My interests in art, architecture, Polynesian traditions, and sailing found a common focus in the Polynesian voyaging canoe. Early Europeans in the Pacific had made sketches of canoes, most of them ineptly rendered and tantalizingly incomplete. Inaccuracies in these drawings, obvious to any sailor, piqued my curiosity about their design. Beginning with the most comprehensive work on the subject, Canoes of Oceania. I gathered additional photographs and measurements of Polynesian canoes and canoe fragments in museum collections, and searched for other bits of information on canoes and voyaging that the authors had not included in their work. With help from anthropologists Terence Barrow and Kenneth Emory in Honolulu, doors which would have otherwise remained closed now opened to collections and archives worldwide. Assembling the bits of information made it possible to reconstruct some of the canoes in architectural drawings. Finally I did paintings to show the presence of these vessels when manned and under sail on the open sea. I was hooked. Despite having a family to feed and a bank balance that looked more appalling each month, I found myself turning down good assignments to pursue my obsession with the canoes of Polynesia. Fortunately friends in Hawai'i came to the rescue. Dillingham Corporation purchased the right to reproduce the paintings in their 1972 and 1973 promotional tide calendars. At Kenneth Emory's suggestion, Robert Van Dorpe introduced the fourteen paintings (titled Canoes of Polynesia) to the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Chairman “Pundy” Yokouchi brought the matter to the board, and Director Alfred Preis purchased the lot. Lieutenant Governor George Ariyoshi hosted an exhibit at the State Capitol. Robert Goodman offered to publish a portfolio of prints of the work, and introduced me to National Geographic Editor Bill Garrett, who commissioned a series of seven paintings and an illustrated map insert about Polynesian voyaging traditions that was published in December, 1974. Shown below are six of the paintings from the Canoes of Polynesia collection: | 
