The drua had two hulls of unequal size, over which was laid a
deck equipped with a collapsible house. The mast, stepped in the
middle of the deck, carried a lateen sail of pandanus mat.
Steering was done by trailing oars of vesi wood up to twenty
feet in length. The largest canoe seen by Thomas Williams (c.
1850) had the following dimensions: length of main hull, 118
feet; deck, 50 feet by 24; mast, 68 feet high with 90-foot
yards. She was named Rusa i Vanua, or "Perished Inland," for
fear that she would be impossible to launch. Such a craft "would
safely convey a hundred persons, and several tons of goods, over
a thousand miles of ocean." In the last years before the Pax
Britannica some Fijian war canoes were mounted with light
cannon. The outrigger, or lesser hull, was always kept to
windward. Good sailors applied just enough sail to keep it
skimming the surface. They could tack into the wind by reversing
the entire sail assembly, so that the bow of the canoe on one
tack became its stern on the next. The ea