Foreword to the first edition / S.H. Riesenberg
I. The puzzle: Rediscovery of a vanishing art
II. Directing the craft: Voyaging canoes
Keeping course by sun, swells, and wind
III. Orientation on the empty ocean: Dead reckoning
Orientation concepts in dead reckoning
IV. Expanding one's target and position fixing: Island blocks, birds, and clouds
Swell patterns and phosphorescence
Expanded target landfall in practice
V. Lonely seaways: Reasons for voyaging
The renaissance of far voyaging
The long seaways of Eastern Polynesia
Appendix I: Variations of star bearings with latitude / V. Radhakrishnan
Appendix II: Directional marks ashore
Appendix III: Table of Tahitian star pillars and islands
Locations of the main Islands and other places.