Last autumn I was in Berlin for a few days attending the ILA. Being in the area, I couldn’t resist taking an afternoon off to go to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin to have a look at what is quite a rare, in fact nearly extinct, type of sailing vessel. The Ethnological Museum has the last surviving ‘original’ Tepukei in the world, brought over from the Santa Cruz Islands in 1967. Fortunately this boat is no longer the only one of its kind; a few years ago a german camera team went to the Santa Cruz islands to film the building of the first new tepukei by the locals (I’m not sure if they brought schematics of the boat in Berlin with them or not). Either way, since then these vessels have been making a slow comeback. This particular boat was used for trade between the islands in the Santa Cruz archipelago.

The completely sealed decks, the raised bridgedeck, and the extremely sophisticated structure really set this vessel apart from other traditional proa types. I would venture to say that the Tepukei was likely a very seaworthy craft.

I particularly like the raised deck, which gives you massive amounts of clearance from the sea surface, despite the relatively small overall size of the boat. The nearly cylindrical hull, with the sealed, but removable, deck planking provides lots of internal volume for cargo, which can be easily loaded and unloaded. Having a more or less semicircular hull section keeps wetted surface area to a minimum, but I would venture to say this probably wasn’t the best upwind boat due to the lack of any real source of lateral resistance (no boards and a symmetric hull), and I could imagine that it could be rather unpleasant in a chop if only lightly loaded, because of the pretty much round cross-section. That said, the sheer brilliance of the structure never fails to astound me every time I look at it.

The bows, steering oar, and the socket for mounting the sail.

Some pics of the rig…

The structure of the Tepukei is quite complex, clearly a lot of time and effort went into its design and construction.

The structure on the leeward side and a view of the main deck looking from the crab claw towards the current stern of the boat.

The plaque in the museum that goes with it. I attempted to stay relatively close to the original wording, it reads roughly the following:

Offshore boat with outrigger and Crab Claw sail
Taumako / Nifiloli, Santa Cruz-Islands

The crab claw shaped sail has the same amount of drive as a rectangular sail of equal outer dimensions (as has been shown in wind tunnel tests). The large opening at the top of the sail likely prevents an excessive increase in pressure (“flow seperation”) when the sail is on a reach, increasing the efficiency of the sail. The ropes / ribbons attached to both spars of the sail control / reduce turbulence.

With the wind coming from abeam, the boat can sail in the opposite direction without tacking: the sail must simply be brought from the ‘bow’ to the ‘stern’ and set into its socket, and the support mast and control pole set up accordingly.

This boat (te puke a.k.a. alo folafolau) was built on the island of Taumako and used for trading voyages within the Santa Cruz archipelago from the (polynesian) Island of Nifiloli. Her owner gave her the name “Maunga Nefu” (a mountain on the island of Vanikoro, the home of the spirits of the dead). The boat ist the last of its kind. It was transported to Berlin in 1967.

The hull is coated in the traditional way using clay-mud from the seabottom.

Thank you for posting these.  I have been trying to puzzle out how tepuke is made from this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXt4PL2R1aU .  Your pictures show some details not visible in the video.

I just realized that the tepukei bears a bit of a resemblance to the canoes I grew up around, which makes sense as they’re from the same ethnic/cultural group (Melanesia).  The offshore variety have long since disappeared, but small coastal canoes are still very common.  Along the coast they’re like the family SUV for the Nationals that can’t afford a family SUV.  For an example, here’s an interesting picture I found on the internet:

The blue structure on the right is, ironically, the stern of Paul Allen’s US$200 million, 400’ megayacht (complete with two helicopters and a submarine).  Apparently it was tied up at the quayside in Madang Harbor, which is neat for me because I used to paddle out to there all the time when I was a kid.

Note the raised central platform for cargo.

What a great picture, it really shows the contrast between the “haves” and the “have-nots”. (But which is which 😉

Reminds me of this video, is that the same area of the pacific?
http://vimeo.com/38971749

-Thomas

tdem - 02 August 2013 04:17 AM

is that the same area of the pacific?

That depends on how big an area you’re talking about.  It’s about 1300 miles away, but depending on how you look at it you could say that it’s in the same neighborhood.

tdem - 02 August 2013 04:17 AM

Reminds me of this video, is that the same area of the pacific?
http://vimeo.com/38971749

We really have it easy in comparison, what a lot of work!

It is clear to see that because a hull involved the effort and time of so many people to cut to shape, bit by bit, that the hull shape (and overall boat design) was a constant subject of group discussion.  This means that boat design traditions were held in the minds of many people carried through many generations.  Multigenerational, societal boat design.  Probably many small experiments were tried and either accepted or rejected and discussed for hundreds of years as the ideas were brought up anew.  Continuous improvement based on real world testing of small changes, many hulls built, many small tests of design differences over hundreds of years.