There is no doubt that “Canoes of Oceania” by A.C. Haddon and James Hornell, Volume I, II and III is the authoritative source on canoes having sailed across all islands of the Pacific Ocean , from Hawaii down to New-Zealand and from the Philippines to Easter Island. The various canoes from Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia are described in minute details sometimes difficult to understand or visualize.

I really love to go into “Canoes of Oceania” in order to get an overall picture of the vessel in question.

But once I decide which canoe to replicate in a scale down version, the 2 volumes written by Jean Neyret in 1976 entitled PIROGUES OCEANIENNES provide a trove of extremely easy to understand descriptions and drawings about the hundreds of different type of canoes ever built across Oceania.

Whereby the writing by Haddon & Hornell is very academic, at least this is how I feel it to be, the one by Jean Neyret is easy to read and nearly every construction detail is illustrated with numerous drawings.

But it just occurred to me that not everybody is fluent in French because obviously PIROGUES OCEANIENNES is written in French and was never translated into English. Say no more !

The 2 volumes by Jean Neyret are illustrated in the books section.