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Sailing waka starting to take shape at Rongotai College

The Boat & Beach Wise Trust is helping Wellington school children to better understand the significant Māori and Pacific Island voyaging heritage associated with the settlement of Aotearoa New Zealand, through the RŪNĀ schools programme. To help us with this journey we have partnered with with the Black Foils Sail GP team and Yachting New Zealand to build a small sailing waka that can be used in the three modules of RŪNĀ.


The project started in the 2023 October school holidays when a group of students from Rongotai College and Wellington East Girls' College went to Auckland for a waka hourua and sailing technology wānanga. They spent four days with Te Toki Voyaging Trust and the Black Foils Sail GP team learning about traditional Māori navigation techniques and modern racing boat building technologies. This was followed by a senior student, who is studying technology at Rongotai College, being embedded with the Tech Team as an intern at the Sail GP event in Chrstchurch in term one 2024.


Then part way through term one 2024 James Richardson (a Boat & Beach Wise trustee and physics and technology teacher at Rongotai College) took delivery of a flat-pack outrigger canoe kitset, modeled upon the Va'a Motu sailing canoes from the Pacific Islands. After taking a deep breadth upon seeing the number of components, students from Rongotai College and Wellington East Girls College have been making great progress at creating the craft.


And now a group of Rongotai College and Worser Bay Boating Club "Old Boys" have joined the building project to help out with some of the more technical parts of the build including building the rig out of a repurposed laser masts and a recycled Black Foils Sail GP F50 Jib!


See if you can recognise any of the WBBC & RC "Old Boys" in amongst these progress shots.





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