Kauai takes on inter-island canoe race

LIHUE — Rowing teams from Kauai showed up in a big way on Friday at an annual outrigger canoe race from Maui to Molokai.

The 2019 Pailolo Challenge drew over 80 rowing teams from around the world, but canoes manned by paddlers from Kauai won their divisions, and three local men’s teams finished in the top 10 overall.

The annual outrigger competetion starts at D.T. Fleming Beach on Maui, where teams of paddlers start a 26-mile downwind trip across the Pailolo Channel and along the southeastern shore of Molokai until they reach Kaunakakai Harbor.

The Pailolo Challenge bills itself as “the world’s funnest canoe race” because of the favorable winds that push canoes along, allowing the paddlers, at times, to coast effortlessly from swell to swell. But even in the best conditions, the journey can be an arduous one, and this year the wind was barely blowing.

“Normally, the swells are a lot bigger,” Robin Jumper said Tuesday. She paddled to a division win with her crew, #madeitstillfakingit, a 10-person team made up of men and women that she described as “a mixed plate of paddlers.”

“We had the whole gamut on our team,” she said, explaining that the youngest crew member on #madeitstillfakingit is 18 years old and the oldest over 60.

Jumper said the 10 paddlers on her team — each canoe only holds six — rotated in shifts between the canoe and an escort boat, swapping out rowing duties in “20-minute pieces,” each of which she said “was almost like a sprint.”

The tactic paid off, with #madeitstillfakingit ending up taking fourth place overall among the 39 mixed canoe teams that entered the race, finishing in 3 hours, 49 minutes.

Kauai Councilman Luke Evslin also competed in the Pailolo Challenge, and said that even though “conditions were pretty light,” this year “paddling is so much fun.”

Evslin rowed with Kauai Wa‘a, a six-man “iron crew,” meaning the team raced alone, without an escort boat carrying alternate crew members or extra food and water.

“It’s just six guys paddling the whole thing,” Evslin said. “So you finish pretty tweaked.”

Even with a lighter-than-normal breeze behind the canoe, Evslin said the Pailolo Challenge was still “the best downwind course in Hawaii, or in the world actually.” And maybe even more than the location, Evslin said that what made the race so enjoyable was the camaraderie he shared with his teammates.

“It’s like going to war with your five other crew members,” he said.

“When you’re fighting with your crew members out there, it’s such a good feeling.”

Kauai Wa‘a beat out the other five canoes in their division and finished third overall, rowing the 26 miles in just under three hours and 10 minutes.

Afterward, Evslin said he spent several more hours out in the sun, “hitchhiking,” going around the harbor until he found a motorboat willing to give him a ride back to Maui.