Barry Napoleon, a veteran Waikiki beachboy and accomplished high school athlete who dedicated his later years to pursuing his art and advocating for Hawaiian sovereignty, died Feb. 20 in Honolulu.

Born July 22, 1929, in Honolulu, he was 92 years old.

Napoleon died peacefully in the presence of his two daughters a few weeks after being hospitalized after a fall, said his daughter Eva Napoleon Porter.

She said her father was a lifelong innovator whose creative ideas sometimes drew from Hawaiian traditions.

“He was always thinking of a new way to rinse surfboards or make a better cart to carry your golf things,” Porter said, and he “designed and made a double-hulled canoe out of fiberglass” in 1961, more than a decade before the double-hulled Hokule‘a voyaging canoe was launched by the Polynesian Voyaging Society in 1975.

On May 23, 1961, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran a photograph of Barry and Allen Napoleon launching the 38-foot-long, 700-pound craft with the help of Chuck Yarro and Bobby Ah Choy.

Napoleon, who carved tiki figures mounted on the twin prows, told the newspaper his canoe was inspired by designs in the Bishop Museum of early Polynesian voyaging canoes which he modified for surfing.

His daughter Shelly Napoleon said her favorite childhood memories were of her father paddling out with her from the Halekulani on a surfboard, putting her on his shoulders and surfing in.

Porter enjoyed playing golf on the Ala Wai course with her father every afternoon after school. “He’d let me drive the cart and wash all the balls.”

Napoleon enlisted his family in research and development for his inventions, Porter said, and while not all his ideas came to fruition, “if it wasn’t a good idea, we wouldn’t have helped, wouldn’t have tried.”

But his love of novelty did not extend to fashion: Napoleon was a “very old- fashioned gentleman” who maintained strict standards of dress on and off the beach.

“I never saw him wear slippers,” Porter said. “He wore canvas slip-on shoes, a button-up shirt and custom- made shorts like a good beachboy would.”

One of eight children born to Walter K. and Katherine Kalauwalu Napoleon, Barry Napoleon wrote in his memoir, “The Keepers of the Sand: A Waikiki Beachboy’s Story,” about following in his father’s footsteps to work on Waikiki Beach, where Walter Napoleon was lifeguard captain and superintendent of the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium.

After graduating in 1948 from ‘Iolani School, where he was a football and track star, Napoleon studied art at college in California and Utah before starting out as a Waikiki beachboy in 1952, working the Bohemian Surf Club concession with his younger brother and fellow ‘Iolani Raiders alumnus Allen Napoleon, who also played football at Stanford University.

Napoleon’s former wife Patricia Shanahan Bernard, the mother of his daughters, said she met Napoleon while she was paddling for the Outrigger Canoe Club, then in the heart of Waikiki.

In the ’50s and ’60s, when tourists would come for one or two months, beachboys and their clients were friends, she said.

Her former husband’s clients included Desi Arnaz, Marlon Brando and the head of 20th Century Fox.

Bernard remembered Napoleon as “a big athlete, a very handsome, attractive, individualistic man who did what he wanted,” she said.

“He was very popular (at his) beach concessions, but most of all he was a tremendous artist.”

It wasn’t until he was in his 70s, she added, that he devoted his time to painting.

Raised in Honolulu’s Punchbowl neighborhood, Napoleon recounted growing up “with such freedom” in a simpler Hawaii “where there were still horses around that neighborhood kids could ride, and they would dive for quarters when the Lurline came through.”

Although her father felt connected to his Hawaiian culture, “when he was younger he never thought of sovereignty,” Porter said.

She said his political awakening came during the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s, and he later “traveled to the Hague to represent the native people of Hawaii for sovereignty.”

Near the end of his life, Napoleon told his daughters he wanted every Native Hawaiian to have $1,000 a month.

“He said, ‘Something has to happen. We have to have the space to create our own,’” Porter said.

“Our family motto for him was ‘He does it his way,’” she said.

Barry Napoleon’s ashes were scattered in the ocean off Waikiki in a beachboy ceremony March 3.

In addition to daughters Eva Lani Napoleon Porter of San Rafael, Calif., and Michelle “Shelly” Mahealani Napoleon of Santa Rosa, Calif., Napoleon is survived by sons William “Bill” Davis Tonnesen of Arizona, John Barron Deering Napoleon of Oahu and Darren Kamaki Robinson of Maui; sister Naomi Weight of Waimanalo; 13 grandchildren; and 37 nieces and nephews.

He was predeceased by brothers Walter, Nathan and Allen and sisters Margaret Costello, Dorcus Kahuanui and Elizabeth DeCaires.