Rising fuel prices mean people everywhere are looking for alternative sources of power.

In Samoa, they’re trialling an old fashioned power source for fishing boats, the wind, to see if they can bring home their catch using sails instead of diesel motors.

Tania Nugent: Fishing is the second largest contributor to the Samoan economy and the country's biggest export commodity.

Savali Time, Principal Fisheries Officer: The species that they call albacore is the main species that is exported. Plus huge a yellow fin and big eye and what you call the side catch is sold to the local markets and local restaurants.

Tania Nugent: Most local fishers use these twin hulled aluminium boats called alias. They run on outboard diesel motors. But in the future this curious sight could be more common... an alia with a sail.

Savali Time: Since the introduction of these motorised boats, sailing hasn't been practiced for fishing. While there are other sailors taking it as a sport but for fishing itself it hasn't been practiced so we are trying to introduce it back to the fishers community.

Tania Nugent: The rising cost of fuel is one reason behind trials to see if sails can be used on alias. The other is safety in emergencies like engine failure.

Savali Time: Since the introduction of this long line fishing in early 1990's people just rush because they were so successful and they take very little care of their safety so that's why some of the boat went missing.

Tania Nugent: The Fisheries Department has engaged experienced sailors from the Samoa Yacht Club to run the sail trials.

Christian Sass, Samoa Yacht Club: So far we've had reasonable success. We could manage to bring the boat home under sails not in every condition but under certain conditions.

The challenges are clearly you can't make a boat that was originally designed to be motor powered into a sailing craft. So what we are creating is a hybrid. It can't be a full sailing vessel but use it as an emergency or some assistance coming home to save fuel.

Tania Nugent: The trials will continue to fine tune the sail design before they're introduced as an emergency device on alias. The next step will be to train fishers to also be sailors.

Savali Time: You know Samoa's been named by one explorer Captain James Cook, the Navigator Islands. I think you can tell from that they travelled a lot and mainly used sails.

Christian Sass: But it has been lost over time. We see it in our yacht club when we recruit young Samoans to learn sailing, there has been virtually nothing left out of the old traditions that were in the Polynesian societies. So we'll bring it up gently again and there's quite some enthusiasm to step into this again and be the navigators of the Pacific.