(AP) — Master navigator Chad Kālepa Baybayan, who served as a captain of the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa, has died. His family said on Friday that Baybayan died suddenly while visiting family in Seattle. The cause of death was not immediately known. He was 65. Baybayan served as a crew member of Hokulea since 1975, when he was 19, after the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s double-hulled canoe docked in his hometown of Lahaina, Maui. Polynesian Voyaging Society President Nainoa Thompson said he became the youngest crew member to sail Hōkūleʻa in 1980. Hōkūleʻa is known for its three-year journey around the globe without modern navigation instrumentation from 2014 to 2017.
© copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved
Photo Courtesy of Imiloa Astronomy Center
