Hokulea Sail 'Nā Hoku'

Nā Hoku was painted in 2015 by Nikau Hindin with Kōkōwai (red ochre), acrylics and natural dyes on sail from Hokule’a’s 1999 voyage to Rapanui (Easter Island).

In 2013 Nikau was studying abroad in Hawai’i with the Hōkūle’a’s young voyaging and apprentice navigator cohort called Kapu Na Keiki, The Sacred Children. This group of young sailers were dedicated crew for Hōkūle'a and spent many hours supporting the waka haurua kaupapa. The sails were given to Nikau by Laura, the mother of Hawaiian expert voyager Nainoa Thompson who was keeping the sails under her house.

Extract from Nikau’s workbook about Nā Hoku meaning ‘the stars’ in Hawaiian:

 “I painted lines symbolising: star paths, the star compass, the Polynesian triangle, swell direction, time estimation, the Southern cross, the North Star, the points the sun rise from in the Summer Solstice to the Winter solstice and so on… This painting is more conceptual [in comparison to my last paintings] involving a lot of research on navigation, with an emphasis on the sail substrate. I still have more sail to paint on and the content I am exploring feels endless in the sense that I will never stop learning about navigation, the stars, the moon, the sun, our shared ancestors and the way they perceived the world around us.”

Nikau’s involvement with Hōkūle’a contnued as she prepared for and began her World Wide Voyage. Most significantly whe crewed the Hōkūle’a in the Summer of 2015 during a coastal sail from Auckland down to Golden Bay, stopping in on different marae along the East Coast for education and community outreach, including Wellington, Napier, Gisborne and Tauranga.