The Pajaro Jai Foundation     Espanol

Current status: The Odyssey Begins! (see press)

Embera from Darien village of Mogue dancing aloft as the Pajaro Jai enters Panama City

And on the Deck

As we welcome the First Lady of Panama Vivian Fernandez de Torrijos, and the National Director of the United States Peace Corps Gaddi Vasquez with his Director for Latin America Allene Zanger.

Rufino Gomez - Master Builder

And the mission begins - Peace Corps Volunteers on the Pajaro Jai

 With Peter Redmond, Director of the Peace Corp in Panama, Gaddi Vasquez, and
Vance Bluschke of the Pajaro Jai Foundation

Ally of the PJF Leonardo Teocama (Bolungo) with Panama City connections

Bolungo and his wife Soila preparing for the celebration

Raising the Genoa Jib

Francisco Ruiz, veteran sailor from first Pajaro Jai, on the Foredeck

View from the Main

Raising the 108 foot Mainmast

The man of the hour!
Vance Bluschke's carbon fiber core spars finally touch the sky.

Rosewood in the main cabin

Sofa detail - river shrimp of the Darien

Completion of the Second Ocean Cruising Ketch Pajaro Jai: Launched April 10, 2005 amid great fanfare, the yacht which replaces the first Pajaro Jai is being rigged and fitted out for its inter-national mission. Estimated completion – March, 2006.

Celebrating the Launch of the Pajaro Jai

The Pajaro Jai’s Celebration Tour of Panama: April through May 2006, prior to leaving Panama the PJF will invite Panamanians to see this treasure of the Darien and explain to them its purpose. Darien culture will be on display at each event by a crew anxious to acquaint others with the beauty of their world.

The PJF is currently working with Panama’s Port Authority and its Ministry of Culture and Tourism (IPAT) to schedule events in Panama’s key cities and provinces including Colon, Los Santos, Veraguas, Chiriqui, Bocas del Torro, San Blas, and the Darien. We expect to support worthwhile organizations as part of this tour.

The Odyssey of the new Ocean Cruising Ketch Pajaro Jai: The yacht will travel from city to city, country to country, supporting groups working on specific problems relating to societal and environmental health. The Pajaro Jai will be sailed by revolving crews of indigenous peoples in their native dress.

The yacht will support the activities of many organizations to coordinate and galvanize projects, but its basic objective will be to find ways to avoid the long-term dependencies which plague many existing programs

Great attention will be paid to the environmental impact of proffered solutions.

Construction History: Cheers broke the night air as the construction crew mounted the first rib of the new Pajaro Jai. After working late into the night arranging 17,000 pounds of keel members, the first of 120 ribs was put in place. There were ample reasons for this impromptu celebration. After three years of hard work assembling the materials, this was the first tangible evidence that a 90 foot yacht is taking shape. Moreover it was January 2, 1996, five years to the day from the sad demise of the original.

With enthusiasm reinforced by visible results, the construction crew has since made great progress: the major components of the frame— the stem, keel, stern post and ribs have been mounted and the planking completed, defining the elegant shape of the hull; the deck and aft cabin have been completed and the interior cabin framing begun and the spars are scheduled for completion in March of 2006.

Construction of the new Pajaro Jai is an enormous task. Hand built of tropical hardwoods, she will be over 90 feet long and 20 feet wide. She will displace over 160,000 pounds. The main mast will be 100 feet high and 60,000 pounds of lead will ballast the boat against 3,000 square feet of sail. Although this yacht will be built using traditional methods, she will incorporate some high-tech materials. The masts and stringers will be epoxy laminated wood reinforced with carbon fiber and S-glass.

Yet all of this is taking place on the banks of a river in the Darien rainforest of Panama.

Why, one might ask, build a large yacht in the remote rainforest of Central America?

The answer: This project encompasses much more than construction of a finely finished yacht. It is "conservation through innovation" in practice. The methods used and the precedents set are a microcosm of how a system that addresses the problems of deforestation, conservation, and development, might work. The project adheres to the principals espoused by the PJF in addressing both human and ecological needs in the search for healthy long term change:

Lumber harvesting in the Darien is a reality that will continue into the future. The premium price the PJF pays for lumber harvested in sustainable ways, demonstrates to lumber concessionaires that conservation can be profitable.

In an area where slash and burn agriculture and cattle farming provide the primary means for survival, the Pajaro Jai project provides alternatives which use fewer resources to yield more profit. Though the construction of the Pajaro Jai will consume over 100 trees, the men working on the boat are farmers who would otherwise provide for their families by burning trees by the thousands in order to plant cash crops and cattle pasture

The completed boat will become an emissary from the Darien, an eloquent voice which speaks not only of the beauty of the rainforest, and of the people who live there, but also of the possibility of a healthy future for both.

The elegant lines are slowly revealed and like a living creature the Pajaro Jai rises from the disorder of logs and boards, metamorphosing into a sleek vessel which highlights the achievement of the people of the Darien, and demonstrates that innovative solutions can change our world.

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