ABOUT
Va’a, Waka, Wa’a... the Polynesian outrigger canoe has been predominant in all cultural layers of the Maohi people. The Va’a outrigger canoe has a rich history that reaches as far back as 4000 years. It has evolved into a competitive sport where the best athletes continually challenge their limits. Over the years, Tahiti has defined itself as a leader and reference in the sport. Just as the athletes are regarded as some of the best, the Tahitian Va’a outrigger canoe design is coveted by all aficionados of the sport.
The FAI Va’a team strives to safeguard tradition while capitalizing on technological innovations that make our Va’a light, stiff, agile and fast. Basing our success on design, performance and high quality materials, FAI Va’a has grown to become a reference in the Va’a community.
Whether you are a beginner, a recreational paddler or an avid competitive racer, FAI Va’a aims to provide you with a more complete and enhanced paddling experience.
TRADITION & MODERNISM
The FAI Va’a team is dedicated to the outrigger canoe sport, its culture, its community and its advancement.
We seek excellence in craftsmanship and performance while adhering to the spirit and traditions of our ancestral sport. Taho’e (“Unity” in the Reo Maohi language) and Fa'atura (“Respect”) are the driving forces of the sport.
Te Taho’e e Fa'atura between the designer, the builder, the Va’a, the paddler and the ocean is the spirit and philosophy we foster. The close relationship we have developed with team paddlers is an integral part of this unity and respect we strive for. Fostering a positive and proactive relationship has been crucial to gain constructive feedback and optimize our design process over the years.
PHILOSOPHY
Our passion and knowledge of high performance Va’a absorbed from years of designing and building Va’a transpire into every FAI Va’a Tahitian Outrigger Canoes on the water. Each of our models was designed with performance and ease of handling in mind, making each of them lightweight, fast and maneuverable.
Each of the FAI Va'a designs are an homage to its predecessors and have proved themselves throughout important racing events over the years, becoming a reference in the sport. We will continue pushing the limits of performance, innovating and designing better and faster racing outrigger canoes.
While “fai” means “ray” in the Reo Maohi language, the FAI Va’a brand is named more specifically after the Manta ray’s beauty and grace as it seems to fly through our tropical waters. In fact, our logos are an abstract representation of the Manta ray in different forms. To us, the word “fai” channels the glide we look to achieve in all our designs.
We have great respect for the sport and strive to further its reach by providing paddlers worldwide with quality equipment using leading edge technology and materials. From our “Fenua” to you, we work towards making our Va'a more readily available to remote parts of the world and help democratize our ancestral sport.
Fai Va’a: a family brand through and through
Fai Va’a as as we know it today was born out of the designer/builder collaboration between Joey “Vatea” Bunton and his father Joseph Bunton.
A family-owned business since day 1, we have worked alongside the best Tahitian paddlers and builders to refine the Fai Va’a designs over the years while honing our building skills to provide the best Va’a we could provide Tahitian paddlers. Together, we have spearheaded the Fai Va’a team to what is known as a leader in the Va’a sport.
Vatea’s understanding of applied physics along with their high caliber team paddlers’ feedback have been the driving force of the team’s design process. Joseph’s experience in Va’a building along with his and Vatea’s relationships with renowned composites experts in Tahiti, Hawaii and the rest of the world have allowed their construction process to evolve over the years to include the composites industry's most advanced methods and techniques.
What became Fai Va’a stems from tireless hard work and dedication to our craft, a true passion for innovation and persistent search for improvement, endless discussions and analysis of team riders’ feedback, personal investment into the Va’a sport and its community.
Passion for Va’a and performance is what keeps us creating and spreading the stoke for our ancestral sport and its rich culture.
You can catch them on a support boat at all of the V1 races in Tahiti, coaching and cheering our team paddlers.
FAMILY & PASSION
FAI Va’a Tahitian Outrigger Canoes are designed with the highest level of craftsmanship, refined with CAD tools and built using the best technology available in the composites industry.
Since day one, we strive to offer paddlers the best Va’a designs as well as the best construction for our Va’a. Over the years, we have improved our construction methods, using better materials, better tooling, learnt new and better ways of doing things along the way.
As we continue to innovate with new design concepts, we also experiment with new materials and manufacturing processes. From hand layup craftsmanship to more technologically advanced fabrication processes using high modulus prepreg carbon fiber cured in autoclave, we keep our Va'a at the cutting edge of the composites industry.
Using prepreg carbon fiber allows a perfect and very tightly controlled resin to fiber ratio as the composites fabrics are impregnated with the resin right off the bat. This means that the actual work of building the Va’a is a lot cleaner as there is no resin to mix (it’s already in the carbon fiber). No spills or bad batches, no toxic fumes and therefore no respirator needed to protect the laminator, no time constraints as the prepreg will only cure under heat. The fact that the resin is already impregnated into the fabric gives a better laminate structure, without voids, dry spots (resin to fiber ratio too low) or resin rich spots (resin to fiber ratio too high), allowing a better bond between the composite fabrics and the core materials. This process allows precise repeatability from one Va’a to the next as well while making our Va’a lighter, stiffer and stronger.
Carbon fiber has high tensile strength to weight ratio, allowing the outrigger canoe to resist the flexing effect choppy waters might have on a conventional fiberglass Va’a while significantly keeping weight low. The sandwich construction of prepreg carbon fiber and core materials cured in autoclave at high temperature and high pressure allows us to offer a ligtweight and extremely stiff Va'a.
In order to guarantee the best quality outrigger canoes, FAI Va’a are only built with high quality materials from industry leaders in carbon fiber, core materials, etc.
CRAFTSMANSHIP & TECHNOLOGY
