Chad Kālepa Baybayan, a revered Hawaiian navigator and captain of the Polynesian voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa, died on April 8 while visiting family in Seattle. He was 64. His daughter Kala Tanaka said the cause was a heart attack.

Chad Kalepa Baybayan, part of the Hawaiian renaissance of Polynesian voyaging, was one of only five Hawaiians along with 11 Micronesians initiated in 2007 into Pwo, a 2,000-year-old society of deep-sea navigators, by Master Navigator Mau Piailug of Satawal.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Baybayan sailed on Hokule’a for more than 40 years. He also served as captain and navigator on the voyaging canoes Hawaiiloa and Hokualakai. He sailed on major voyages in the South Pacific, the West Coast of North America, Micronesia, and Japan.

I was fortunate enough to have briefly crossed paths with Chad Kālepa Baybayan when he and apprentice navigator Celeste Manuia Haʻo introduced the art of wayfinding the ocean with non-instrument navigation at the Hayden Planetarium when the Hokule’a called in New York on its epic circumnavigation in 2016. One of the messages of the evening was that “in losing sight of the land, you discover stars.”

Remembering Hōkūleʻa Crew Member and Pwo Navigator Chad Kālepa Baybayan

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.