Hey gang,
Nice race. We collected A LOT of canned goods...don't know how many pounds yet, but paddlers' generous donations will be greatly appreciated by some people who are less fortunate on Thanksgiving. Mahalo.
Big mahalo to all paddlers who came out to race and our supporting staff, safety boat drivers, and sponsors. As for conditions, the wind was finicky and chose to turn light southeast when the race started. Not much free rides, we did work. Many paddlers were nudged into the surfline by the wind and swell direction around Diamond Head where an East swell wrap sought out anyone who didn't take an occasional peak over their shoulder.
Kalei Kahookele, although mistakingly listed as M18-39 division (will be corrected), dominated the growing Junior Division which will soon need to be subdivided by ages. It was good to see some SUPaddlers out there mixing it up, with Robert Stehlik heading the pack. Kekoa Bruhn claimed the V1 title and announced he would be going back to his "traditional" paddling roots after burning his rudder after at the Halloween race and setting out to be the next Superman Aito Champion. Yeah Koa! The women's division was owned by Jane Mckee who recently chose to retire and pursue paddling full time. OC2 winners and first overall finishers were Billy Pratt and Evan Rhodes -- stop sandbagging boys. Overall SurfSki went to Steven Ball and Overall OC1 belonged to Pat Dolan. Congrats. And a big congratulation and Happy Birthday to Uncle Harold Akeo, an inspiration to many, who was accidentally put into the 50-59 division...it didn't matter, he won that too.
One announcement: Please try to pre-register gang. Every race we get one hundred paddlers trying to register a half hour before race-day registration closes and this causes problems. Not only is it difficult to get you registered, but we aren't able to turn in a head count for how much food to cook for lunch.
To address the comment regarding the list of boat models, this information is entered in pre-registration by participants. We add this category to support boat builders, but if the vessel model doesn't show up in the results, it's because either the paddler didn't list it or they did not pre-register. Again, crunching 100 paddlers into less than half an hour on race day means we are pressed for time to start the race, and if we don't include the boat model, we didn't have the time to type it in. We will not take out the boat models that were already typed in during pre-registration, or go back to track boat types of late race day entrants -- this is just another reason why we emphasize pre-registration.
Submitted by mkulukul on Wed, 11/11/2009 - 6:38pm
Hawaii Foodbank Top 5 needed items.
http://www.hawaiifoodbank.org/pdf/Flyer%20Top%205%204-up.pdf
#1 Fri, 11/13/2009 - 12:09pm
Good race- great cause!! PAt Dolan was on the XM demo. Aaron NApolean was on a old Polaris or Scorpius. MAtt D. was on a Scorpius. If you are going to show what people are riding be consistant- it isn't too difficult to figure out what type of canoe a person is on. Either show them all or don't show canoe type.
#2 Sat, 11/14/2009 - 8:56pm
Thanks for the props Manny but I have to burst my own bubble. I actually paddled a Hurricane. I registered as a V1 but ended up using a Oc1. I believe Makana Denton won the V1. Sorry to Makana and to Pa'a. Big ups to Makana. Sorry. It won't happen again. Also, in an attempt to pass all the bradas that passed me I tried to take a "short cut" inside the reef before the wind sock but still lost to all the deserving guys ahead of me. So as it stands here is how my race went: I got credit for a "win" I didn't have and even though I tried to "short cut" to beat guys I still lost to all of them. What a loozah.
#3 Sun, 11/15/2009 - 1:18am