The Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society along with supporters helped rescue the sailing vessel Na Hiku off the beach Friday in Kihei. Gary Kubota/The Maui News

A group of people pulled the grounded sailing vessel Na Hiku out of the surf in Kihei close to noon Friday.

The first attempt resulted in a tow belt breaking, but the belts and wires were reattached, and the second pull moved a portion of the boat out of the water, raising a cheer from the crowd.

The 52-foot vessel broke away from its temporary mooring during 30 knot winds and six-foot swells earlier this week.

“Her lines, thick as wrists and not chafed, snapped from the tension of the wild ocean,” one of the crew members, Anela Gutierrez, wrote in a Facebook post.

Na Hiku then drifted ashore near the old Kihei boat ramp, according to crew members and people who helped recover the boat.

The rescue of the vessel Na Hiku required two construction cranes. Gary Kubota/The Maui News

Two construction cranes were used to pull tow lines and belts attached to the vessel, slowly moving the starboard and aft up onto the dry beach.

Na Hiku was donated to the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society and brought by a sailing crew from Washington state to Hawaii last year with the purpose of teaching maritime skills and traditional Hawaiian navigation.

The 19-ton vessel was built in 1957 with an 80 horsepower engine. The vessel appeared to have lost part of its keel while being pulled ashore.

Workers help tie off different parts of the vessel Na Hiku as the front and back were pulled from the ocean onto dry land. Gary Kubota/The Maui News

Partners in the association include a group revitalizing the Kō’ie’ie Fishpond and the Kimono Foundation headed by Leonard Kimokeo Kapahulehua.

Kapahulehua, an avid waterman, is the nephew of Kawika Kapahulehua, the captain of the double-hulled sailing canoe Hokule’a. Kimokeo said Kawika asked him to continue on the voyage and reconnect with the ancestral archipelago from the Big Island to Kure atoll.

Kimokeo Kapahulehua said the Na Hiku will need some restoration work.

A page with GoFundMe has been created to support the effort at gofundme.com/f/HOCVS.

For more about the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society, go to wearevoyagers.org.