Model Voyaging Canoe from the estate of artist Bill Kapuni of Moloka‘i

Around 2010 I facilitated an acquisition of Hawaiian art from the late Moloka‘i artist Bill Kapuni for the National Museum of the American Indian. That acquisition included a beautiful model voyaging canoe. Canoe builders and Friends of Hokule‘a Jay Dowsett and Tay Perry told me they thought it was a model of the Mo‘okiha canoe being built on Maui.

The hulls are strip-planked to give the heart shape characteristic of Hokule‘a. All the pieces are finely finished. Apparently the curved deck idea was dropped. Note the jib, a later addition to Hawai‘i's voyaging canoes.