Research, consultation, planning, communications

The Kupe Waka Centre is intended to be the national waka centre for Aotearoa~New Zealand, a celebration of the waka building of Hekenukumai Ngaiwi Puhipi Busby, and an icon of the country’s visitor industry.  Its mission is to share the knowledge and experience of ocean-going waka sailing and celestial navigation which forms an integral part of this country’s cultural heritage.  It also celebrates the waka hourua that played a central role in the peopling of this country, like much of the Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.

The Centre will be no museum – it is to be an active site of waka building, carving, and learning open to the public seven days a week.  For the visitor, the site will be interactive with opportunities to  experience wayfinding, sailing, and paddling at various levels from a simple introduction to short voyages.

The Kupe Waka Centre will sustain both the construction and maintenance of waka and on-going training and development in blue water sailing of waka hourua and celestial navigation.  

As a major tourism facility in an area of significant economic and social deprivation, it is also an important generator of employment and economic activity.

The Centre will also represent a point of reference for the waka of the Pacific, symbolised in an ahu matched by identical structures on Rapanui and Hawai’i and the construction of a base for the Polynesian Voyaging Society from Hawai’i on the site.

The waka building complex has been designed to both respect the traditions of waka building and yet meet the visitors’ expectations to get as close possible to the waka and the carvers.

The complex has two buildings.  One is tapu with glass walls so that visitors can look in at the waka building in progress.  In Maori custom access to waka under construction is limited.  The layout of the building will respect this custom, and health and safety requirements, while ensuring that visitors can enjoy  excellent views of waka being carved.   

The other is noa through which the visitors can walk and look at carving close-

up.  A range of carving projects will be undertaken in this building which do not have the same cultural sensitivity as the waka.

Between the two buildings there will be a roofed over area where the major work of hull carving can be done and the waka hourua can be assembled and repaired.

Work is now well advanced on a second waka hourua. This will embody lessons in  hull shape and other elements of waka design learned from ten years of sailing Te Aurere over 30,000  nautical miles.    

The invitation to support the Centre/prospectus can be downloaded from here.