Roy Disney went surfing with Duke Kahanamoku when he was 8 years old and has had a love affair with the ocean in Hawai'i ever since. Now, he's trying to pass something of that passion on to young people across the country.

At Sand Island yesterday, the 77-year-old Disney watched proudly as 14 youths hand-picked to crew in next year's Transpacific Yacht Race to Honolulu got their first taste of sailing in local waters, doing it under the tutelage of navigator Nainoa Thompson on the most venerable of Hawaiian vessels, the twin-hull canoe Hokule'a.

"The first time you sail into Hawai'i, it's a very emotional experience," Disney said. "It's something they'll never forget."

Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, is the driving force behind Morning Light, a project to pick, train, finance and film the youngest crew ever to participate in a Transpac race. When the race begins next year in Los Angeles, the crew's average age will be less than 21.

This weekend, crew members from across the country got together for the first time in Hawai'i, meeting with Thompson to learn about ancient Pacific voyaging techniques and what they have meant to a proud revival of the Hawaiian traditions in a modern era.

The crew planned to spend several days sailing aboard Hokule'a, break for the Christmas holidays, then return to Honolulu in January for what promises to be six months of vigorous training aboard their own boat, the Morning Light.

While it might seem at first glance that the multimillion-dollar, high-tech boats of the Transpacific Yacht Race don't have anything in common with traditional Hawaiian sailing canoes that navigate by the stars, nearly everyone involved will say differently.

"They're more similar than you think," Thompson said as the crew readied Hokule'a for an afternoon sail toward Waikiki. "We come from very different cultures, but there's a shared love of the sea, a passion for sailing, and a desire to pass that knowledge on to the next generation."

Crew members, who were picked from among 500 worldwide applicants earlier this year and flew together to Hawai'i on Disney's personal jet, yesterday seemed eager to get their feet wet in Hawaiian waters and to start getting to know one another as only those alone on an ocean can.

"It's cool to see that science of the boat, but it's so much more than that," said Chris Schubert, 21, a crew member who started sailing with his parents at 3 weeks old and now is a student at the U.S. Naval Academy.

"There will be a hundred new experiences coming at us all at once, but the biggest thing is we'll be starting to work together," he said.

Mark Towill, a 17-year-old Punahou student and the only Hawai'i member of the crew, said that's exactly what he thinks will happen.

"I learned from sailing on the Hokule'a that you get on as friends and get off as family," said Towill, who sailed with Thompson to Kaua'i earlier this year. "Sailing on the Hokule'a has been a very important part of my life, and I'm hoping to share that experience with all the others here now."

Although Disney has been coming to Hawai'i for decades and sailed in the Transpac himself at least 16 times, he had never met Thompson until Towill introduced them over dinner a few months ago.

"We both realized that we have this deep respect for the ocean and a passion for sailing, and that we're interested in teaching young people," Disney said. "It just seemed natural to bring these two projects together, and we're grateful that we could wrangle three days with Nainoa helping our crew."

Thompson said that Disney's efforts mirror his own philosophy of bringing people together through sailing.

"It seems like the world builds its own difficulties out of differences," Thompson said. "Now, we're coming together to go sailing. It's a small microcosm of the way things could be."

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.