HANALEI, Kaua'i — An international band of Kaua'i canoe builders say they're not only building a traditional sailing canoe on the shore of Waioli Stream—they're building a community.

It is a hands-on process, in which they build the tools, then build the skills, and finally build the canoe. Eventually, their commitment is also to begin managing specific trees for the wooden canoes of future generations.

"This is a cooperative experience between the Polynesian community, Micronesian community and the old-time haole community on the island," said farming consultant Peter Narburgh, who lives on Kaua'i and has worked in Micronesia.

Their vessel is a traditional outrigger voyaging and fishing canoe used in Yap. It is being constructed of salvaged monkeypod and Hawaiian koa, cut with adzes in the traditional way, its planks lashed together as they have been in some Pacific islands for thousands of years.

It is about 27 feet long, close to 3 feet deep, and with long, sturdy crossbeams that on a Hawaiian canoe would be called 'iako. Its outrigger float is bulbous and heavy by Hawaiian canoe standards, but provides the canoe with remarkable stability while sailing.

Several of the builders are from the Micronesian island of Ifalik. It is about 150 miles from Satawal, the island that is home to Mau Piailug, the man who taught traditional navigation techniques to Hawaiian voyaging canoe navigator Nainoa Thompson. And several of the builders, including Santus Wichimai, are cousins to Piailug. Wichimai now lives on Kaua'i.

The Ifalik islanders brought some of their own canoe-building adzes, one of them a slab of iron that tradition says was bartered from German traders 150 years ago.

"That blade probably carved 100 canoes," Wichimai said.

The Yap canoe-building islanders are building, but are also teaching their skills. One of the skills — to build the tools. Hanalei resident Robert Pa held up an adz whose steel was fashioned from an old lawnmower blade and whose shaft was made of a curved piece of milo wood.

"For myself, it's about lost culture. I'm a Polynesian. We're Polynesians together, and fulfilling one dream," Pa said.

A few individuals three or four years ago began thinking about building canoes. Narburgh said he met Wichimai and they decided "we were tired of fishing from the shore." Other individuals expressed interest. And then one day a big monkeypod tree needed to be removed from a sacred spot, and they noticed it had a perfect shape for a canoe.

"Everything kept falling together," Pa said.

They took down the tree, let it begin to dry, and set about building a small Yap-style paddling canoe from a koa log. That one is now paddled regularly in the Hanalei area. Earlier this year, they launched the mission to build what Wichimai said is a "waaterag," sometimes called a flying proa.

The canoe under construction sits under a bamboo and tarp roof, on a pile of wood chips, each a wafer the size of a human hand, each cut clean and smooth by the adzes.

"Mau Piailug taught Hawaiians how to sail and navigate. These guys are teaching us how to build the canoes. We're using traditional tools because power tools don't do as good a job," Narburgh said. "The point isn't to see how fast we can build a canoe, but to return to the old way."

The builders hope to finish in another six weeks or so, and to launch their venture in early October. The next canoe project, Pa said, may be to build a double-hulled voyaging canoe, of a design that draws from both the Hawaiian and the Micronesian canoe shapes.

But the next canoe will always be forming in builders' minds. The larger goal isn't a vessel that floats on the water—it's something deeper.

"We're not just building canoes. It's about building friendship and trust, a strong bond among people," Narburgh said.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.