{"id":315795,"date":"2020-01-16T06:03:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T20:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=315795"},"modified":"2020-01-16T06:03:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T20:03:41","slug":"time-running-out-for-canoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/time-running-out-for-canoe\/","title":{"rendered":"Time running out for canoe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Grand master navigator Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Piailug buffs the base of the canoe at the canoe house in Susupe last Jan. 15. (JUSTINE NAUTA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s good news and bad news about the traditional canoe that is intended to be shown at the Festival of the Pacific Arts in Hawaii this June.<\/p>\n

The good news is that the canoe\u2019s base\u2014which is usually used to hold supplies\u2014is halfway done.
\nThe bad news is that time is running out on the canoe, with only a little over five months left for it to be done in time for the FestPac. The two men who are currently working on the canoe at the canoe house in Susupe\u2014grand master navigator Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Urmeyang Piailug and John Castro, project coordinator of the seafaring tradition program of the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs\u2014are hopeful but they themselves have doubts, that the remaining five months may not be enough time for them to finish making the canoe in time. The two have been working on making the canoe since October 2018 in Susupe.<\/p>\n

When finished, the canoe would be approximately 34 feet long. Right now, the base is the only thing that is almost finished. Piailug and Castro have their work cut out for them since they are the only two working on the canoe and if they want to meet the deadline of testing the canoe to see if it\u2019s ready to sail. As for when it will be done, that is still a big question mark. <\/p>\n

The traditional canoe will be made out of dokduk\u2014breadfruit tree\u2014that was harvested from Rota and the sail will be made out of a nylon canvas fabric.<\/p>\n

Plans to sail the canoe from here to Hawaii is \u201cimpossible,\u201d since the storage space of the canoe will only be able to hold a week\u2019s worth of food supplies and that won\u2019t be enough for a trip that is estimated to take three months of sailing. If the idea is to sail to Hawaii to make it to the FestPac, they should have started sailing yesterday, according to both Piailug and Castro. Shipping the canoe to Hawaii to showcase it at FestPac 2020 seems more doable.<\/p>\n

The traditional canoe has been in the works since 2017 and should have been almost finished but, due to multiple storms, parts that were needed weren\u2019t available after Super Typhoon Yutu hit in October 2019.
\n\u201cIt would be the most honorable thing to have a maiden voyage to the island of Rota to present to the anim\u00e5s [ancestral spirits] what we made out of what we took from them,\u201d said Castro.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re connected by the water, the important thing is to show the people that this [sailing] is what our ancestors used to do when they needed to go [from] island to island,\u201d said Piailug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s good news and bad news about the traditional canoe that is intended to be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}