Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks | Page 7

August 25, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kahului Landing

It is believed that initial Polynesian discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch) This effectively started the ‘Settlement’ phase.

For generations, the small, slowly growing population clustered around shore sites near streams that supplied them with water. Such sites are best for inshore fishing.

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods. (Krauss)

Kamakau states that there were no chiefs in the earliest period of settlement but that they came “several hundred years afterward … when men became numerous.” The communities shared familial relations and there was an occupational focus on collection of marine resources.

By the 14th century, inland elevations to around the 4,000 foot level were being turned into cultivated fields of the early dryland Kona Field System.

By the 15th century, residency in the dry uplands was becoming permanent, and there was an increasing separation of chiefly class from commoners. In the 16th century the population stabilized and the ahupua‘a land management system was established as a socio-economic unit. (Kepā Maly)

“The sweet potato and gourd were suitable for cultivation in the drier areas of the islands. The cult of Lono was important in those areas, particularly in Kona on Hawaii and ‘Ulupalakua on Maui . At both of these places there were temples dedicated to Lono. The sweet potato was particularly the food of the common people.” (Handy Handy & Pukui)

In the later Hawaiian period (c. 1600-1800), leading to the eventual rise of Kamehameha I to power (c.1791 A.D.), the ko kula kai and ko kula uka (coastal and upland-slopes) of this area came to be extensively cultivated with important staple and supplemental crops suited to dryland planting techniques and the Kona environment. (Kepa Maly)

“Not the smallest piece of Ground was left uncultivated. By their accounts it is hardly possible that this Country can be better cultivated or made to yield a greater sustenance for the inhabitants; they passed thro fields of hay, with which they cover the young Tarro Grounds, to prevent the suns drying it up.”

“In their walk through the Villages they met with real hospitality, every one was desirous of entertaining them, & used enticing arts to prevail upon them to stay some time amongst them; these Villages were never found farther than 4 or 5 miles from the sea side”. (Journals of Captain James Cook, Beaglehole)

“Small bays generally had a cluster of houses where the families of fishermen lived-as in Kona, Hawaii, in the specific localities of Kailua, Holualoa, Kahalu‘u, Keauhou, Napo‘opo‘o, Honaunau, Kealakekua, and Ho‘okena. … Wherever a ruling ali‘i had his establishment there was a large aggregation of domiciles.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

Of significance to the land of Kahului, is the fact that a number of early historians record that the area between modern day Kailua Town to Keauhou, was favored by the ali‘i nui (high ranking chiefs) of the island of Hawai‘i as a residence. (Maly)

Kahului is a ili within the ahupua‘a of Holualoa. (Ili, ahupua‘a and moku are Hawaiian terms that refer to land divisions. A moku is a large section of an island, while an ahupua‘a is a portion of a moku that is typically somewhat pie-shaped, and runs from the mountains to the ocean, and an ili is a portion of an ahupua‘a.) (NPS, Henderson House) (Others suggest Kahului is an ahupua‘a.)

Kahului is a part of this larger district that was a significant political seat and population center. (Maly) On the makai side, at Kahului Bay, was a canoe landing.

“Look at all the ulu niu [coconut grove]. This is about 1890, it’s Kahului Bay, there are canoes at the landing, the sand was up. Look where all the people are standing. And there are thatched house here. This is where the Kona Tiki Hotel is now.” (Kepā Maly)

“You know, the shore was very different here, even when I was young. The beach came up with sand and rocks into the yard, and there used to be an old canoe and boat landing in front here. You know Kahului was an important landing, before days.”

“Over there [pointing to a thatched house in the picture on the north side of the landing] that’s where the Kona Tiki Hotel is now. You see, they’ve filled all this in to make the road and hotel. The landing is all changed now.”

“But look, there are so many people, all Hawaiians down on the shore. Now almost all the families are gone. Our house would be just off the picture here. Now, all these walls and house sites are all gone too.” (Luciana Ka‘ailehua Makuakâne-Tripp, Interview with Kepa Maly)

August 14, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Ships versus Canoes

Humans have tended to live near water, and it is natural to make use of things that float. Logs or bundles of reeds were lashed together to form rafts; hollow trunks can be improved to become dugout canoes. (HistoryWorld)

In ancient marine times, people used rafts, logs of bamboo, bundles of reeds, air filled animal skins and baskets to traverse small water bodies. The first boat was a simple frame of sticks lashed together. (Karanc)

The earliest known boats were log-boats or dugouts, with examples from Holland and Denmark going back to the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic. (Wright) Carbon dating of a Danish dugout canoe shows its age at between 8040 and 7510 BC.

Over five thousand years ago, in Mesopotamia (present day Syria and Iraq, between the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf,) it is thought that the first sailing vessels were used (a square sail acted like a modern-day spinnaker to run with the wind.)

About 3000 BC, Greek ships had sails, and were pushed along by the wind. Small trading ships usually stayed close to the shore, so the sailors did not get lost. Greek warships had oars as well as sails – some as long as 115-feet.

The earliest plank-built boats (planks attached to a ribbed frame) are from Ancient Egypt and include the royal barge of Pharaoh Cheops, found dismantled in a rock-crypt in front of the great Pyramid and dated to about 2600 BC.

The invention of the sail was the greatest turning point in maritime history. The sails replaced the action of human muscles and sail boats could embark on longer trips with heavier loads. Earlier vessels used square sails that were best suited for sailing down wind. Fore and aft sails were devised later.

Egyptians take the credit for developing advanced sailing cargo ships. These were made by lashing together and sewing small pieces of wood. These cargo ships were used to transport great columns of stone for monument building. (Karanc)

Sea-going vessels followed and are depicted in bas-reliefs and wall paintings. In the Aegean a positive regatta of boats was depicted in fresco on the walls of a building destroyed by the great volcanic eruption of the island of Thera (Santorini) around 1400 BC.

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl, departed from Peru on the balsawood raft Kon-Tiki, demonstrating that a vessel made of nine balsa tree trunks up to 45-feet long, 2-feet in diameter, lashed together, could have been carried people 5,000-miles across the Pacific Ocean out 1,500 years ago.

In 1970, using Ra II, a papyrus reed lashed boat, Heyerdahl showed such vessels could cross the Atlantic, from Morocco to Barbados.

As boat designed evolved, the Vikings (around the 8th – 12th centuries) incorporated a keel into the hull design. Sails evolved, too; most look to the development of the triangular sail as the significant innovation (called lanteen (Latin) found in the Persian Gulf. Combined, this is basically what we know as today’s sailboat.

Before European open ocean exploration began, Eastern Polynesia had been explored and settled. (Herb Kane)

More than three thousand years ago, the uninhabited islands of Samoa and Tonga were discovered by an ancient people. With them were plants, animals and a language with origins in Southeast Asia; and along the way they had become a seafaring people.

Arriving in probably a few small groups, and living in isolation for centuries, they evolved distinctive physical and cultural traits. Samoa and Tonga became the cradle of Polynesia, and the center of what is now Western Polynesia. (Herb Kane)

Because of the great distances, these must have been sailing double-hulled canoes, with paddling as auxiliary power used only for brief periods-to launch or land canoes, or keep off a dangerous lee shore.

Changes in the primary power mode of the larger canoes of the Hawaiian Islands from sail to paddling, followed by a return to sail.

Voyaging vessels were double-hull; hulls were deep enough to track well while sailing across the wind or on a close reach into the wind. The round-sided V hulls provided lateral resistance to the water while under sail. (Herb Kane)

The most widely distributed and presumably most ancient sail was a triangle made up of strips of fine matting sewn together and mounted to two spars, one serving as a mast; the other, as a boom, usually more slender and either straight or slightly curved.

Throughout Eastern Polynesia, the same basic design probably persisted throughout the era of long distance two-way voyaging. (Herb Kane)

The double-hulled voyaging canoes were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

And though these double-hulled canoes had less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster: one of Captain Cook’s crew estimated one could sail “three miles to our two.” (Kawaharada)

In 1976, Hokuleʻa, the double-hulled Hawaiian voyaging vessel, demonstrated the Hawaiʻi – South Pacific sailing, when it left Hawaiʻi and reached Tahiti. (Hokuleʻa continues today on a worldwide voyage.)

Voyaging between Hawaiʻi and the South Pacific appears to have ceased several centuries before European arrival. No explanation is found in the traditions. (Herb Kane)

As long distance voyaging declined, the need shifted from voyaging canoes to large canoes for chiefly visits and warfare within the Hawaiian Islands, resulting in changes in canoe design.

For these short coastal and inter-island trips, paddling replaced sailing as the dominant power mode. Never certain when hospitality might turn sour, chiefs prudently traveled with bodyguards. (Herb Kane)

Throughout the years of late-prehistory, AD 1400s – 1700s, and through much of the 1800s, the canoe was a principal means of travel in ancient Hawaiʻi. Canoes were used for interisland and inter-village coastal travel.

Most permanent villages initially were near the ocean and at sheltered beaches, which provided access to good fishing grounds, as well as facilitating convenient canoe travel.

Fast forward to post-‘contact’ and the time of the Islands’ unification; a new style of boat was in the islands and Kamehameha started to acquire and build them.

The first Western-style vessel built in the Islands was the Beretane (1793.) Through the aid of Captain George Vancouver’s mechanics, after launching, it was used in the naval combat with Kahekili’s war canoes off the Kohala coast. (Thrum)

Encouraged by the success of this new type of vessel, others were built. The second ship built in the Islands, a schooner called Tamana (named after Kamehameha’s favorite wife, Kaʻahumanu,) was used to carry of his cargo of trade to the missions along the coast of California. (Couper & Thrum, 1886)

From 1796 until 1802 the kingdom flourished. Several small decked vessels were built. (Case) According to Cleveland’s account, Kamehameha possessed at that time twenty small vessels of from twenty to forty tons burden, some even copper-bottomed. (Alexander)

Canoe_Builder-(HerbKane)

Ancient-Voyaging-Canoe-(HerbKane)

Masked_Paddlers_at_Kealakekua-(HerbKane)

Kamehameha’s_Double_Canoe-(HerbKane)

Kamehameha_Waikiki_Landing-(HerbKane)

Arrival_of_Keoua_Below_Puukohola-(HerbKane)

Easter Island Petroglyph and Herb Kane Rendition of what Original Canoe may have looked like-PVS

Hokulea_Arrival_in_Tahiti-1976

Hokulea_parts-labeled

Pesse Dugout

Ra_II_1970

Mesopotamia-map

Viking Longboat

Triangular-Lateen_Sails

Kon-Tiki_1947

August 3, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Ice Floe

With the arrival of spring, large schools of whales make their appearance in the Arctic, forcing their way under the floes and through the leads in the ice, bound to the northward.

They follow the ice along the shores of Alaska to Point Barrow, and then turn to the eastward along the northern shore, where it is supposed they find good breeding-grounds. Late in the fall, they come back, and go south again along the shore of Siberia. (USCG)

In 1848, Yankee whalers first entered the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea. The ensuing 66-years of commercial whaling in the western Arctic had a profound impact on the history and culture of the region and Hawaiʻi. (Barr)

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between America and Japan brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

Whalers’ aversion to the traditional Hawaiian diet of fish and poi spurred new trends in farming and ranching. The sailors wanted fresh vegetables and the native Hawaiians turned the temperate uplands into vast truck farms.

There was a demand for fresh fruit, cattle, white potatoes and sugar. Hawaiians began growing a wider variety of crops to supply the ships.

In Hawaiʻi, several hundred whaling ships might call in season, each with 20 to 30 men aboard and each desiring to resupply with enough food for another tour. The whaling industry was the mainstay of the island economy for about 40 years.

The fleet of whaling-vessels reach Point Barrow during the first part of August. They then follow the whales eastward, as far as and sometimes farther than the mouth of the Mackenzie River. It is along here they make their greatest catch.

But they must not remain too long in the season, and the whaling captains generally look at leaving by the middle of September, in order to return to Point Barrow, before the last part of that month.

From there they work their way over to the westward, pursuing their whaling south along the coast of Siberia, and finally come out through the Bering Strait not later than the middle of October. (USCG)

Hardly a season passed that one or two whaling ships were not trapped or wrecked by the arctic ice pack; more than 160 whaling ships were lost. (Barr)

In August 1871, 41-whaling ships from Hawaiʻi, New England and California came to the icy waters of the Arctic in the pursuit of the bowhead whale. The pack ice was close to shore that year and left little room for maneuvering of the fleet.

The whaling captains counted on a wind shift from the east to drive the pack out to sea as it had always done in years past. Instead of moving offshore, the ice pack suddenly and unexpectedly trapped 32-ships between ice and shore. (NOAA)

The ice blocked their passage south. In the storm, they abandoned ship; 1,200-crew set out in small whale boats to make their way across 60-miles of water to safety. (Alaska History)

Of all the ships abandoned to the Arctic winter of 1871, only one ever sailed again. They ships included:

Awashonks, Carlotta, Champion, Comet, Concordia, Contest, Elizabeth Swift, Emily Morgan, Eugenia, Fanny, Florida II, Gay Head, George, George Howland, Henry Taber, J D Thompson, John Wells, Julian, Kohola, Mary, Massachusetts, Minerva (recovered later,) Monticello, Navy, Oliver Crocker, Paiea, Reindeer, Roman, Seneca, Thomas Dickason, Victoria, William Rotch

The stranded vessels were spread out in a line ranging more than sixty-miles south from Point Franklin. The whaleboats had to be dragged by hand over the pressure ridges of ice to the lead edge where they could be sailed in the little open water remaining.

Many times the way was blocked by ice closing the leads and the boats had to be hauled again to open water. Waiting to the south, free of the pack ice, were the remaining seven ships of the fleet.

The boats reached the rescue fleet safely without the loss of a single life. The overcrowded ships then made their way uneventfully to Hawaiʻi. Although whaling in the Arctic did continue for a number of years, the industry never recovered from this disaster. (Allen)

The economic blow to the whaling industry was staggering. Loss of the ships and cargoes was estimated at a value of $1.6-million ($22.5-million in 2000 dollars.)

Interestingly, however, few of these ships were replaced in the fleet, and most of the insurance paid to the whaling companies was reportedly invested in other industries, evidence of the beginning of the end of American whaling. (NOAA)

Although the whale-oil industry has a long history, whaling was already in decline. The petroleum industry displaced it during a relatively short time. In 1859, an oil well was discovered and developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

The discovery of petroleum, a new method of refining crude oil into kerosene and the invention of a lamp to burn the new kerosene product enabled petroleum to replace whale oil as a preferred means of lighting.

Kerosene also had a longer shelf life and less objectionable odor than whale oil, and people did what people generally do when they find a better product; they bought it.

In addition to the discovery of oil and the development of processes and products to use it, the whale-oil industry experienced a sharp reduction of whaling ships through two relatively large-scale events.

The Civil War, like the wars before, was very bad for the whaling fleet. Confederate cruisers like the Shenandoah, the Alabama and the Florida destroyed more than 50 Yankee whalers.

In addition, New Bedford contributed 37 old whaling ships to the war effort in the form of the “Stone Fleet.” These vessels were filled with rocks and sunk at the mouths of Southern harbors in an attempt to block shipping. (Whaling Museum)

Decade by decade, the value of whale oil dwindled, fewer ships were sent to sea, fewer men signed on, fewer fortunes were made and fewer livelihoods depended on American whaling prowess.

The losses in 1871 contributed to the decline. Fewer ships meant fewer whaling expeditions and less oil. (Ferguson) Whaling in Hawaiʻi soon came to an end.

July 25, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

A Connecticut Yankee in Captain Cook’s Crew

John Ledyard, the son of a ship captain, was born in Groton Connecticut in 1751. He grew up in thriving New London County, where the West Indian trade made fortunes for enterprising merchants and captains.

When he was 11, his father and an uncle died at sea. He went to live with his grandfather, then his uncle (he apprenticed in his uncle’s law office.) During his teens Ledyard vacillated between a career in law and one in the ministry. (Bashford)

He took neither and headed to sea.

In March 1775, he boarded a ship to England where he enlisted in the British Army. Four months later, in July, he transferred into the British Navy, joining the Royal Marines. (Drury)

A year later, July 12, 1776, a Corporal in the British Marines, he became part of the last expedition under Captain James Cook (the only American on board.)

It consisted of two ships, the Resolution and Discovery, the former commanded by Captain Cook (with Ledyard aboard,) and the latter by Captain Clerke. (Sparks)

From Britain, the Resolution and Discovery sailed south and east, around the Cape of Good Hope, across the southern Indian Ocean to Tasmania, New Zealand, and from there to the various Polynesian island chains of the South Pacific.

It was in Tahiti that Ledyard is reportedly the first Westerner to be tattooed – with “Otaheite marks on my hands”. (Ledyard)

The expedition continued north and eastward reaching the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. It then sailed north, probing the Alaskan coastline in search of a Northwest Passage, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. (Drury)

With cold weather setting in, Cook decided to head to the Sandwich Islands for winter quarters.

“We had been approached several times by some canoes at a distance, but none of them would come near enough to converse with us or that we might see what sort of people they were until we anchored and furled our sails.”

“Those who came first were armed and appeared inexpressibly surprised, though not intimidated. They shook their spears at us, rolled their eyes about and made wild uncouth gesticulations.”

“The next day we were visited by a great multitude of canoes, bringing yams, sweet potatoes, hogs, plantains and other tropical fruits, which they … exchanged for little bits of old iron, nails and other articles.” (Ledyard)

While there, Ledyard requested permission to scale Mauna Loa, for the double purpose of exploring the interior, and, if possible, climbing to the top of the mountain. The request was granted.

The botanist and a gunner of the Resolution accompanied him; Hawaiians were also engaged to serve as guides. (Sparks)

“The woods here are very thick and luxuriant, the largest trees are nearly thirty feet in the girt, and these with the shruberry underneath and the whole intersected with vines renders it very umbrageous.” (Ledyard)

They never made it to the summit, having underestimated its height (13,680 feet,) distance and the thickness of the tropical undergrowth on its slopes, and had to turn back.

He was there when Cook was killed, “Cook and Mr. Phillips were together a few paces in the rear of the guard … Cook having at length reached the margin of the water between the fire of the boats waved with his hat to cease firing and come in, and while he was doing this a chief from behind stabed him with one of our iron daggers … Cook fell with his face in the water and immediately expired.”

“The natives did not attempt to molest the boats in their debarkation of our people, which was much wondered at, and they soon joined the others upon the Morai (heiau) amounting in the whole to about 60.” (Ledyard)

They left the Islands; the expedition returned to England in the fall of 1780. He was obligated to stay there until his enlistment expired early in 1782, while the American Revolution dwindled toward its close.

Refusing to fight against his countrymen, he was detained in barracks for two years. Then, sent out on a frigate that cruised American waters for several months, he jumped ship. (Halliday)

He began to write his ‘Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage,’ published in 1783. After Ledyard’s petition to the General Assembly seeking copyright protection provoked a series of state laws that codified that right. Eventually, a federal copyright law was adopted in 1790. (Drury)

His journeys weren’t over.

Seeking support for a new expedition, he travelled to Europe. He met Ambassador Thomas Jefferson there, and discussed his plans to cross the American continent alone (from Stockholm, Sweden, across Siberia to New England.

Discussion of that journey helped call Jefferson’s attention to the possible value of the Northwest Coast and the need to explore the American continent; it led to the expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-1806, after Jefferson became president.

Ledyard would return to the Pacific Northwest on an expedition of his own—not merely to make a fortune in the fur trade, but to realize his dream of crossing the American continent alone (from Stockholm, Sweden, across Siberia to New Engand.)

However, his one-man journey ended a year later when Russian forces loyal to Catherine the Great arrested him in Irkutsk, Siberia, accusing him of being a spy. He was subsequently banished from the country. (Halliday)

A final journey, begun in June 1788, would be Ledyard’s last.

On an expedition to explore the interior of the African continent, he suffered a digestive ailment. His attempt at self-medication, by swallowing sulfuric acid and tartar emetic, eventually claimed his life in January 1789. John Ledyard was 38 years old. (Ray)

John_Ledyard

Captain James Cook-1776

Cook_Entering_Kealakekua_Bay-(HerbKane)

Cook_Expedition_Off_Waipio_Valley-(HerbKane)

Cook-death

Cook-Kealakekua_Bay-Webber-1778

Death_of_Cook-February_14,_1779-(HerbKane)

HMS_Discovery-(HerbKane)

HMS_Discovery_Puna_Coast-(HerbKane)

King_Kalaniopuu_Welcomes_Cook-Kealakekua-(HerbKane)

Ledyard-voyages

Masked_Paddlers_at_Kealakekua-(HerbKane)

Zoffany_Death_of_Captain_Cook-1794

Jefferson_to_Ledyard-August 16, 1786

Captain Cook Marker

John-Ledyard

July 17, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Breakwater

It is called Breakwater (or Breakwaters), not because it served as a breakwater – it actually was a quarry site that produced some of the boulders that helped form the Hilo Bay breakwater. It’s below Kukuihaele, just before you get to the Waipi‘o Valley lookout and the road down to Waipi‘o.

It’s a place name noted by John Clak in his Hawaiʻi Place Names: Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites as, “Breakwater. Fishing site, Kukuihaele, Hawai’i. Small peninsula at the base of the sea cliffs between Kukuihaele Light and Waipi’o Valley.”

“The name is linked to the construction of the 2-mile long breakwater in Hilo Bay, which was started in 1908 and completed in 1929. Boulders from the peninsula were loaded on barges and towed to Hilo Bay, where they were used in the construction of the second phase of the breakwater.”

“The basaltic lava flows of Hawaii, where little weathered and sound, furnish an unlimited supply of rock suitable for crushing and for use as coarse aggregate in concrete.”

“Basalt is not so hard in respect to cutting tools as granite, but it is an exceedingly tough rock with a high resistance to impact. In the production of any grade of stone from basaltic lava flows, there is much loss through the necessity for handling the clinkery layers of unsuitable material which lie between the dense parts of successive flows …”

“… and this expense becomes prohibitive in attempting to produce large size dimension stone in most quarries, as well as in production of breakwater stone of large size.”

“Such stone has in some instances been shipped by barge from one Island to another owing to the difficulty of finding suitable local material.” (Historic Inventory of the Physical, Social and Economic, and Industrial Resources of the Territory of Hawaii, 1939)

“The United States entered into a contract in the amount of $400,000 with Delbert E Metzger, on June 12, 1908, for constructing a breakwater at Hilo Harbor, Hilo, Hawaii, the price being $2.48 ½ per ton of 2,000 pounds of stone put in place.”

“The specifications call for a jetty of the rubble mound type, but as it is being built, it resembles more a huge sloping wall of carefully laid masonry. It has a uniform top width of 15 feet, eleven feet so that their longest dimension is perpendicular to the slope.”

“The stone used below three feet below low water must weigh 130 pounds per cubic foot, or more, and all stone above this plane must weigh 150 pounds per cubic foot.”

“This specified weight for the stone sent the contractor nearly thirty miles, to Puna, on the east point of the island, to open a quarry, for while the whole island is virtually built of flows of lava rock and the breakwater itself rests on a reef of it …”

“… there are comparatively few places on the slopes of Mauna Loa where rock of this weight may be found in large quantities.” (Overland Monthly, July 1909)

Throughout the construction of the Hilo Breakwater boulders for the breakwater came from three primary sources: Kapoho, Waiakea and Kukuihaele. It’s the latter that is the place that is the subject, here.

“First Blast for Hilo Breakwater. … The first blast for rock for the Hilo breakwater was fired September 3 at the Lyman quarry in Puna. The blast consisted of three tons of dynamite. Thus the actual work on this great enterprise has begun.” (Advertiser, Sept 13, 1908)

“[O]n July 21, 1914, it was announced that a new quarry at Waipio, near Kukuihaele would be opened.” (Warshauer, HTH)

“Waiulili Peninsula [a rock outcrop] a quarter mile north of Kukuihaele Landing & a quarter mile south of the mouth of Waipi’o Valley is the so-called boulder quarry/breakwater to take boulders to build Hilo Harbor”. (Narimatsu)

“The small breakwater that is being constructed on the Kukuihaele side of Waipio Gulch is progressing well, and the contractors hope to soon have loaded scows on their way to the Hilo structure. Twenty thousand tons of rock, each individual stone of which must weigh eight tons, are required for the particular part of the breakwater contract that will be handled first.”

“There is an ample supply of that kind of rock at the Kukuihaele end and the contractors anticipate no trouble as to that part of the work. The quarry is located on the old trail that winds around the bluff from Kukuihaele to Waipio.” (Hawaii Herald, Aug 14, 1914)

“The two advantages to the contractor which will result from this plan, as it is seen by those who are favoring it are a saving of transportation charges and saving of quarry charges.”

“It is claimed that the quarry at Waipio can be much more easily and cheaply worked than any other one, and that the hauling by water will be about forty cents a ton cheaper than the railroad could do for.” (Hilo Daily Tribune, July 21, 1914)

“[The Hilo breakwater contractor, Delbert Metzger] went out to a cliff face out beyond [Honoka‘a] at Kukuihaele where there was a landing, and in fact he quarried the rock off of the face of a cliff way out there and swung it down to a barge and took the barge then right in …”

“… towed it right up to the breakwater and he had a better deal that way than he would have had if he’d had to haul it by truck. And so he made a heck of a lot more money. He got it practically free – big slabs that came right off the face of the cliff.”

“[Metzger made] a lot of money and decided that he didn’t want to be an engineer anymore – he wanted to be a lawyer – went back to law school and came back out to Hawaii and stopped there on the Big Island.” (Judge Martin Pence, Watumull Oral History) (Metzger later became Federal District Magistrate for South Hilo.) (Melendy)

“Huge boulders have fallen from time to time from various causes, and these will admit of easy handling without the necessity of blasting. The distance from the quarry to the Hilo breakwater is about forty-eight miles and the contractors feel sure that the cost of towage will be very reasonable.”

Young Brothers was hired to carry the rocks to Hilo. “In order to meet the growing demand of the towage business in this harbor, the Young Bros have purchased the tug Breakwater … which it has been using for towing scows from Waipio to the Hilo breakwater.” (Star Bulletin, Aug 2, 1917) The ‘Breakwater’ tugboat was later renamed ‘Mikiala.’

Jack Young was in charge of the work at Hilo and spent the better part of a year skippering the Brothers (the name of their tug) as it towed a scow loaded with rock to be dumped on the breakwater extension.

A news article appearing in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser on December 25, 1911, provides some insights into the job of building the breakwater as the Young Brothers’ crew experienced it:

“The sea had been rough for several days, and finally made it impossible to work. On Monday, the … scow was taken out in tow of the Hukihuki, having on board about 125 tons of rock, which it was to dump on the bottom ….”

“Here the substructure, which has been laid by Lord & Young, forms a kind of artificial reef over which the waves break in stormy weather. On the day in question, the breakers were thundering in at a great rate, and great combers were continually sweeping the deck of the scow.”

“Nevertheless, the Hukihuki bucked through the swirling water, and she had just brought the scow over the substructure, though not in the exact place where the load was to be dumped, when trouble began.”

“The heavy scow was let down, in the trough between two big waves, to such a depth that one of her edges struck the rock of the substructure with such a force that the timbers were splintered and broken, and the water began to pour in through the leak.”

“All thought of depositing the load had to be abandoned, and the Hukihuki maneuvered the disabled craft out of the breakers. The scow was sinking so rapidly that it was impossible to save the load, and good Kapoho rock was jettisoned.”

“By good seamanship the scow was towed to safety, where she is being repaired.”

Contrary to urban legend, the Hilo breakwater was built to dissipate general wave energy and reduce wave action in the protected bay, providing calm water within the bay and protection for mooring and operating in the bay; it was not built as a tsunami protection barrier for Hilo.

It was while Young Brothers was engaged in building the Hilo breakwater that Captain Jack Young met and fell in love with Alloe Louise Marr. She had come to Hilo from Oakland, California, in 1909 with her father, Joseph Thomas Marr, to visit his cousin, Jack Guard.

John Alexander (Jack) Young and Alloe Louise Marr were married in a double wedding ceremony with her cousin, Stephanie Guard and John Fraser on September 20, 1911 at Hilo. (Harry Irwin (later Judge and territorial Attorney General) was Jack’s best man and Florence Shipman (daughter of WH Shipman who later married Roy Blackshear) was bridesmaid.) In 1922, Young Bros. Ltd. contracted the towing to build the breakwater at Nawiliwili harbor hauling by barge the 6-ton rocks from the quarry on the coast of Maui to build the base of the breakwater.

Jack and Alloe Young are my grandparents. I am the youngest brother of the youngest brother of the youngest brother of Young Brothers. (My grandfather was the youngest of the Young Brothers; my father was the youngest brother in his generation; and I am the youngest brother in our family.)

We never met our grandparents, and they never knew they had grandchildren from their son Kenny; they both had died before they knew my mother was pregnant with my older brother.

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