The Hokule‘a and Hikianalia voyaging canoes were expected to depart from Lahaina around 11 p.m. Saturday after more than a week’s delay due to dangerous conditions in the Alenuihaha Channel.

The Polynesian Voyaging Society vessels have been moored off Maui since May 13 after departing Honolulu for a training voyage to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, the area of the Pacific Ocean known as “the doldrums.” However, because of the delay, that mission has been scrapped “in order to honor commitments made to the families of crew,” according to a news release.

Instead, the canoes will sail from the Hawaiian Islands “down the ancient sea road of Kealaikahiki, a heritage corridor that connects Hawaii with its ancestral homeland of Tahiti, and voyage into the cold, dark, deep region of the Pacific Ocean known as Moananuiakea,” the release said.

“Although our intent was to take the crew into the storm of the doldrums, mother nature had other plans,” said navigator and PVS President Nainoa Thompson. “We still had a robust training nonetheless, we’ll still hit Moananuiakea, and now the final exam for this crew will be crossing the Alenuihaha at night (upon their return), the second roughest channel in the world.”

The canoes was to sail tonight to Kamanamana, the southeastern point of Maui, then just before dawn begin crossing the Alenuihaha Channel, which is expected to take five to six hours, on their way to Keauhou on Hawai island. Stopping in Keauhou, Thompson said the crews will pick up the ashes of master navigator Chad Kalepa Baybayan, 64, who died unexpectedly April 8 in Seattle.

Thompson said Baybayan had wanted to accompany the crew on this voyage, and now he will.

From Keauhou, the canoes will sail to Kalae, or South Point, then into Moananuiakea. They are tentatively scheduled to return to Oahu by May 28 after 900 miles of training while crossing seven of the nine major channels — five of them twice — in the lower eight Hawaiian islands.

PVS’s goal is to have 120 new crew trained by the end of the summer in preparation for next year’s Moananuiakea Voyage, a circumnavigation of the Pacific, the release said.