event • Lectures

Wave Piloting in the Marshall Islands

Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Sheerr Room, Fay House
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

John Huth, Joseph Genz, Alson Kelen, and Gerbrant van Vledder sit at a panel table in front of an audience. Joseph Genz is speaking.

Wave Piloting in the Marshall Islands, June 20, 2017 Pictured from left: John Huth, Codirector of the science program at the Radcliffe Institute and Donner Professor of Science in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University Joseph Genz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i Alson Kelen, Director, Canoes of the Marshall Islands, Marjuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands Gerbrant van Vledder, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands Photo by Kevin Grady/Radcliffe Institute

For generations, traditional navigators in the Marshall Islands have relied on the techniques of wave piloting—the subtle perception of wave and swell patterns along with the sighting of atolls and islands—to safely guide their outrigger canoes across the oceans.

In 2015, several researchers replicated these voyages as they journeyed between the atolls of Majuro and Aur in an outrigger canoe without instrumentation.

In this discussion, these researchers will talk about their experience of wave piloting and explore possible links between modern science and this almost forgotten form of traditional Marshallese knowledge.

Speakers

John Huth, Codirector of the science program at the Radcliffe Institute and Donner Professor of Science in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University

Joseph Genz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i

Gerbrant van Vledder, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Alson Kelen, Director, Canoes of the Marshall Islands, Marjuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands

Isao Eknilang, Navigator, Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands

Part of the 2016–2017 Oceans Lecture Series. A larger, one-day public symposium on the topic took place on Friday, October 28, 2016.