On the cover: Crews in the Keahiakahoe short course make a turn on the buoy and head back to the finish. See page 22 for more pictures.
Photo by Ropati

Contents, June 2010

Riggs Napoleon
What's Hot?
Tere Mata’i
LiveStrong Tahiti
'Molo Solo'
Moloka’i Relay
Bud Light State Champs
Maui to Moloka’i on an SUP
Kauai World Challenge
Kukui’ula Outrigger CC
Keahiakahoe
OluKai’s Ho’olaule’a
SoCal Ocean Racing series
Kia Kaha up in flames
Wai Tui Fiji


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Aloha

Life is a learning experience. We learn from the past. Over time, we have found ourselves in a new world with new gadgets designed to make our lives more productive and easier. The fiberglass canoe came about because koa trees were hard to come by, too expensive, and we had the technology to build cheaper canoes with new materials. We embraced the new technology which allowed more canoes to be built. A new association formed, Na ‘Ohana O Na Hui Wa‘a, and more people could paddle outriggers. With this outrigger paddling spread beyond the Pacific, and with it, our culture and our aloha philosophy. Then came the modern OC1. It became popular with businesses who saw the need for a cheap canoe that one person could paddle. Hawaiian Designs was one of the leaders in this revolution. OC1’s weren't a new idea. Our ancestors would often use a one-person canoe to go fishing. I remember when we visited my mother’s home island of Puka Puka. We (the whole village) set off in canoes that would hold many people, including their belongings, on a trip across the lagoon to an atoll where the village would live for a few months, harvesting the coconuts, coconut crabs and fish off the reef in wooden canoes. When I returned a quarter-century later to a neighboring island, Manahiki, things had changed. A lot of the canoes had been replaced with boats powered by outboard motors. There was no sadness amongst the villagers about adopting new technology. They embraced it. It made their lives easier. They could fish further out and carry more stuff between islands. They didn't seem to miss the old wooden canoes. If our ancestors were able to make a fiberglass canoe, they would have. For some time, we were caught up in holding back progress, thinking we were losing our connection to the past. Now a new chapter has begun. People have talked about it, dreamed about it, and now it is a reality. A new era in racing. I'm talking about Pa'a Eono Hoe. The Paddling Athletes Association, which is only two years old, has done what many had wanted to do, created an iron race from Molokai to Oahu; just six-people in a canoe, no changes — just the way it would have been done in the past, since there were no escort boats back then. Hats off to Manny Kulukulualani for putting this together and opening it up to a new generation of canoes. Congratulations to Kamanu Composites for breaking the mold and coming up with a radically new canoe shape made from 21st century materials especially for this race, and their canoe still maintains the basic elements of past designs. Outrigger Connection did the same thing years ago with an ultralight 200 pound OC6. Some said it was breaking tradition; I think it was actually strengthening it by daring to do what our ancestors would have, if they could have —paddle their canoes faster.

 

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