The one and two man canoe race held on Nov. 27 as a charity for the Hayward Ohana was well attended. There was a large fleet of 13 OC2’s and even a 2-surfski on the water. Due to the small southerly swell crossing the reef, the race officials changed the buoy can race to an out and back course starting and finishing inside the hot harbor.
HIPA probably set a record for the most controlled start line because the previous race was a little out of control and had a 1/4 mile rolling start before they just gave up and blew the start horn. This race the large group of paddlers sat in a nice line and waited for the horn to blow. Some waited more patiently than others, but no one was pushing forward.
Both the short course (3 miles) and the long course (6 miles which magically grew to almost 8 miles) headed north out of the harbor with the short course paddlers turning at 1.5 miles around a buoy inside near the shore. The 2 man OC2’s established a dominate role at the front of the pack but we had two individual Keaukaha paddlers contending for the lead against them:
- Tyler hammered out a 6th over all (3rd if you discount the 2 man canoes) placing 2nd in class to Keakua Nolan with less than 1 minute time gap on the long course.
- Eha Kiyuna (Jr. V1) managed to fight off a lot of adult paddlers on the short course and true to his namesake got 4th overall (3rd ignoring the 2 man in 1st) with less than 20 seconds behind the first one man to finish making 1st in his division.
Congratulations to all the Keaukaha paddlers out there on the pre-season races. Remember there’s another race Dec. 4th. So you still have a chance to burn off all those holiday calories! Registration for that race is open now:
Long Course Paddlers: Tyler, Keahi, Kyle, Eric, Ryan “Kawika”, Rodrigo
Short Course Paddlers: Eha Kiyuna (V1 Jr), Tanoa Laititi (V1 Jr), Cother-McKeague La’a (V1 Jr), Nahiena “Nahi” Kekuawela (V1 Jr)