HONOLULU — To take the Hokulea for a spin off the coast of Oahu is to see the Hawaiian islands in perhaps the same way as their discoverers did hundreds of years ago.

Those seafarers likely arrived on a boat resembling the double-hulled canoe, bridged by a modest deck, compelled by three sails, steered by a rudder, its components held fast with ropes rather than screws or nails.

Weather willing, the 62-foot vessel is scheduled to leave Hawaii Monday on its longest-ever ocean voyage. Relying on wind and stars to guide it, the Hokulea will chase the horizon for 47,000 miles, dropping anchor at 85 ports on six continents.

“We could be sailing around the world on a high-end yacht, but we’re not,” said Chad Kalepa Baybayan, one of five master navigators who take shifts on the Hokulea. “We’re doing it on traditionally built voyaging canoes, reflective of the architecture of voyaging canoes across the Pacific. This is a cultural project for us. It has a lot of spiritual meaning.”

The three-year tour — roughly south and west from Hawaii past Australia, around the Cape of Good Hope, to the Americas, and back via the Panama Canal — will make the Hokulea’s watershed first voyage in 1976 look like a light jog.