Decades of outrigger canoe racing experience paid off in Bora Bora last week for Kaua’i paddlers Laola Lake of Koloa and David “Kawika” Goodale of Kilauea. Both were members of teams which won gold medals at the International Va’a Federation
Decades of outrigger canoe racing experience paid off in Bora Bora last week for Kaua’i paddlers Laola Lake of Koloa and David “Kawika” Goodale of Kilauea.
Both were members of teams which won gold medals at the International Va’a Federation World Sprints in French Polynesia. The event is the equivalent of the Olympics for Tahitian-style outrigger canoe racers and drew hundreds of competitors from across the Pacific and across the globe. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the competition.
The races were held the week of March 9 in a spectacularly scenic lagoon on the island of Bora Bora.
Lake was the only Kaua’i member of the Team O’ahu women’s crew. The team won a gold medal in the 1,000 meters race for women 45 years old and up. They also won a silver medal in the same division for a 500-meter race.
Goodale brought home a gold medal for his team’s victory in the senior master 50 and up competition, and competed in a number of other races.
The competition draws paddlers from across the world to compete in dozens of races. The event is divided into junior, master and senior master divisions and a number of other Kaua’i paddlers made the trip south including Luke Evslin, who competed in the junior races.
Goodale said the Tahitians take outrigger canoe paddling seriously, and provide stiff competition against paddlers from Hawai’i, New Zealand, Canada and other nations who compete in the world sprints.
He said: “In Hawai’i and the U.S. the top athletes have football, basketball, all kind of things to compete in. In Tahiti the top athletes are paddlers, and the top sport is canoe paddling. They are actually subsidized by Shell Oil in Tahiti. It’s a big deal for the Tahitians.”
Unlike outrigger canoe races in Hawai’i where teams build and race their own canoes, competitors in Tahiti race in canoes that are pretty much identical in length and hull shape, and are provided by the host country. He said the canoes are a hybrid that combines a lagoon-style canoe with an ocean-style canoe. The one-man canoes are especially tricky to paddle, Goodale said, as they have no rudders
Goodale and Lake both traveled to Bora Bora aboard an inter-island ferry boat, following a Hawaiian Air flight from Honolulu to Papeete. The ferry ride took 8 hours, covered about 100 miles and had stops at the islands of Huahine and Raiatea. They were joined by about 150 competitors from Hawai’i.
The event was a big deal in French Polynesia, with extensive coverage in the local newspapers and day-long, Olympic style coverage on Tahitian TV.
Goodale said his winning team included Gaylord Wilcox and Nick Beck, who are veteran paddlers on Kaua’i, Nappy Napoleon of O’ahu, Jeff Metzger from O’ahu and a Big Island paddler.
Their victory was a hard-fought one against Tahitian crews who knew the local waters and local course well, he said.
Goodale said there was a lot of aloha among the competitors from Hawai’i, and the pension where his team stayed was located near the finish line of the race, and became an unofficial headquarters for the Hawai’i teams.
“We had good time,” Goodale said. “The highlight was winning a gold medal against the Tahitians who are so strong.”
He said the competition was like a Polynesian Olympics, with an opening ceremony where all the competitors marched into a temporary stadium behind the flag of their nations.
“The podium was made out of coral and right on beach,” Goodale said. “They announce your team and you march out while a young lady with medals on a pillow walks up. After the gold, silver and bronze medals are awarded they raise the national banner and play the anthem. For us they raised the Hawaiian flag and played Hawai’i Pono’i.”
Lake steered for the victorious Team O’ahu’s outrigger canoe team, and was asked to join the team for her skill at the position, and due to a friendship with other team members that goes back years.
“I was raised to be a steersman,” Lake said of being learning to steer a canoe at age 15. Back then she steered for Hui Nalu of Honolulu while she was a student at Punahou, in part due to her prowess as a surfer. She continued to race in outrigger canoes following a move to Kaua’i in 1976, and is a veteran steerer for several Moloka’i Channel race team.
“Our team was a reunion of sorts,” she said. “One girl had to drop out with breast cancer, but we always considered her part of the team.”
“People nicknamed us the Jamaican bobsled team,” Lake said. “The other girls looked at us and said, ‘How did they beat us?’ We looked like a funky group ladies. None of us look like paddlers, one wears makeup, one is tall and skinny. You’d never guess, they think we’re just a bunch of girlfriends out on a road trip.”
Lake steered in the 45 and over women’s 500 meter race, the 1000 meter race and the double hull race. They also paddled in the 35 and over division race in 500 meters and 1000 meters divisions.
“The 1000 meters was probably the hardest race in my life,” Lake said. “In Hawai’i most paddlers are used to paddling at 64 strokes to 68 strokes a minute. In Tahiti, some stroke counts were at 88 to 92 per minute. The Tahitian style is a different style, with different water, and different boats. We really had to practice.”
“The canoes are different,” Lake said. “The thing that made it fair was that they were all identical. I really like that.”
She said another rule difference is that the Tahitians are open to using paddles of any material and design. “In Hawai’i it is very restricted,” she said.
Lake said the South Pacific setting for the Bora Bora races was very Polynesian in spirit. “I was not unhappy when the Polynesians beat us, it was like watching a ballet, it was a beautiful thing to watch them paddle in their water.”
“Between everyone there was a lot of camaraderie,” Lake said. “It was a great cultural experience. Here we usually wear Hawaiian clothes to go to work, but there the people are always in Polynesia clothes. You see grandmothers wearing sarongs.”
Lake said, “The Bora Bora race was an international experience – like the Olympics for Tahiti; they were really strict on drug testing, and processing the competitors. They’d scan you through (just prior to a race). It was very disciplined.”
More Kaua’i paddlers will have an opportunity to attend and compete in the 2004 International Va’a Federation World Sprints as the competition is next scheduled to be held in Hawai’i, probably in Hilo or Honolulu.
