Ahupua`a

When I came to Hawai`i in January 2001, like many other Hotel General Managers before me, I had very little knowledge about the 50<sup>th</sup> state, its people and its culture and customs.  I assumed that leading a hotel would generally be the same as it is on the mainland, with me telling people what to do and hopefully teaching them a few things along the way.  I had some faint knowledge of a slight change in dress code from my previous stint in Scottsdale, Arizona, exchanging a suit, shirt and tie for something they call an Aloha Shirt, not tucked in but loosely hanging from the shoulders straight down outside the slacks (I was pretty certain that no serious business could be conducted dressed this way).  Beyond that, however, I really had no idea what to expect, particularly since I left Scottsdale on a few days notice and therefore did not have much time to study up on Hawai`i.

I vividly remember February 1^st of that year.  I had flown to Maui a couple of days prior and checked into a hotel called Kea Lani Hotel, Villas and Spa, a place I had never heard of before.  I had specific instructions to “lay low” for a few days and wait and see what would happen.  Fairmont was in the process of buying the hotel from the previous owners in what eventually would turn out to be the most expensive U.S. hotel transaction of the year, but we didn’t really know if the sale would go through, as these things often fall apart literally at the last minute.  Even though there were many Fairmont corporate officials on property, they wanted me to fly under the radar just in case the sale did not happen and I would return to Scottsdale to continue with my job there.

On that first day of February around 8am, the transaction was signed off on in Honolulu and Fairmont purchased its first major hotel outside the North American continent in what was termed Fairmont’s first international sun-resort (even though Acapulco was already part of the portfolio). I got word that it was “show time” and that there would be an all-employee meeting in the hotel’s ballroom at 2 in the afternoon.  February on Maui is the busy season, and the hotel was almost completely sold out, with dozens of loyal return guests and 650 employees, many of them employed by the hotel since opening in 1991, all waiting to see what would happen next.  Everyone was rather apprehensive, as this was the first time that the hotel had changed ownership, and it traded hands from what was basically a family-run single hotel business to become part of a growing company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, with ambitions to become a world-leader in the luxury hotel business.

At 2pm, I went to the ballroom and everyone in our company, from the Chairman to the Senior Vice President Human Resources, from Public Relations to Sales, from the General Counsel to the person in charge of Acquisitions, was assembled to roll-out our vision and values and plans for the hotel to the 650 employees who had gathered.  Once the ballroom was full, we started our presentations, with videos and slide shows, with music and speeches, and everyone told those employees how glad Fairmont was to be there and how we would honor what they had created and try and do a good job with them and for them. Finally, I stepped onto the stage as the last person to be introduced and I looked at the room full of people from every imaginable corner of the Pacific rim, from Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, China, Japan, from Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Micronesia, local Hawaiians, as well as from many parts of the United States and from many Canadian provinces.  I stared at all of them and they all stared at me, trying to figure each other out and trying to determine what we were all dealing with.  I too gave my speech and told everyone how pleased I was to be there and how much I was looking forward to teaching them all I knew; never imagining how the roles would really be turned.

At the end of the session, I stood by the door, shaking hands and meeting some of my new co-workers in person, when a fierce looking, dark-skinned mature gentleman with tattoos on his arms came to me, grabbed my hand and shook it with what must have been the firmest handshake I had ever experienced, and said “Mr. Luedi, I am Kimokeo Kapahulehua, and I will take you out on an outrigger canoe”.  Then he left and little did I know that I had just encountered a true Hawaiian kupuna (elder) who would change my life in more ways than I could ever have imagined.

A couple of months later, Kimokeo came to my office and reminded me that we had to go paddling, which led to the fundraising regatta I talked about last week.

As Kimokeo continued to interact with me, in a relationship that was very unusual (I was the General Manager and he was the hotel’s limousine driver), I was taught some of the most basic Hawaiian principles of life and community.  In our state, kupuna are held in high regard for their knowledge and experience from a lifetime of learning and living life, and sitting with one of them to “talk story”, to listen to them tell us how it was in the old days and how things were done, still holds lots of value and in many cases could make life in today’s world a whole lot easier, as that is is truly what life is all about.  One of those lessons learned is the concept of Ahupua`a – the way land was divided when the Polynesian settlers came to our islands around 800 A.D.  Towns at that time were not located horizontally along the ocean, in lower elevations or in the mountains; communities were divided in slivers of land stretching from the ocean (where the community was the widest) towards higher areas and eventually would reach a point on top of a mountain, for example Mauna Kea.  This community had access to the ocean and all that it had to offer, as well as lower-laying areas to farm and the mountains high up with their forests for wood and quarries for rocks to make tools. This land division was the ultimate model of sustainable living as everyone only fished for their own use, planted and harvested enough for everyone in the community, and only cut trees down for the wood that was needed.  There was no overfishing, no depletion of the soil’s nutrients due to over-planting, and no deforestation and erosion of soil.  Western contact changed all of that, and villages were created along the water, or in the mountains, and people had to start to trade for fish and wood, for harvested goods and rocks, and pretty soon over-consumption started to take its toll.  Today, everyone is talking about environmental stewardship and a sustainable lifestyle, but we know that it had been sustainable for a long time before land ownership changed it all.

As Kimokeo was teaching me, he broke down any barrier that had existed in my mind what the role of a hotel general manager in our state is all about. It is not so much about using all of the knowledge that has been accumulated over several years in the business (which is important), but about allowing others to teach you and to put that knowledge into the context of running a hotel.  The hierarchy in any business here always includes the leader in title (such as a General Manager), but also those that are the accepted leaders in the community (such as the kupuna).  It also includes those with great cultural knowledge who may not hold the highest “rank”, but have knowledge far beyond the actual job they are doing, just like Kimokeo.  I jokingly said many times that if Kimokeo would tell me to set the hotel on fire, I would do so as I had learned that he has the wisdom and knowledge to guide us along the right path.  Others who have taught me and guided me over the past ten years have included a wonderful gentleman on our Island of Hawai`i, Kaniela Akaka Jr., who is considered to be the resident historian of Mauna Lani Resort and our ahupua`a called Kalāhuipua`a, and who is also a person of great respect and influence to me, even though technically he is employed by another hotel.

Another such person is Kumu (teacher) Keli`i Tau`a, one of Hawai`i’s most prolific cultural perpetuators, from the Island of Maui.

I met kumu (as he is referred to in short) through Kimokeo when I asked him in August of 2002 if he could give me a short oli (chant) so that I could memorize it and then present it to our staff at our annual holiday party in December.  Kimokeo told me not to worry about a thing and that he would give me something.  Some time went by and didn’t hear anything. September, October and then November, nothing, and finally around Thanksgiving, Kimokeo came with a piece of paper with a chant and a tape recording of what seemed an impossibly lengthy chant of thanks to the universe, all prepared for me by kumu.  Kimokeo let me know that kumu did all of this for me and that he wanted to make sure I did a good oli in front of 600 invited employees and guests.  What he didn’t consider was that I had at that point about two weeks left to study, repeat, prepare and then perform.  I first abandoned the whole idea, but was told by Kimokeo, rather sternly, that it would not be polite to have kumu go through all the trouble and then not perform.  This prompted me to spend a couple of frightened days of memorizing in the weeks leading up to the party.  The president of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts at the time, a gentleman by the name of Chris Cahill, was visiting the property for a business meeting and had decided that afternoon that he would attend the party.  Kimokeo was there as well, and as a guest he brought with him Kumu Tau`a; all of that created a couple of the most stressful hours in my entire life for me. Regardless, I stood up there on stage and performed my very first oli in public, with only one small mistake (which nobody but kumu realized), and everyone loved it and that marked the beginning of my involvement with Hawaiian chants.  Today I think nothing of it when I open a meeting by blowing the pu (conch shell) and perform a chant, and I have a whole collection of various size shells that I can use, alone or with a group of blowers.

Every business in Hawai`i has such individuals on staff, and they all add tremendous value to one’s life.  At The Fairmont Orchid, Hawai`i, one such individual is Uncle Kalani, one of our beach ambassadors (the politically correct, gender neutral term for a beach boy, our state’s quintessential “aloha” job).  Uncle has been a beach boy all his life and at our hotel for many years.  He has great knowledge and is respected by all, including myself and I look up to him and learn from him every day that I see him. I hope that you will have the chance one day to meet Uncle, Kaniela, Kimokeo or even Kumu and I promise you, you will never forget them.

Me ke aloha, a hui hou,

Chris

P.S.  Practice update: we were on the water four days this week, getting closer and closer every day to our first race.

In Need of Some Money?

Aloha nō kākou,

We have had some great training runs this past week, and even though we are still a month away from racing season, our competitive spirits are starting to get the better of us. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, there are 7 or 8 canoes (with six paddlers each) on the water, and as we are going through the drills, crews are starting to “try to win”, even though there is really nothing to be won quite yet.

A typical training session starts with a light warm-up from Kailua Pier to the white coast guard buoy and back, a distance of roughly one mile. The whole purpose of the warm-up is to “find the blend”, which means to paddle completely in sync within each canoe, with everyone in the boat planting the paddle at exactly the same time, at the same distance in front of their bodies, and then pulling with the same power the exact same distance back. The paddles have to come out of the water at the hip at the same time, and the recovery (the process of moving the paddles forward to the starting position) has to happen in the same fashion. This type of warm-up is done in slow-motion, with 50 or so paddle strokes a minute, about 20 strokes less then under racing conditions. It is actually harder (but more beneficial) to paddle slowly, as high stroke rates tend to hide some of the technical imperfections.

Once all the canoes are back at the pier and lined up, the real work-out begins. One of the primary exercises this week was to paddle 15 strokes on one side, followed by 5 strokes on the other, repeating the 5-stroke rhythm two more times back and forth before it goes back to 15 strokes, then back to 5, and so on. This type of drill teaches us to be mentally aware and to constantly anticipate different scenarios, something that is very important under racing conditions. It also emphasizes the importance of the change-over, switching the paddle from one side to the other, as every stroke counts and one has to make sure that both the last stroke on one side and the first one on the other move the canoe at maximum speed the farthest distance ahead. Each half-mile drill to and from the buoy is slightly different, and as we work back and forth through the miles, the body starts to fatigue and the mind starts to lose focus, something that we are trying to avoid. Regatta races are between a half mile and one-and-a-half mile long, so our goal is to be conditioned to such a degree that we can apply maximum strength throughout the entire race. This type of paddling is really about maximum effort for 4 to 8 minutes, a sprint rather than a marathon.

Saturday mornings are all about longer distances, where we go for 60 to 90 minutes without stopping (or with only a very brief break) and cover between 6 and 10 miles. Here, it is all about a huge stroke, as far forward as possible, with a big “rip” on the paddle backwards, with a very long and slow recovery. Once you get this down, you start to get the feeling of the ocean and if the crew is well-adjusted, the canoe moves with the movement of the water and you really become one with the ocean; it literally feels as if the canoe is flying over the waves, barely touching the water. It is a very special feeling, a zen-like moment, and once you are in this zone, you can go for a long time without realizing what is going on outside the canoe, and all the energy in the team is in the boat and the collective power is transferred into the ocean. It is really hard to describe this feeling of oneness, it is truly something that needs to be experienced, but once you have it, you cannot let go and you want to feel this way all the time. I believe this is the main reason why once individuals get into canoe paddling, it becomes their life and their passion and it really is a lifestyle much more so than just a hobby or a sport. You come out of the canoe after a race, particularly a long-distance races where you are paddling on-and-off for up to six hours, and your muscles hurt, you are hot and tired, and often you wonder why you are doing this, but the very next day, you are longing for the ocean, the canoe and the same feeling once again. Paddling is truly a passion, and one that can carry on to old age.

With paddling also comes one of Hawai`i’s quintessential “part-time jobs” – fundraising. Fundraising is a necessity, something that happens anywhere and for anything. In our state, there is always some fundraiser going on, whether to raise money for the food bank, school trips, a pageant, a new canoe, a long-distance race, or simply cash to help out any number of not-for-profit organizations or the needy. If you live in Hawai`i, you better get used to it as you will be asked to kokua all the time. 

Spam Musubi

A basic fund raiser can be as simple as selling cookies, spam musubi, or any other type of home-made product to peers or strangers. In front of Wal-Mart, the local church, or at the gas station, there is always somebody selling something for a good cause, and it pays to always have a few dollars in your pocket when you go to town. The entire visitors industry (hotels, shops, activities companies, and everyone else who somehow is involved with visitors to our island) hosts a charity walk each May on every major island in the state, where everyone donates at least $35 and walks three to four miles. The result is over $165,000 dollars raised, all of which gets distributed to non-profit organizations. Carwashes are another favorite fundraiser, albeit one that requires some muscle and stamina to complete.

Kai `Opua Canoe Club holds several fundraisers each year, including the annual Business Men’s Regatta this weekend. Many canoe clubs organize such an event, which basically is a mini-regatta for all-comers in an elimination format, with the canoes and steerspersons provided by the club (for safety and efficiency reasons). This is a great way for a business to sponsor a group of their employees to go out and have some fun on the water, learn how to paddle a canoe and get the feeling of being on the water in a real (fiberglass) racing canoe. Everyone involved gets bitten by the competitive bug and everyone feels inspired by hovering at the starting line, peeking down the quarter-mile race course where the flags at the other end mark the finish line (these types of races are short so that everyone can complete the distance), and everyone feels like a champion when they cross that line, no matter in what position. For the club, it is a morning of work rewarded by a few thousand dollars in the bank to cover expenses throughout the year.

Men's Regatta

As a matter of fact, it was such a fundraising regatta that got me into a canoe for the very first time back in 2001. An employee named Kimokeo Kapahulehua at The Fairmont Kea Lani on Maui (who later became one of my closest friends) “tricked” me into going to the annual spring regatta at Kihei Canoe Club in South Maui, something that a general manager of a hotel wouldn’t necessarily do (at the time, he told me that all the other general managers on Maui would attend, only to find out that when I got there, I was the only one, never mind the fact that I was also wearing my Italian loafers). I thought it was great fun and a great day at the beach – little did I know what the canoe culture would do for my life. 

In the end, fundraisers are all about community and making it possible for individuals who normally could not experience something to partake in a particular event or activity. It ties action (fundraising) and result (activity) together and teaches everyone, from young to old, that things have to be earned. Even when one is able to pay the money for a particular trip, you still participate in the fundraising efforts – it is all about being together and achieving together.

Me ke aloha, a hui hou,

Chris

Koa

Aloha nō kākou,

6 weeks and counting until the first regatta, and things are definitely starting to take shape. Kai `Opua Canoe Club is now officially in training as a club, and every Tuesday and Thursday at 5:15pm, about 50 men in various age-groups are gathering to practice stroke technique, crew composition, strategy and physical ability in anticipation of the first race on May 19^th. Saturdays and Sundays are currently reserved for long-distance training, with training sessions lasting anywhere from two to three hours, and anyone who has an additional day available goes out on an OC-1 for a training run. I am starting to get back into the groove and feel like I am starting to contribute in the canoe (something that takes a while to get used to again). While my body feels tired after a big practice and needs time to recover, I look forward to every new day and practice as it allows me to try new things, change my stroke just a bit and see if it makes a difference in how I can apply power from the very beginning of the stroke to the very end.

Our Head Coach, Eddie Hayward, whom I have only met this past week, is a young, well-spoken man of Hawaiian decent who, as far as I can gather (I have not asked him about it yet), works as a teacher at a Hawaiian Immersion School where the entire curriculum is taught in the Hawaiian language. I very much like his style – he is firm and knows what he wants in a team, but not overbearing, realizing that for most of us, paddling is a passion and diversion, not a profession.

What I really like about Eddie and the club in general is their respect for Hawaiian culture and their sense of responsibility (kuleana) to perpetuate our culture. At the beginning of each training session, before we climb into the canoes, a few words of Hawaiian wisdom and thoughts about the spirit (mana) within the canoe are shared. When practice is done (pau), everyone helps get the canoes back out of the water, and then the entire group gathers around in a circle, and Kahu Mark, a priest who is also a very talented paddler, performs a prayer (pule) in Hawaiian, line by line, with the entire club repeating after him. Someone else may offer a Hawaiian word of the day and anyone else who wants to contribute anything cultural is welcome to do so. It is a great atmosphere and adds a wonderful element to the physicality of the club.

This week’s kokua was to meet at the club’s canoe halau (storage structure for canoes and equipment) after practice on Saturday morning to work on the two koa canoes that belong to Kai `Opua.

Koa is the name of the largest native tree in Hawai`i, with a light-gray bark, crescent-shaped leaves and white flowers in small, round heads. Koa has been used for canoes and surfboards, but today is commonly used as a very high-end wood for expensive furniture. In the Hawaiian language, koa also means brave, bold, fearless, with bravery and courage, and is also used as a word for soldier, warrior, fighter and hero. Every canoe club in the state aspires to own a koa canoe, but not all of them can afford to have one, as the wood and the art of carving a canoe comes at a very high monetary price.

When you drive around any of the Hawaiian Islands, you can spot canoes on the beaches and sites of one of the over 50 canoe clubs, but all of those canoes are made out of fiberglass. The advantage of fiberglass is the relatively affordable cost and the strength and resilience of the hull. It is also easy to fix any damage to the canoe by fiber glassing over it, and scratches can easily be repainted. The cost of fiberglass canoes is about $15,000, but they last for many, many years and provide its owner much use and excitement.

A koa canoe on the other hand is much more delicate and has to be treated with much more care. For any paddler, the main difference is that a koa canoe comes from a living organism, the koa tree, compared to the synthetic nature of fiberglass. The process of selecting the right tree, longer than 40 feet, with the correct girth, is a very important and also very spiritual one. Those who are chosen to go and select such a tree carry the burden of wisdom and honor with them to climb up into the mountains, sometimes as high as 7,000 feet, to find a tree that has all of the right attributes to make a great canoe. Once a selection is made, cultural protocol dictates how the tree is taken down, often roughed-out on site and then transported down to the ocean where a master canoe builder (kalai wa`a) starts to shape the canoe. This process is a long and arduous one, as the canoe not only has to look great, but also  perform well while racing under all types of conditions. There are few men in our state today who are master canoe builders, even though I believe the number is increasing once again as individuals want to learn and perpetuate this art.  Needless to say, koa canoes are much more expensive (over $100,000 to be exact).

The Fairmont Orchid has a koa canoe named Pauoa.  Pauoa is a beautiful koa canoe built by master kalai wa`a, Manny Veincent. When the hotel opened in 1990, Manny was asked to work with the employees to select a koa tree and build a canoe. After months of vigorous protocols, planning, designing and finally working on the koa log, Manny presented the hotel with Pauoa. Hawaiians believe that canoes have a life, as they were once a living being as a tree. Each has a distinct and separate personality in the ocean that must be cared for and respected. The canoe is part of the crew whether fishing, surfing or racing, and carries all paddlers safely into the ocean and home again.  We are taught that all paddlers are to treat canoes with respect and never take them for granted or treat them discourteously.

Once a canoe club has a koa canoe, it is the club’s great responsibility to take care of the vessel. Typically, the canoe is referred to as “she”, just like a family member, and we treat the canoe just like someone who is part of our `ohana. Kai `Opua owns two canoes, the Kamakahonu and the Hualalai.

As you can see, great pride goes into making such a canoe, with many beautiful details making this more of an artwork than an ocean-going boat. Most canoes are made from one solid log, but over time, small holes in the hull require patches to be inserted, which give the canoe additional character and interesting detail.

This weekend, the task at hand was to sand the two canoes down with fine-grit sandpaper so that they can be re-varnished and readied for another season of racing. Groups of 10 paddlers, sand-paper in hand, gathered around each canoe and small section by small section, over a three hour period, both canoes were sanded down very carefully, just enough to take out all unevenness, but not too much as to damage or weaken the structure.

After the dusty job of sanding, the canoes were wiped down, awaiting the next step in the process to regain their former beauty and strength to carry us through a full season of racing.

On some of the islands, koa canoes are only used on special occasions and during the state championships, the final regatta race of the season, but here on Hawai`i Island, all regattas are paddled in koas. It is a great honor to do so, but also a big responsibility as you don’t want to damage to canoe by sitting on the top (gunnel), by slamming the paddle into the side, or worse by touching another canoe in a turn during the race.

But for now, back into the fiberglass canoes for another week of training in Kailua-Kona.

A hui hou, mālama pono.

Chris

It's a Kokua kind of thing.....

With the popularization of one- and two-person outrigger canoes over the past decade or so, our sport has changed dramatically. I remember my first year on Maui in 2001, when there were just some hard-core paddlers who owned one-person canoes, and there were only a few one-person canoe races taking place in the months of January through April with minimal participation. You could literally count the canoes on two hands, and most of them were either Hurricanes (built on Maui), or Stingrays (built on O`ahu). Shortly thereafter, things started to take off, and today there is a whole selection of high-tech carbon fiber boats from builders like Kai Wa`a, Kamanu Composites, OC Connection and Ozone (Maui Fiberglass) amongst many other smaller builders who produce some of the lightest and fastest human-powered ocean going vessels in the world.

One-person paddling is fun and convenient. Fun because these canoes weigh as little as 18 pounds and you can really explore the ocean and surf every little bump. Convenient because you do not have to rely on a crew of six to show up at a designated time and place, but you can go whenever you have time or the ocean is calling. This type of paddling is also a great way to work on technique, specific conditioning (many of us wear heart rate monitors and follow strict programs based on personal heart rate ranges) and to learn to read the ocean currents, waves and winds. The one thing that is missing with this type of paddling is the social aspect of being part of a club and the interaction that comes with being part of a crew.

Being part of a canoe club is a commitment and a life changing experience. Memberships in canoe clubs cost around $125 annually, which is a small price to pay considering the tremendous joy you get from being a member. Clubs require their members to participate and to give freely of their time, not only for paddling, but also to assist in other ways. Helping out is one of the fundamental Hawaiian principals and is referred to as “kokua”.

Kokua in paddling means being at the beach 10 minutes before the training session starts to help get the canoes ready – making sure that the air plugs in the hull are tight and that there are two bailers tied to the boat should water get into the canoe. It also means that the 400 pound canoe gets carried down to the water, which typically takes 8-12 paddlers to comfortably do. After the crew returns from the training session, the canoes have to get carried back up onto the beach and rinsed off so that the salt water doesn’t destroy the finish. Rigging is another big task that requires kokua, as the various parts of the canoe are lashed together with rope. Every so often, this rigging has to be re-done which takes time, strength, and a group of four skilled individuals to complete swiftly and in a way that the canoe won’t fall apart on the water.

Before the paddling season starts, every club’s canoes that will be used for regatta racing have to be weighed to make sure they are all at the minimal weight of 400 pounds. At times, a canoe may weigh less than the minimum weight, which means that a steel weight has to be affixed to the underside of seat three or four to bring it up to 400 pounds. Canoe weighing for the Kai Opua canoe club took place this past Saturday. It is quite an arduous task, as all of the canoes have to be unrigged, weighed and then put back together. A call went out to all members to come and kokua, but unfortunately a work commitment prevented me from attending – not a good thing (and I will need to find ways to make up for missing this later in the year).

Once regatta season starts, kokua takes on a whole new level. Regatta Saturdays are big days with 40 races taking place from 8am until finish (pau) around 4pm. Here on Hawai`i Island, regattas take place either at the Kailua-Kona pier or in Hilo Bay. Kailua is obviously convenient for us, but once we get into the Hilo regattas, the day will have an added 2-hour drive before and after paddling, making for an extra long day.

Regatta day happens in the following manner: first, a club tent needs to be erected somewhere on the beach or pier, hopefully in a convenient spot to bring canoes into the water and back up, and also to have some shade while watching the races. This tent is the gathering place for everyone, from the 8-year old keiki early in the morning to the 60 and over kupuna at the end of the day.

Typically, each club member brings some food or water to share for everyone, as the day is long. I personally always bring some food, whether it is rice or meat, fruit or cookies, or bottled water. For my own consumption, however, I have a routine that works for me and has been tried and true for the last decade. Peanut butter sandwiches and Hammer Gel, a molasses like sports solution, not very exciting, but filling, easy to digest and able to provide me the energy I need for my races. I sip water all day long to stay hydrated until it is my turn to race, which is typically later in the day.

The regatta usually opens with a short ceremony, including prayer (pule) and chant (oli), and then the action begins. Coaches submit lists of names of paddlers for the various races to the referees at the officials tables, including picture ID’s and licenses (to make sure that the correct paddlers are in the right canoe).

Canoes go into the water following a schedule that is posted, one race after the other. The starting line consists of flags that are lined up in the water and each steersperson moves their canoe into the assigned lane (designated by different colored flags). To ensure the canoes sit in the right spot (not over the starting line, but also not too far back), two boat holders float in the water – this is another kokua job during regattas, and one that I quite enjoy.  The boat holders are assigned to hold either the front or back of the canoe, with the main duty of the front holder to make sure that canoe stays behind the line, and the back holder making sure the canoe is facing the right angle relative to the course, taking into account winds and waves, to give the crew the best possible advantage going into the race. Once the canoes have left the starting line, the boat holders have to float backwards and away from the canoes and the flags, as within about 4 minutes all the canoes will approach the starting line once again (after having made a turn on the far end of the race course). This brief wait allows you to “socialize” with boat holders from other clubs, while floating and treading water, waiting for the canoes to return. Once the canoes approach (and in all races longer than half-a-mile have to turn around once more), everyone starts to cheer their respective crews on. At the end of the particular race, boat holders either “catch” a ride back to the beach with their club’s canoe, or move laterally to the next assigned lane to assist the next boat with boat holder duties.

At the end of the day, tents have to be taken down, the site has to be cleaned up, canoes have to be unrigged, placed on a trailer and driven back to the club site and rigged again so that they can be used during the week before regatta-Saturday comes around once more and everything starts fresh once again.

As you can see, paddling regatta season is not about showing up for a 4-minute or 8-minute race, but all about kokua, which is at times long and tiring, but also very rewarding.

A hui hou kākou – until next time,

Chris