Rereading Buck I found a possible further clue:

"My melancholy musings were interrupted by a familiar voice. Before me, with a welcoming smile, stood K. P. Emory, a member of the Bishop Museum staff who was to conduct an expedition into the Tuamotuan Archipelago on a motor launch built at Tahiti.

The boat had been completed and was being tried out on a trip from Tahiti to Ra'iatea. It had been given the ancient canoe name of Mahina-i-te-pua (The-crescent-wave-at-the-bow-that-bursts-into-foam-like-a-flower)."

The crescent-like wave at the bow of a ship is not bent forwards as in the glyph of rangi, but backwards.

Nevertheless I feel that there is a connection here. Hina is one of the common names for the moon. And in the sky (rangi) the crescent of the moon is like a boat. This boat should not be upside down, because that is not proper in the sea and gives ideas about death, the opposite to the red living power of a chief.

So the wave at the bow must be illustrated with upward 'fins'. Like flames.