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Yes, all credit to everyone involved with this.Good video!
Impressive setup, GD is understandably pleased with it.
Ngati Whatua are an Auckland tribe. Not long ago these people were staging protests to protect their tribal lands. The Bastion Point protests were close to the city centre and, as such, got a lot of attention. They were also significant because many well-known pakeha (white people) hooked arms with Maori and stood in solidarity. Hence, my best mate (a distinguished NZ film maker) - and his wife - spent a night in the famous pink cell at the Auckland Police Station.
Grant was brought up in this neighbourhood. The Dalton family house was just around the corner from Bastion Point. So Grant, more than most, knows about Ngati Whatua.
I have mixed feelings about the fabricated waka. But getting Ngati Whatua to send it to San Francisco is yet another indication of Grant's determination to represent the bicultural nature of New Zealand.
Grant has good relationships with Ngati Whatua leaders and, as most of you know, cooked-up a kids sail training programme for young Maori in the Auckland district. Quite apart from the fact young Maori wear TNZ gear and sail small boats, on the Maori side, the key leaders of this programme are well-educated women.
Hence, during TNZ open days (and suchlike) Maori kids are there with a fund-raising sausage sizzle and other activities. They are included. This is good.
Every New Zealander (and most other Polynesians)understand the meaning of the long ocean voyage and plenty of people have commented on the fact large double-hulled sailing craft in the Pacific are an idea that goes back at least 700 years (and more).
Even more exciting, the AC72 has landed at a time when, because of DNA, carbon-dating and other techniques, we are making big revisions to orthodox history concerning the "great migration" of ocean-going waka.
We now know much more about the origins of those waka, who sailed them and where they landed.
Another thing. The name of what we call B2 (Boat 2) is of immense significance and yet another demonstration of Grant's desire to build a better world.
GO AOTEAROA!
Very brave, you are.
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