WAIMEA — The Hawaiian Canoe Club didn’t settle for winning the Hawai‘i State Paddling Championships. One of their crews went on to top the Na Pali Challenge Sunday, making the Hanalei to Kekaha crossing in 4:14:34.40 to take home dual
WAIMEA — The Hawaiian Canoe Club didn’t settle for winning the Hawai‘i State Paddling Championships.
One of their crews went on to top the Na Pali Challenge Sunday, making the Hanalei to Kekaha crossing in 4:14:34.40 to take home dual crowns.
Piling up 359 points in the state paddling championships on Saturday, the Hawaiian Canoe Club out of Maui earned its seventh straight state title, getting past the favored Lanikai program out of O‘ahu.
“Racing in the Na Pali worked for us,” said Linda Powley, whose daughter was on one of the Hawaiian paddling crews. “In the past, the Na Pali always happens around the state paddling championships, and the hassle of getting crews and canoes over from the championships kept us from competing. This time, everything worked.”
Coming on the heels of the state paddling race, officials for the Na Pali Challenge said this was the biggest race as close to 60 teams took on the challenge of making the crossing that started in Hanalei and finished just outside the Kikiaola Small Boat Harbor at the gateway to Kekaha.
Powley’s daughter Lauren was on the Hawaiian team captained by Ryan McNeil who finished sixth overall at 4:29:14.00.
“She leaves for college on Monday, and she really wanted to paddle in this race, so I’m glad it worked out,” Linda said.
Beach-goers along the Kekaha beach had a front-row seat to the finish as crews, escorted by their respective escort vessels battled the brisk winds they met en route to the finish line.
Koloa Outrigger Canoe Club coach Sa‘le Potts was one of the spectators who picked up the action along the shoreline heading toward the small boat harbor.
“I just wanted to see how well they were doing,” Potts said, his position almost directly in line with the buoy marking the final crew change.
One of the Koloa CC crews finished 11th overall, behind the Niumalu-Joy crew which stopped the clock at 4:36:56.79.
Slicing through the chop, the Hawaiian CC top-finishing canoe was grouped among three canoes that finished within three minutes of each other.
Following Hawaiian, Team Bradley stopped the clock at 4:15:46.50 followed by third place finisher Outrigger Canoe Club tripping the clock at 4:18:33.52.
With a brief pause of six minutes, another cluster of canoes filled in the fourth through 10th positions, overall.
That created somewhat of a traffic jam in the harbor as escort boats waited to unload their relief paddlers and supplies while canoes made the way to the east shore to be loaded onto trailers.
An Open crew skippered by Mark Fraiser filled in the fourth berth at 4:24:55.52 followed by Buddy Wilson’s team (4:28:45.62), and Hawaiian-Ryan McNeil (4:29:14.00).
