Model Tongiaki (sailing canoe)

This is a model of an eighteenth-century tongiaki (double hulled sailing canoe) from Tonga. It has two hulls of equal length joined together by a deck supporting a large triangular sail and rigging. Tongiaki were used in Tonga prior to the nineteenth century.

European sightings
European explorers sailing near Tonga made the first images of these huge sailing vessels. There are records of sightings by Dutch explorers Willem Schouten off the island of Tafahi in 1616 and by Abel Tasman near Tonga in 1643. Of the tongiaki Schouten sighted, he declared 'there are few ships in Holland that could overhaul them'. In the late 1700s, British explorer James Cook described a tongiaki of 70 feet (21 metres) in length and another carrying 150 men.