Solid, sturdy and packed with memories, the Gryphon is for sale, but the decision to sell the ferro-cement hulled yacht – or to find someone willing to financially partner in it – doesn't come easily to George.

"I would prefer to be able to use it again, because whenever I am going to be in a position to sail again, I'm going to want a boat just like Gryphon," she says.

But without the funds a sale or partnership would bring, she can't get on with the next stage in an awesome undertaking that's been a decade in the making, and in which she plays a pivotal role. It's the Vaka Taumako project, begun in 1993 in response to a request by Paramount Chief Cruso Kaveia, a Taumako Islander. He asked George to help document and fund the building of a "vaka" or voyaging canoe.

Among the remotest of the far-flung islands of the Solomons lies the tiny island of Taumako that's been inhabited for at least 2,500 years. The Polynesian people who settled there passed along their knowledge of how to harvest and prepare plants for building their home-made voyaging canoes and how to navigate and sail them.

But in 1963, their last voyaging canoe was retired, and by the 1990s, only a handful of octogenarians on the island had enough experience to teach others their building and navigating skills. It was a wake-up call to the people of Taumako and it kick-started a renaissance of ancient ways.

The Taumako Islanders now have three canoes used in training. Ultimately the idea is to use them in voyaging and trading.

Selling Gryphon – or finding a partner – would bring funds to cover three key areas of the Vaka Taumako project.

First, it would fund four Solomon Islanders to come to Kaua`i and finish the canoe they began here in 1999. The 28-1/2-foot hull canoe would remain on Kaua`i, sailing among the Hawaiian Islands.

Funding is needed to continue with the navigation school in the Solomon Islands. The Chief is the only qualified person to train and sail, but he's aging, and there are not enough young people qualified to train and sail the youth.

Thirty-five students are standing by. They want to enroll in navigation and canoe maintenance classes.

Finally, George needs funding to finish a book about the project.

Should a person be interested in partnering, George says some of the uses for Gryphon might be for navigation research in the Hawaiian islands.

"We could use it as an escort or support vessel for the canoe when it's finished on Kaua`i," she says.

George, who is competent in nine languages – including Melanesian pidgin, which is spoken by the old people in Taumako – has worked on voyaging traditions in New Ireland, Siberia, Alaska and Antarctica. She was the principal investigator in a research project involving the Barok people of Papua, New Guinea.

She was the co-leader of a Bering Straits expedition that involved a successful international search for seven Eskimo hunters adrift in the Bering Sea. While on that expedition, she carried 11 Alaskan Eskimos who for 40 years had not been allowed to visit their relatives across the Bering Strait.

She was also co-leader of a small group that conducted scientific exploration in the Antarctic by freezing their sailboats in the sea ice for 11 months.

In 1993, Dr. George and Dr. David Lewis_author of "We, the navigators" – visited with Santa Cruz islanders to see if any of the questions brought up by Lewis' book could be answered. Kaveia, the most renowned navigator in Temotu Province, asked George for assistance at that time.

For detailed information on the Gryphon, visit the page: Yacht Gryphon For Sale