I'm looking into buying an older Hurricane (about 4 years old). It has the moulded seat as opposed to the foam seat that the new Hurricanes have. Does anyone know if this vintage canoe would have been built in Hawaii or China?
Submitted by ho'okele on Mon, 04/25/2016 - 9:37am
As I recall the Hurricanes have been built in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and China, but never in Hawaii.
#1 Tue, 04/26/2016 - 2:22am
Alipp, thank you for your reply. Geez, I did not know that the Hurricanes were actually never built on Hawaii.
Appreciate knowing this.
#2 Wed, 04/27/2016 - 6:29am
The Hurricane was originally created, developed and built by Mike Giblin on Maui nearly 20 years ago.
For more details and inquires I suggest you check out the website.
OutriggerZone.com
#3 Wed, 04/27/2016 - 10:50am
Charper, I have browsed the outrigger.com website but perhaps too hastily as I did not notice any section describing the history of the Hurricane builds.
#4 Wed, 04/27/2016 - 2:20pm
Hookele: May I suggest trying out Giblin's Makani OC-1 for fun (if you can find one) which pre-dates the Hurricane and also was very fast. On Oahu, the Foti Bros. probably know more about the Hurricane and its history, since they were the first to race and sell them. Jim even took off the rudder from his Hurricane and blew everyone away in a rudderless open ocean race, off Kaisers, back in the days way before V-1s.
#5 Wed, 04/27/2016 - 3:37pm
I don't think Mike Giblin designed the Makani. I recall it was designed by a German guy, and Mike Pederson (MP) was using it on Oahu, but he didn't like it much, mainly because the ama was very narrow and buried way too easily in rougher conditions.
Mike Giblin then ended up with the mold over on Maui and was building them there. He must have changed the ama and rigging because it became pretty successful, but mainly was only paddled by Maui paddlers.
He then built the Hurricane, but produced few if any on Maui. All the Hurricanes I ever saw were outsourced, starting in Sri Lanka, then moving to Malaysia, Thailand and China. I was on team Ocean Club/Hurricane in the early years of its production and have a pretty good recollection of how things went down.
#6 Wed, 04/27/2016 - 5:15pm