Library

Francis Pimmel love for ships and boats started while watching the colorful freight barges sailing along French canals. Than as a young boy he marveled at the decorated steering houses of those barges, and wondered how its skipper could possibly load his 2 CV car on top of the hatchways and keep onboard dogs, cats and other birds from falling into the water. At 14 he bought his first book about canoe building and built his first life size canoe with the help of his brother. Many more books followed, ranging from boat building to woodworking, another passion of Francis Pimmel. Many more years later, when moving to Hawaii with his family in 1991, Francis Pimmel read HOKULE’A, The Way to Tahiti by Ben R, Finney.

Since reading the story of that most audacious and unheard-off voyage covering 6000 miles in a reconstructed Polynesian canoe, his collection of rare books, fine books, special subjects, studies and pamphlets on specialized aspects of Polynesian seafaring, Pacific navigators and canoe building has grown considerably. A great classic about maritime ethnography of Oceania is without any doubt CANOES OF OCEANIA by Haddon & Hornell for its depth of research. No library would be worth its name without containing ATLAS DES VOILIERS ET PIROGUES DU MONDE from Admiral Paris (1843) and the now rare tomes I an II PIROGUES OCEANIENNES by Jean Neyret contain the line drawings and descriptions of literally thousands of Oceanic canoes covering the Pacific from Hawaii to Sumatra and from Java to Easter Island and even as far afield as Madagascar. Edward Dodd’ writings about Polynesian seafaring as well as those by David Lewis contain a wealth of information to further understand the wonders and secrets of Polynesia and their Pacific island Navigators. Tommy Holmes book “The Hawaiian canoe” is outstanding in that it treats the subject of Hawaiian canoes in great depth but also in an easy to read manner. And last but not least “VOYAGERS” a collection of words and images by HERB KAWAINUI KANE.

In addition to books relating to canoe building and Pacific seafaring and navigators, Francis Pimmel shelves are stacked high with books about boat design and architecture, ship modeling, rigging and sailing. Francis Pimmel’s library serves an educational function in understanding the culture of the people of the Pacific, in particular their maritime culture and their canoe building skills and traditions. The reading of those books has helped Francis Pimmel to become aware that a multitude of canoes of different size, shape and form were built in every little corner of the Pacific islands , how sometimes the construction of a given type of canoe evolved from one neighboring island to another or how Pacific migrations influenced the shape of a type of canoe 1000 miles away like for example the surprising similarities between the Solomon islands war canoes and some type of Filipino vessels with elevated bow and stern. Similarly, years of studying canoes of Oceania and having assisted to the construction of some of them along the Sulu Sea, have contributed to Francis Pimmel acquiring great knowledge about the construction of those canoes, knowledge that he likes to share with his scale models not just of Polynesia, but also of other parts of the Pacific rim.