The Kona sun poured heavily out of the sky on the 90 paddlers lined up for both the short and long course of 6 and 8 miles on Saturday. A fun race with some paddlers in creative costumes, in spite of the heat. A light breeze from the south slowly built with some small bumps running from the south and on-shore. And the breeze tried hard to keep the heat stroke away but it wasn’t much relief.
It was a mass start racing 3 miles north to the first turn then the short course returned to the channel buoy and the harbor while long course continued south. If you were lucky, the long course turn boat didn’t yell wrong course instructions to go around the channel buoy again. If you weren’t lucky, you got to paddle some extra distance while others tried to cut inside you at the finish.
Keaukaha had good representation with a couple new paddlers hitting the long course and their first OC1 races: Lisa and Kalani Spain showed up and had a good time on their first race and braving the long course.
Long Course
Congrats to everyone keeping their momentum and training going. They brought home some hardware.
- Eric & Nate – OC2 open (3rd overall, 1st division)
- Robson – OC1 19-59 (19th overall, 5th division)
- Grant – OC1 19-59 (21th overall, 6th division)
- Kawai – OC1 19-59 (29th overall, 4th division)
- Crystal Martinez – OC1 (36th overall, 7th division)
- Lisa Spain – OC1 19-59 (37th overall, 8th division)
- Kalani Spain – OC1 60+ (38th overall, 2nd division)
- Long Course Results
Short Course
Most of the short course finished before the long course paddlers while the wind started to pickup slightly. We had some short course hammers too, including Kwai-Chang’s V1 debut.
- Dave – OC1 60+ (17th overall, 1st Division)
- Minion Maniacs – Wai’olukea & Kaliko – OC2 Jr 15-18 (25th Overall, 2nd Division)
- Kwai-Chang V1 Open (45th Overall, 2nd Division)
- Short Course Race Results
Upcoming Race
Next race is Nov. 23rd. Keep an eye out for one you can join in here: https://hipa.clubexpress.com/