Uncertainty in marine weather routing: an investigation into Polynesian seafaring

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to quantify how Polynesian seafaring technology, climate and season may have influenced the length of the “long pause” between the 35 settlement of West and Central East Polynesia. Current literature has not investigated the performance of Polynesian seafaring technology at the time of the long pause and how this could influence colonisation, or how uncertainty propagates through the marine weather routing process. Of interest is how Polynesian seafaring technology could have contributed towards the length of 40 the long pause and how competing factors and sources of uncertainty could have influenced the result. A review of Polynesian seafaring technology has allowed the performance of the earliest recorded voyaging canoe, the Tongiaki to be predicted. A novel methodology was developed to quantify the influence of weather, performance and 45 numerical uncertainty on the minimum time taken to complete a specific voyage. The ability to use Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) to model the reliability within the routing algorithm was shown to improve the chances of completing a voyage using an autonomous sailing craft, a modern naval architectural problem. By applying the novel methodology it was found that the Tongiaki was only able 50 to complete voyages between Samoa and Aituitaki, the voyage bridging West and East Polynesia, under El Niño conditions. The windward ability of a canoe was found to be more influential than speed increases from simulations generated by using a parametric voyaging canoe model. The trend in simulated Polynesian canoe performance mirrors that seen in the spatial development in Polynesian 55 seafaring technology.

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ORCID for James Blake: orcid.org/0000-0001-5291-8233

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