Gaualofa stayed with us for several months whilst visiting Wellington for the Waka Odyssey Festival.
We welcomed the Samoa Voyaging Society and their traditional voyaging canoe, Gaualofa, to stay at Orakei Marina from January to their recent departure last week. The objective of the society is to ‘firmly re-establish traditional voyaging as part of the Samoan cultural and national heritage.’
Gaualofa is 22 metres long, has twin-hulls that sleep 16 crew and she is powered exclusively by the wind and sun.
Since 2009, when Gaualofa was first acquired by the society, she has sailed more than 40,000 nautical miles, a distance further than a circumnavigation of the globe!
We enjoyed their company in the Marina and wish them luck on their return to Samoa and for future voyages!
