Glamour and Heartbreak

Week 2 of regatta season, and things are already stirring. After last Saturday’s win, we all felt pretty good but also knew that one out of nine races does not make a season. Throughout the week, there was talk that the Puna crew was missing two strong paddlers last week and that they would be available to race for their club this weekend in Hilo (apparently they have an unlimited supply of paddling legends over there!).

Our crew on the other hand lost the stroker (seat 1) for a couple of weeks, so our coach tried frantically to find a new line-up. In Tuesday’s practice, Jack was put in seat one, and halfway through the session, I was put in there. Being a stroker is a high-stress job – setting the rhythm for the crew, finding that glide that makes a canoe fast, speeding up towards the turn-flag, it is indeed a lonely place up front. I didn’t do all that well in that seat, so coach settled for Jack in seat 1 and left me in 2. Behind us, there were two new paddlers who didn’t get to paddle last week, so the boat felt a bit different. In Thursday’s practice, we had some trouble while practicing turns, and the crew was a bit unsettled. Nevertheless, at the end of Thursday’s practice we felt we could have a good race once again.

This week was generally a very busy week at work, with some projects to be done, but The Fairmont Orchid was also the host hotel for the Big Island Film Festival, a fledging festival supported by the County of Hawai`i, the film office, and many other entities, as it focuses on local as well as international film makers and blends movie showings with seminars, meet-the-star gatherings, award ceremonies and great food and drinks over the Memorial Day Weekend. On Friday night, I had the pleasure of meeting two of the stars, Eloise Mumford,star of the new Dreamworks/ABC series “The River”on the right, and Jenifer Grisanti, protégé to the great television executive Aaron Spelling and well-known story consultant, on the left. Both of them, as were all the other attendees, were extremely happy and pleased to be on Hawai`i Island, and the entire festival was once again a great success (by the way, this is the glamour part of the title).

Now that we are racing on the other side of the island, in Hilo, Saturdays look quite a bit different. From Kona, one has to drive north towards the town of Waimea, then veer off right and take Saddle Road, which is a short-cut that leads in-between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa into Hilo, a round-trip of 190 miles. Saddle Road is a pretty good road, particularly on the Hilo side, but the speed limits vary between 40 miles and 55 miles per hour (and police are plentiful on the road), so each trip takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes. I wasn’t in a big rush to get there, so left Kona around 8:45am and took my time driving through the spectacular scenery in this high-elevation valley. The weather was perfect on the way over, with only a little bit of rain coming down into Hilo. Below is perfectly shaped Mauna Loa as looking East from Saddle Road.

Once in Hilo, it turned out to be an unusually nice day – fast-moving scattered clouds with lots of sun, so a beautiful day at the beach for racing.

As I only got to the club tent by 11am, the racing action was in full swing. Race after race, the canoes went out, and Kai `Opua did quite well, winning 11 out of the first 20 races. I unloaded my snacks (every week, men and women are supposed to bring either snacks or drinks for everyone to consume-this week my contribution was Gatorade and Clif Bars) and stayed around the club tent, assisting where needed and talking to various club members. As this is my first year with the club, there are still lots of people I don’t know and I try to make it a point to talk and befriend everyone, young and old, novices and experienced paddlers. What I have always enjoyed on Maui is going from club tent to club tent and talking story with all kinds of paddlers. After a while, you really get to know a large group of individuals and it is fun to go places and run into like-minded souls.

Around 3pm, our crew took one of the two koa canoes and we went out for a warm-up / course inspection paddle. The water in Hilo Bay is different, in particular around the turn-flag on the south-side of the bay. A small river flows into the bay, and depending on how fast the water moves, the canoe drifts into the flag. Just like in skiing, you have to go around the flag in order to not get disqualified. The outrigger (ama) can touch the flagpole and move it to the side, but the flag cannot touch the water. Below is a very short quotation from the 2012 Rule Book – as you can see it gets very, very technical.

All turns shall be left turns around assigned lane flags. If the flag bends over and touches the water, the crew will be disqualified. Where canoes assigned to adjoining lanes occupying the same lane during a turning maneuver, each canoe shall maneuver in such a way as to occupy as nearly as possible the one-half (½) width of the lane nearest its own line of flags so that the canoes will pass each other hull to hull.

For more in-depth studies of the race rules, you are free to go to below link: http://www.hcrapaddler.com/homeinfo/2012%20Race%20Rules.pdf,, but be warned, it may put you to sleep.

Quite a few canoes had already gotten disqualified throughout the day, so we knew that the turn would be tricky.

The time for our race came, and when we lined up on the starting line we saw that Puna indeed had stacked their team and were ready for battle. The flags went up and we went for it. Compared to last week’s race, where we had a fairly good lead going into the turn on the far end of the race course, this time we had both Puna and Keaukaha on both sides of us going into the turn about the same time. As I leaned over and outside on the left side of the canoe, putting my paddle into the water to anchor the turn, I was about a foot or so from the ama and the flag, and to my horror I see the flagpole precariously close to the inside of the ama, which meant that we would run over the flag and get disqualified. Everyone in the canoe is yelling, I lift my paddle a bit and try to rock the canoe back away from the flag, and watch how the pole slips on the outside of the ama (a good sign), but starts to tilt towards the water. We were lucky, it didn’t touch the water, and we were able to continue. Our turn was actually very fast and we came out ahead of the two canoes. As we headed back to the finish, it was a battle for one and two between us and Puna, with Keaukaha falling slightly back. We all got a bit excited, we heard the spectators scream on the beach and as we went into the last couple of changes (switching paddles from side to side), someone in our canoe yelled something which made some of us think that they had to switch sides. For a couple of seconds the canoe lost momentum, and in the end, we finished 1.26 seconds behind our nemesis (which constitutes the heartbreak part of the title). So here is how it ended:

Senior Men Masters (50)1 Puna Canoe Club 3:55.34 (Steve Blyth, Paul Malama, Michael O’Shaughnessy, Afa Tuaolo, Bubba Baldado, Brian Peterson)
2 Kai Opua Canoe Club 3:56.60
3 Keaukaha Canoe Club 4:02.11
4 Kamehameha Canoe Club 4:16.95

After two races, both Puna and Kai `Opua Senior Masters have 7 points, and while the season is long, it looks like we have a race on our hands and will have to battle every weekend for first or second.

After a long day of racing, I made it back over the Saddle Road, in the dark and with fog and rain, and arrived in Kona around 8pm. I am sure there will be plenty of discussion on Monday about our race and then we will do it again next Saturday.

A hui hou.

Chris