishing fleet. Sampans powered the fishing industry, providing
tuna for the canneries and fresh fish for local consumption.
Sampan fishermen were also a distinctive breed. Builders, crew and captains were a highly
respected part of our local community. The builders adapted to the rough waters around the
State. The sharp prow and long hull allowed the sampan to cut through the water and gave
the vessel a range of 1,500 miles. The high house amidships provided a vantage point to see
the birds and other tell tale signs of a school of aku. The low stern allowed the fishermen
space to use their barbless hooks to hook the school of aku that was driven to frenzy by the
release of live bait from the sampan.
With the advent of World War II, because many of the boat owners and the fishing crews
were from an enemy nation, vessels were confiscated for other purposes and the fleet was
much reduced in size. With the coming of modern fishing vessels and the closing of the
canneries, the fleet was further reduced. By 2006, with the loss of access to nearby Pearl
Harbor for bait fish, rising fuel costs and the loss of the eyes of the fishing fleet to find fish,
the Kula Kai seemed destined for the salvage yard.
In 2006, when the Kula Kai seemed destined for the salvage yard, efforts by experienced ship
wrights, expert fishermen and other stakeholders to renovate the vessel sufficiently to fish
and then finance refitting of the vessel for the ordeal of fishing were undertaken. However,
-2-
the profits have not been realized in sufficient numbers for the vessel to be updated and
overhauled.
Since March of 2011, when the vessel’s certification by the Coast Guard was lost, HCDA
staff has been working with the vessel’s current owner (Butch Jacobe) and the Kewalo Basin
Harbor agent to establish a sustainable program to preserve the vessel. The plan that has
been developed calls for the following actions.
The Kula Kai is the last wooden fishing sampan in the State of Hawaii. The•
Harbor.
Transfer ownership of the vessel from the owner to the Kewalo Basin•
accrued.
Waive the one month of outstanding moorage fees that has been•
Shipyard.
Secure a bid for moving the vessel to the cove adjacent to the Honolulu•
concrete pad adjacent to the premises of the Kewalo Keiki Fishing
Conservancy.
Lifting the vessel out of the water and depositing it on an existing•
Conservancy for its preservation and use as an open air classroom for
aspiring ship wrights specializing in wooden vessels.
Transferring the title to the vessel to the Kewalo Keiki Fishing•
the Kula Kai in the ground to facilitate public access to its deck.
Allowing the Kewalo Keiki Fishing Conservancy to permanently moorDiscussion:
necessary revenue to maintain the vessel. A failure to maintain the integrity of the vessel at
its current mooring might cause the Kula Kai to take on water, overwhelm its bilge pumps
and sink at its mooring. This could create a situation where the cost to raise the vessel would
far exceed the present requested expenditure of funds.
Besides ensuring that the Kula Kai would not sink at its mooring, movement of the vessel out
of the harbor and the water will allow for preservation of the vessel. In the course of
preserving the vessel out of water, there will be an opportunity for the vessel to be used by
kupuna ship wrights to pass on their knowledge to the next generation of craftsman that will
be trained to work on today’s wooden vessels.
Although all of the details of the preservation and education program are not known at this
time, it is essential (given the rigors of maintaining a wooden vessel properly in the water)
that the Kula Kai be removed from the water at this time.
-3-
As the Kula Kai is no longer seaworthy, it will not be able to generate theOUR HONOLULU
New crew, new life for historic Kula Kai
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
The Kula Kai's new crew — shipwright Sam Whippy, mate Nick Ahrens and captain Fukuo Kinjo — plan to refurbish the vessel and take it out fishing for the season. The profits will go toward renovating the boat, which was built nearly 60 years ago.
BRUCE ASATO | The Honolulu Advertiser
SAMPAN HISTORY
The Hawai'i wooden sampan and the Hawaiian canoe that was adapted by ancient Hawaiians to local waters are the only vessels unique to Hawai'i.
In 1899, Gorokichi Nakasugi brought the first sampan, and the fishing gear that went with it, from Japan.
The first sampans were small vessels powered by sail or a scull. The mast could be lowered to provide a ridge pole for a tent by spreading a tarp over the mast. The crew could sleep under the tarp.
By the 1930s, local sampan builders had designed a vessel to cope with long voyages in Hawaiian waters. The prow became sharp and high. The boats grew to 80 feet long, capable of voyages of 1,500 miles. The house amidships rose high for spotting fish. This became the classic Hawai'i sampan.
World War II dealt a severe blow to sampan fishing because many of the fishermen and boat owners were aliens, citizens of an enemy nation. Boats were confiscated and used for other purposes. Competition from modern fishing vessels and the closing of local canneries further depleted the fleet.
By the 1990s, only a handful of Hawai'i sampans remained.
Fukuo Kinjo, who has fished for tuna in Hawaiian waters for 35 years, is captain of the Kula Kai, which was close to being destroyed.
BRUCE ASATO | The Honolulu Advertiser
Sam Whippy has worked on the Kula Kai since 1972. He says the hull is in great shape and "should last 40 more years."
BRUCE ASATO | The Honolulu Advertiser
Kula Kai, the last Hawaiian wooden sampan, will sail again. The historic vessel, the only one of its kind in the world, has been saved from destruction in a storybook, last-minute rescue by an unlikely trio of seagoing good samaritans.
Not only have the three partners saved the vessel, they will perpetuate Hawai'i's unique style of tuna fishing that has become all but extinct.
There's Fukuo Kinjo, 63, one of the last of the Hawaiian sampan skippers, a short, powerful man from Okinawa who has been fishing for tuna in Hawaiian waters for 35 years. Few sampan fishermen still have his skills. He got involved because the Kula Kai is a lucky boat.
There's Sam Whippy from Fiji, the best wooden boat shipwright in Hawai'i, who had worked on the Kula Kai for her previous owner since 1972. He ripped out 50 bad planks in the hull, replaced 20 frames under the engine block and molded the hull in plywood. He's a partner because his heart is in the boat.
"That hull is bone-dry. It should last 40 more years," he said.
Then there's 26-year-old Nick Ahrens, mate of the Clean Island, an oil spill response vessel in Honolulu Harbor, who doesn't know much about fishing or boat building but who loves the sea and who brought the three of them together after an article appeared in The Advertiser announcing the demise of the Kula Kai.
He said their plan is to refurbish the sampan to the point when it will pass Coast Guard inspection, then take her fishing for the season. With the profits, they will completely renovate the Kula Kai. Each of them plays an essential part in making the plan work: the expert fisherman, the expert boat builder and the organizer of the project.
"That's what makes what they are doing so unusual," said Glen Fukunaga, whose father had to give up the boat because of ill health. "None of them could do it without the others."
ONLY IN HAWAI'I
Like the Hawaiian outrigger canoe, the Hawaiian sampan is found only in Hawai'i. Both evolved through adaptation to Hawaiian waters. The Kula Kai represents an entire culture that grew up in Hawai'i around the Hawaiian sampan or "aku boat." The culture includes boat builders, skippers and crews of the boats, tuna canners and sport fishermen.
Peter Wilson of Maui, sampan historian and former fisheries executive for Hawaiian Tuna Packers here and in Micronesia, and for the United Nations in New Guinea, explained why the rescue of the Kula Kai is historically and culturally significant.
He said the Hawaiian sampan evolved from a Japanese and Okinawan design called "gomai" or "five planks" that made up the hull; one plank on each side, two on the bottom and one for a keel. The Hawaiian adaptation is distinguished by a high, sharp prow that cuts through rough Hawaiian waters.
"I learned about the stability of aku boats when I was on a round-bottom research vessel off Diamond Head," Wilson said. "We were rolling our lee rail under water and had to hang on. Along came an aku boat inside us (closer to Diamond Head). One of the crew was sitting on deck mending a net.
"The Kula Kai is the last gomai. The design was perfect for Hawaiian waters. One of the boat builders was Kiyoshi Matsumoto, whose shipyard was near where CompUSA is now on Ala Moana. He laid out a 75-foot aku boat for me ... without using plans."
Wilson said the technique of fishing from a Hawaiian sampan is also unique in Hawai'i. While other commercial fishing vessels use enormous nets that vacuum-clean the ocean or miles-long lines of hooks, the aku boat fishermen stand on the stern and catch individual fish by hook and line. Wilson said he has seen this only in the Indian Ocean.
Pole and line fishermen have to use bait that require boat wells in the aku boats and the catching of bait before going out for tuna. There are holes in the bottom of the vessel to circulate fresh sea water to keep the bait fish alive. Another unique feature of aku boats, Wilson said, is a spray that dimples the sea in the back of the boat to resemble jumping bait.
Wilson said Hawaiian Tuna Packers got its start because the aku boats brought in so much fish for the local market that the cannery began exporting it. He said the Caucasian sampan evolved from the aku boat and is the vessel that launched sport fishing in Hawai'i.
The Kula Kai was built in 1947 as the Darling Dot by Seichi Funai on the Kewalo waterfront. Funai's son, Teruo, has photos of the launching. The vessel's last owner was Tom Fukunaga, one of the most successful tuna fishermen in Hawai'i. He once caught 70,000 pounds of tuna within a month, all of which had to be unloaded by hand at Kewalo Basin.
However, Fukunaga didn't want his sons to become fishermen because it's a hard life. When he became ill, the Kula Kai deteriorated. His sons found that no one wanted to buy the vessel. The expense of fixing it up, without prospect of a return, became too much.
Glen Fukunaga, one of the sons, said they didn't want their father to continue fishing and they couldn't afford to keep the boat. It would have to be disposed of.
The Hawai'i Maritime Center has tried twice to save a Hawaiian sampan before the vessels become extinct because they are an important part of Hawai'i's seafaring history. But there is no room in Honolulu Harbor to dock the boat as a historic vessel and the cost of preserving a wooden boat was considered too high.
"Dad is really happy," Fukunaga said of the new ownership. "This is what he wanted all along, for the Kula Kai to keep fishing."
Thanks to three individuals, the world's last Hawaiian wooden sampan 9 and a unique fishing style 9 no longer face extinction
Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.
Correction: The names of
Kula Kai vessel last of its rugged kind
Glen Fukunaga is dwarfed by Kula Kai, his family's 80-foot sampan, which is dry-docked at the Ke'ehi Marine Center. The family is willing to donate the boat if it were going to be preserved for historic purposes. But the family also is willing to sell it for fishing.
RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser
Glen Fukunaga says his family's 1949-vintage sampan, the Kula Kai, has a new diesel engine and a crew eager to go fishing — but needs a new owner. It's too difficult for the family to keep the boat.
RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser
What makes the Hawai'i sampan Kula Kai significant is that there is no other remaining boat like it in the world. Its wooden construction; sharp, high prow; long and narrow hull; low stern; and high house amidships mark it as distinctively as a flattop marks an aircraft carrier.
Only two vessels are unique to Hawai'i: the Hawaiian canoe that was adapted by ancient Hawaiians to local waters, and the Hawai'i wooden sampan that was adapted by local boat builders to rough local seas. While the number of Hawaiian canoes has grown over the years, the number of Hawai'i wooden sampans has diminished until only the Kula Kai remains.
The Kula Kai represents a robust portion of Hawai'i's maritime history, and a unique method of fishing that began in 1899 when Gorokichi Nakasugi brought the first sampan, and the fishing gear that went with it, from Japan. Local fishermen immediately saw the vessel's value because it could be built locally and was not expensive.
The first sampans had no motors. They were small, powered by sail or a scull. The mast could be lowered to provide a ridge pole for a tent by spreading a tarp over the mast. The crew could sleep under the tarp at sea.
The sampan sailors were fearless, sailing out of sight of land in their tiny boats. In 1903, Awoki Kamijiro set out on a Saturday. On Monday, his sampan capsized in a squall eight miles off shore. He clung to his overturned sampan for three days and nights before drifting ashore at Pearl Harbor. Hawaiians fed him. He bailed out his sampan and sailed it back to Honolulu.
Families noted for sampan building located mostly in the Kewalo area. Within 15 years, sampan builders began putting primitive one-lung and two-lung diesel engines on the boats and the boats became larger.
Sampan building spawned colorful traditions and unique techniques. The launching of a new sampan was a gala occasion involving the flying of flags, the shouting of "banzai" and the drinking of sake. Sampan fishermen became a distinct breed, and the builders, owners and captains were highly respected.
Sampans powered the fishing industry in Hawai'i, a significant segment of the state's economy, providing tuna for canneries and fresh fish for Honolulu markets.
By the 1930s, local sampan builders had designed a vessel to cope with long voyages in boisterous Hawaiian waters. The prow became sharp and high. The boats grew to 80 feet long, capable of voyages of 1,500 miles. The house amidships rose high for spotting fish. This became the classic Hawai'i sampan.
World War II dealt a severe blow to sampan fishing because many of the fishermen and boat owners were aliens, citizens of an enemy nation. Boats were confiscated and used for other purposes. Competition from modern fishing vessels and the closing of local canneries further depleted the fleet.
By the 1990s, only a handful of Hawai'i sampans remained. The Hawai'i Maritime Center has tried twice to save one but failed due to lack of money and space. The Kula Kai is the last Hawai'i wooden sampan.
Reach Bob Krauss at bkrauss@honoluluadvertiser.com.
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Staff Writer
Using a more discriminating pole-and-line
fishing technique harking back to earlier
days, the Kula Kai can not only hold
her own against modern steel and
fiberglass longliners but can also reduce
harm to Hawai‘i's fisheries by catching
only what's wanted.
The wooden sampan’s worth saving, he says, not just for its value as a relic of a bygone era; Sam believes the Kula Kai can hold her own against any steel and fiberglass ship out there. “It’s a fast boat, it doesn’t need too much power to move it. It rides the water good, the waves good. It’s made for speed and comfort. Fast turning. That’s what you need when you chase the aku.” And, he says, once properly repaired, she’ll outlast the newer boats.
“Fiberglass!” he scoffs. “They only warranty for ten to fifteen years. It might be strong for ten years, but the glass is brittle. After ten years, the glass starts peeling off.” He pats a patch of new plywood he’s installed on the hull of the Kula Kai. “This one’s almost sixty years old and still running!” And the pole-and-line technique is gentler on the fishery. Sam’s aware that all of Hawai‘i’s fisheries have suffered significant declines over the past decades, “but don’t blame this small boat,” he says. “Without the seine-netters, there would still be a lot of fish in Hawai‘i.” Though seine-net fishing has been banned here, “it’s too late,” he says. “Like in Guam. They kill everything.” Long-liners are not as bad, he admits, but they still snag unwanted catch, including the occasional turtle, shark or dolphin. Pole-and-line fishing, while less efficient, is more discriminating. The Kula Kai could, he hopes, help revive the traditional fishing method, which is more environmentally responsible and yet still economically viable.
Which is why, when Glen Fukunaga told him to quit, he begged for more time. “I said, ‘Nodda week! ‘Nodda week, I’ll finish it.’ Still, he said ‘stop.’” But Sam didn’t stop. He continued his repairs, found a couple of partners, pulled together a willing crew, and made an offer of his own. When he took me around the ship to show me the considerable work he’d already put into her—plywood hull, new frames, refitting the keel—he was waiting to hear whether his offer of half the asking price would be enough to save her from the scrap yard. “I feel bad,” he says with the kind of understatement characteristic of watermen, “because I’ve been working on this boat here for over thirty years. This the last sampan, And I’m the last one that can do it. Me and this boat, we tied up.”
Sam has no plans to fish himself; he’d rather spend his time fixing boats than sailing them. The Kula Kai is already seaworthy, he says, but he’d like to plywood the entire hull, replace the cabin house and spruce her up. Maybe even paint her blue. If he’s allowed to do it right, he says, the boat won’t need him again for another twenty years. And though he hopes to make some money from fishing with his partners, it’s not his primary motivation. “This is not like anything, any kind of boat in the world,” he tells me in the wheelhouse. “It’s all connected together: Hawaiian history, Japanese history. That’s why I want to save the boat … for Hawaiians. The story will keep going. People say this the last dead boat. It’s not dead yet. I’d be really proud to save it.”
Next day, I called Sam to get the update: his offer was accepted, and by the time you read this, the tattered old Kula Kai may well be out to sea again, plucking fish from a churning school of aku and writing the coda to, if not the beginning of, another chapter of the cultural history of Hawai‘i’s unique sampan. HH
The Kula Kai ("school of the sea") awaits
repairs in the dry dock at the Ke‘ehi small
boat harbor in Honolulu.
Sam’s a shipwright who, like the vessel he has lovingly maintained for the Fukunagas over the past thirty years, is also a vanishing breed. He’s one of the few left in Hawai‘i with the expertise to restore the Kula Kai, and perhaps the only one still working on large wooden boats. Descended from a long line of master shipwrights famous in his home country, Fiji, Sam traces his ancestry directly to one David Whippy, a Nantucket trader who jumped ship on the island of Levuka in the 1820s to become the first white man to live permanently in Fiji. A village chief spared his life in exchange for his services as a shipwright.
Sam’s own story seems oddly similar to that of his great-great-grandfather, only in reverse: In 1972, a Taiwanese fishing boat, the Wan Fu, struggled into the Fijian port of Suva so badly in need of repair its crew had deserted her. “Somebody told them, ‘Go see Whippy, he one of the best around!’ We made an exchange: I fix the boat, free, if they let me sail with them to America. Good deal!” he tells me in a lilting pidgin-English inflected with a distinctively Fijian roll of the r’s. With his wife and eigh-month-old son, he sailed for Honolulu where he “jumped ship,” looking for work. But without a passport or a visa, no one would hire him. He continued repairs on the Wan Fu at Ala Wai boat harbor, hoping to find work before the ship sailed a week later. If not, he’d have to fly back to Fiji. While repairing the bow one morning, his work caught the attention of “one local Japanee guy.” Without so much as an introduction, the man invited Sam out for a sail around Diamond Head on his yacht. The man turned out to be U.S. Attorney in Hawai‘i Robert Fukuda, who pulled more than a few strings on Sam’s behalf. “So the guy says, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning.’ I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. ‘Get your toolbox ready!’” Like his ancestor, Sam’s life in America was “spared” by a local chief in exchange for his shipbuilding expertise.
His is a way of working that’s all but gone these days. “In Fiji, we don’t buy our wood. We go up the mountain and drop big trees. All the boats we build are done by hand: no machines. Ribbed by hand, planed by hand, everything by hand. No metal. You hold the ribs together with dowels,” he says with growing excitement. “It works if you know what you’re doing. Nobody does that anymore. That way is dying. My family is the only one doing it in Fiji … I’m almost the last one working on wooden boats here. The last one working on big ones.” Not only that, but Sam doesn’t use computer modeling or lasers; he measures everything by eye. He even fashions wooden bearings for the propeller shaft by hand, correcting in advance for how much they’ll swell when wet. “You got a bad eye, no can build it,” he says.
Sam quickly found work with Hawaiian Tuna Packers, repairing ships. Word of his skill spread fast, and now at the age of sixty-five, he never lacks for work. “It’s not that anybody else can’t do it, but they like me because my boat’s 100-percent guaranteed. If you put the boat in the water and there’s something wrong with it, bring it back, I fix it for free. But they never come back. I fix it right, and I fix it good,” he says with a warm and affecting mix of self-deprecation and immodesty. “I’m here now, and I’m helping people in Hawai‘i. I can repair boats that fall apart, and I can put them together in ways other people don’t know how. I love to bring back my history of building boats. It’s in my blood.”
Sam Whippy, a master shipwright from Fiji,
is descended from a long line of
boatbuilders; his great-great-grandfather,
Nantucket trader David Whippy, jumped
ship to settle in Fiji in the 1820s.
But it was not to last. Purse-seine fishing, while indiscriminate and environmentally destructive, was already in use in Mainland tuna fisheries and was twenty times more productive than pole-and-line. Worse yet was the outbreak of World War II. The Navy suspected the Japanese-operated vessels might be spying, performing recon for a much-feared invasion of Hawai‘i by sea. Even before the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, the Navy began confiscating sampans and repurposing the larger aku boats—painting them white, upgrading their engines and sending them out on patrol. On the day of the Pearl Harbor attack, American planes strafed sampans off Barber’s Point, mistaking them for the vanguard of an invasion force. During the war, many Japanese-American shipwrights either left for Japan or suffered internment. Those sampans still allowed to fish were confined to near-shore waters and could operate only during hours that were in many cases not conducive to catching their target species. By 1942, the fleet’s catch had dropped by ninety-nine percent.
Though these restrictions ended with the war, the sampan fleet never recovered. The era of wooden ships was nearly over, and few shipwrights in the Islands had the skill to repair the sampans as they decayed or wrecked. By 1950, only forty-eight sampans remained, and though they had more longevity, new wooden boats had become more expensive to build than steel or fiberglass. The Kula Kai, built at Kewalo in 1949 by Seichi Funai, was among the last wooden aku boats built in Hawai‘i. Originally christened The Darling Dot, she was purchased from her first owner in the early 1960s by the state of Hawai‘i for use as a teaching vessel; hence the new name Kula Kai, or “school of the sea.” In 1965, fisherman Tom Fukunaga purchased her at auction in Hilo, and continued fishing for aku with her in the traditional way, even as less expensive and more efficient steel and fiberglass long-liners supplanted the old sampan fleet. Today, a few of the small sampans still operate as tourist charter boats out of Kewalo, but of the mighty aku boats, once the pride of the fleet and the backbone of Hawai‘i’s fishing industry, only the Kula Kai survives.
When I went down to Ke‘ehi to meet master shipwright Sam Whippy, the boat’s future was uncertain. Tom Fukunaga had become too ill to continue fishing, and his son Glen, who is not a fisherman, was in search of a buyer. But so far, no one had made an offer, and the Hawai‘i Maritime Museum, which couldn’t afford the upkeep, wouldn’t take it even as a donation. The Kula Kai was costing Glen Fukunaga $260 a day in drydock fees, and one morning last May, he decided to call it quits. He came down to the boatyard and told Sam to stop working; the money’d run out.
story by Michael Shapiro
photos by Brad Goda
Sam sands a new piece of plywood he's
installed on the Kula Kai's hull. He's been
maintaining the vessel for almost three
decades and is dedicated to keeping
this relic of a bygone era in the water
and fishing. "Me and this boat, we tied
up." he says.
She ain't pretty. Her aft's rotting, her keel's worm-eaten, and her paint's bleached and peeling. Sitting in drydock on the hot pavement of Sand Island's Ke‘ehi small boat harbor has been less than kind to the fifty-seven-year-old Kula Kai, a disheveled Miss Havisham of a boat waiting pitiably for the return of her bridegroom.
The Kula Kai is the last of her kind: an eighty-foot wooden vessel that began fishing local waters in 1949. Her design, known as the "Hawaiian sampan," is unique to Hawai‘i . . . the only boat other than the Hawaiian canoe that could arguably be called indigenous to the Islands. At one time, a fleet of large sampans based at Kewalo Basin in Honolulu plied the seas for ‘ahi (yellowfin) and aku (skipjack) tuna; they were an important part of the fishing industry and contributed substantially to the economy. The sampan came to represent a way of life, and a distinctive hybrid culture developed around them That culture, its ships and the shipwrights who built them are, but for the Kula Kai and one lone shipwright devoted to her restoration, all but extinct.
Sailed for centuries throughout East and Southeast Asia, sampans were originally a narrow-beamed variant of the Chinese junk—flat-bottomed, equipped with a broad, square rudder and the trademark sail reminiscent of a bat’s wing. Its name comes from the Chinese san (three) and pan (plank). Though the word “sampan” may inspire stereotypically Third-Worldish images of ungainly jalopies bobbing like flotsam off Hong Kong, the boat is in reality an impressive piece of nautical engineering; stable even in heavy seas, fast on a reach, easy to drive, cheap to repair, and comfortable for the crew who would sleep under an awning above deck. In 1899, a Japanese entrepreneur introduced the first sampan to Hawai‘i, a thirty-four-foot sailing vessel modeled after fishing boats common in Japan. The design caught on, and by 1916 five more sampans were built for use in tuna fishing. Gasoline engines replaced the sail, and by 1922, the sampans regularly outperformed other fishing boats to the extent that they came to dominate the growing deep-sea fishing industry. Because the fleet was skippered by Japanese captains and operated by Japanese crews (smuggled in from Japan), its success created racial tensions. The Exclusion Act of 1924 stopped the illegal immigration, and thereafter locals as well as immigrants manned the ships. Over the next two decades, local Japanese shipwrights adapted the design for Hawai‘i’s comparatively difficult conditions: the addition of a sponson (an overhang at the top of a bulkhead) gave added stability in heavy seas, a deckhouse provided protection from rough weather, diesel engines replaced gasoline, the bow was raised to keep the nose above the waves. These unique ships, the “Hawaiian sampans” that bore only a passing resemblance to their progenitors, were painted bright blue and launched at Kewalo Basin with the chanting of sutras and offerings of sake.
During the fleet’s heyday in the 1940s, when fishing was Hawai‘i’s third largest industry (after sugar and pineapple), approximately 400 sampans of various sizes operated off O‘ahu, Maui and the Big Island. The largest and most impressive were the aku boats, like the Kula Kai, which could spend up to a week at sea. A specialized bait well in amidships allowed them to carry live nehu (a small anchovy that aku find especially delicious), as well as provide ballast for stability. When the crew spotted a flock of seabirds—the telltale sign of a school of aku—they would chum the waters with nehu, causing a feeding frenzy. Standing barefoot on the deck of the heaving boat, with no safety harness or life vest to impede their movements, fisherman dipped lines with a single barbless (and baitless) hook into the water. Within seconds an aku would take the hook, and with a combination of physical strength and good timing, the fisherman would jerk it up, flick it over his shoulder and onto the deck, and drop his line back into the water. It was as dangerous as it was backbreaking; a forty-pound tuna could easily pull a man overboard. A skilled fisherman might catch three to five fish a minute.
On a good day, a single aku boat might haul in 40,000 pounds of fish, sometimes more.
I use to sit on the hillside at Kahana and just watch the Neptune in Kahana Bay. It was a beautiful experience to take note of their presence. Also too, as a little girl I use to see this blue-aqua boat just offshore in Waimanalo. I come from a long line of great fishermen that knew the ocean.