{"id":47327,"date":"2021-10-27T16:47:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T20:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=47327"},"modified":"2023-05-06T18:16:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T22:16:39","slug":"ancient-fijian-culture-brought-to-forefront-with-sailing-drua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/story\/destinations\/ancient-fijian-culture-brought-to-forefront-with-sailing-drua\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Fijian Culture Brought to Forefront with Sailing Drua"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Drua <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The Fijian drua were revered throughout the islands for their impressive size and performance. Fiji\u2019s nonprofit Drua Experience teaches traditional navigation and connects young people to Fijian culture and experience.<\/span>\n Courtesy Drua Experience<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

Long before Cruising World <\/i>magazine, before production fiberglass boats or even square-rigged tall ships, there were a variety of different canoe designs sailing the trade-wind-kissed waters of the Pacific Ocean<\/a>. Widely recognized as one of the first bluewater fleets in the history of the world, the multihull canoes of the Pacific covered vast expanses of water as pioneering voyagers and nomadic islanders settled everything from volcanic island chains to tiny, geographically disparate coral atolls. Of these many different canoe designs that sailed the Pacific, few were as grand as the mighty Fijian drua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The drua were revered throughout the Pacific for their \u00adincredible size and performance, along with their huge \u00adcargo-carrying ability. The largest of them were more than 120 feet long and capable of carrying up to 200 warriors to \u00adwindward, at speeds of 15 knots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Around the world, the boats of our ancestors have been replaced by modern craft with engines and composite \u00adconstruction. The boats of Fiji are no different, and the introduction of the combustion engine signaled the death of the drua. Drua were originally built in the Lau group of islands in eastern Fiji\u2014islands revered for their legendary boatbuilders and high-quality timber. The drua left the islands one by one and disappeared over the years. While there are records of when each drua left the Lau group, there\u2019s not a single record of a drua returning to those islands in modern times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Meet i Vola Sigavou, <\/i>which translates to \u201cthe new rising star.\u201d A drua built using fiberglass and modern building methods, i Vola Sigavou <\/i>is a reproduction of the lines of Ratu Finau<\/i>, the last known drua built in the traditional sense back in 1913. Launched in 2016, the 40-foot i Vola Sigavou<\/i> is based in western Fiji and is part of a nonprofit organization called the Drua Experience. The drua takes tourists and locals sailing as part of an effort to \u00adrevitalize drua sailing culture and traditional navigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n

RELATED: <\/b>Canoe Kids in the Solomon Islands<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no tourists in Fiji, and we are not expecting any tourists in the foreseeable future,\u201d said i Vola Sigavou<\/i> skipper Setareki Corvus Ledua, in August 2020. \u201cWe thought to ourselves, this could be the perfect time to go out to the Lau group and do more research and collect all of the evidence that still exists.\u201d The ambitious voyage saw the drua sail around most of the main island of Viti Levu before crossing eastward toward the Lau group. The voyage was dubbed na lesu tale<\/i> voyage, which translates to \u201cthe homecoming,\u201d and it marked the first time in modern history that a drua sailed into its ancestral home of the Lau group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The two-month journey from September to November 2020 saw the drua and its crew of six Fijians sail more than 500 nautical miles around much of the country. Beginning in Fiji\u2019s touristy western division, the crew sailed i Vola Sigavou<\/i> north and east over the top of Viti Levu, and then waited for proper weather before sailing across the Koro Sea and crossing to the remote Lau group. With more than a dozen stops along the way, the drua\u2019s ultimate destination was Fulaga Island, the captain\u2019s native home and the beating heart of drua culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The voyage was part of the Drua Experience\u2019s larger goal of establishing a traditional navigation and canoe-building school in Fiji to reconnect youth with traditional sailing culture, navigation and the ocean itself. The voyage was conceived as a way to revitalize ancient customs and traditions while collecting knowledge from living elders before that knowledge dies out forever.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiji\u2019s Drua Experience works to reconnect youth with traditional sailing culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Ronnie Simpson","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20211027","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"162","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Fiji drua designed after ancient sailing canoes is part of program which aims to revitalize Fiji's sailing culture and traditional navigation.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"QLUWU7VVPFACHB4GH2BQZLOUIE","arc_website_url":"story\/destinations\/ancient-fijian-culture-brought-to-forefront-with-sailing-drua\/","custom_permalink":"story\/destinations\/ancient-fijian-culture-brought-to-forefront-with-sailing-drua\/","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":true,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[205,434,515,286,1834,552],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}