The Skinny What: Na Wahine O Ke Kai Outrigger Canoe Championship When: Sunday beginning at 7:30 a.m. Where: Race starts on Moloka’i, ends 41 miles away at Waikiki Beach, Oahu Defending champs: Kaua’i’s Wailua Canoe &Kayak Club #1 Members of
The Skinny
What: Na Wahine O Ke Kai Outrigger Canoe Championship
When: Sunday beginning at 7:30 a.m.
Where: Race starts on Moloka’i, ends
41 miles away at Waikiki Beach, Oahu
Defending champs: Kaua’i’s Wailua
Canoe &Kayak Club #1
Members of the Garden Island made history last
year.
At the unofficial world championship of an event with roots deep in
Hawaiian culture, Kaua’i’s Wailua Canoe &Kayak Club #1 grabbed a first-place
finish.
It was the first time in seven years that a Hawaiian team had won
the Bank of Hawaii Na Wahine O Ke Kai Outrigger Canoe Championship, and the
first time ever that the victor hailed from an outer island.
The
22nd-annual installment of the women’s 41-mile race from Moloka’i to Oahu is
set for Sunday. Wailua is again expected to participate in the race, but it is
not being counted on to carry the same powerful squad it possessed last
year.
The 1999 Wailua team included members from Hawaii, Canada and New
Zealand. It finished the competition in a time of 5 hours, 55 minutes and 21
seconds, over five minutes faster than the second-place team from
Oahu.
Last year’s team members were steerswoman Noelani Sawyer, Margie
Kawaiaea, Theresa Felgate, Jenni Maclean, Nicole Wilcox, Corrine Gage, Patty
Eames, Mary Brewer, Dawn Williams and Joanna Felloon.
Fifty-eight teams
were entered in the 1999 race; 70 are expected for the 2000 edition. Crews will
hail from Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, Canada and the Mainland. The
race will again take competitors across the Kaiwi Channel after starting from
Moloka’i’s Hale O Lono Harbor. Duke Kahanamoku Beach, at the Hilton Hawaiian
Village at Waikiki Beach is the scheduled landing point.
Before Wailua’s
victory last year, the Australian crew, Panamuna Riggeroos, earned first-place
honors two years running. The California crew Offshore was the four-time
champion prior to the Australians. The last Hawaiian team to win was Oahu’s
Outrigger crew.
The record for the race is 5:24:32, set by the Californians
in 1995.
Kaua’i’s Wailua Canoe &Kayak Club #2 placed second (13th overall)
in the Master 35 division last year in a time of 6:30:33.
