With plans for sailing trek to Hawaii, Japanese explorer builds traditional reed boat on Sausalito waterfront

A Japanese explorer with plans to sail a traditional tule reed boat from the Bay Area to Hawaii next year is building a prototype in Sausalito.

Jin Ishikawa began construction earlier this month at Galilee Harbor. He plans to set the 30-foot vessel to sea on May 6.

“I think this is the perfect place to build,” he said.

The project, called “Expedition Amana,” kicks off a planned trans-Pacific expedition of a new 60-foot reed boat that will be built next year. Ishikawa plans to take it from California to the Hawaiian Islands with six other crew members over about 45 days. The boat will have a lifespan of about one year.

Born in 1967, Ishikawa, who is from Nagasaki, has crossed the Sahara Desert, made a boat out of seal skin with the Iñupiat of Alaska, worked as a tour guide in Machu Picchu and built countless reed vessels from Chile to Barcelona to Japan.

He learned the craft at Lake Titicaca in the Andes. Since then, he has built more than 340 reed boats and traveled more than 9,400 miles in them.

This week, Ishikawa bundled and piled tule reeds, or dried marshwater grasses, next to the vessel cradle, the slender and arched wooden frame to which they will be tied. The final product will include a handmade sail and an intricate web of ropes and ties binding it together.

“We follow the ancient way,” Ishikawa said.

Ishikawa sees himself as a student of ancient seafaring wisdom, and his journey next year will investigate the historical theory that Native Californians crossed to Hawaii in a reed boat.

“My hypothesis is that it is possible,” he said. “We will build the actual boat and sail it there to prove the possibility.”

Ishikawa plans to follow “the voice of nature and the ocean” to find the island using only navigation skills used by ancient mariners. That means using the stars as guides and eschewing GPS or maps.

The prototype will determine the construction of the final vessel, including the position of the mast, its balance and maneuverability and the size of the rudder. The reeds from the prototype were supplied by the Pomo reservation in Clearlake.

The design is itself an adaptation of the Pomo design, equipped with a few modifications from Ishikawa’s experience in reed-vessel building.

Brad Cornelius, the Galilee harbormaster, said the launch would bolster the significance of Sausalito’s maritime community.

“It’s a gem that has fallen right in our laps,” he said.

Tom Kowalski, a local volunteer, said the project was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ishikawa returned to California in March following the hiatus. Sausalito was an appropriate venue for the boat construction because of its shipbuilding legacy, he said.

“A former California warship construction harbor is building a Japanese boat of peace and exploration,” he said.

Reed boats were made more than 5,000 years ago and were ubiquitous, Ishikawa said, with evidence of their development in South America, the islands of the Pacific, Asia and what is present-day America.

The tule reed is the same material as a Japanese tatami mat, used for boats, cabins, baskets and clothing. The Bay Area was historically a wetland where the reeds would have grown.

The reed boat itself is a traveling ecosystem, he said. Embedded in the cracks and sinews of the vessel are various seeds of life from insects, plants, microorganisms and bacteria.

After a short duration in the water, the bottom of the vessel will develop a scaly patina of clams, sea anemone, seaweed and oceanic life.

“The reed boat is like a living, moving ecosystem,” Ishikawa said. “It helps out life, like Noah’s Ark.”