KEY POINTS:
Kawika Kapahulehua, captain of the historic first voyage of the ocean sailing canoe Hokulea from Hawaii to Tahiti, has died. He was 76.
The 19m voyaging canoe first set sail in 1976, the first double-hulled canoe to make the voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in 600 years, said Nainoa Thompson, the Polynesian Voyaging Society's president and a crew member on the return trip. "The success of that voyage was crucial to the future of Hokulea, and Kawika was the perfect captain," Thompson said. The voyaging canoe is on its 10th major voyage, which includes stops in Micronesia and Japan.
