Hawaiian Solo OC1 World Championship

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An official announcment about the Moloka'i solo race by PA'A

Aloha everyone,

We appreciate all the feedback. Aside from some posts on this forum, I have never received such huge support from both international and local paddlers for any one race as I have for this one. Based on this support, the Hawaiian Solo Outrigger Canoe Championship race on April 27th, 2008, is scheduled to run from Kaluakoi, Molokai to Hawaii Kai, Oahu.

Hats off to Epic for their effort to raise the level of the Molokai solo event last year and for including the OC1’s in their race. With this event and over the course of the last 10 years, it is apparent that surfski and OC1 paddling are at a point where they are big enough to have a separate championship race day. This gives equal highlighting to both and promotes their growth.

We realize that people in Hawaii are spoiled by the luxury of less logistical planning since the race happens here and making adjustments to date changes are much less painful. For those of you coming from abroad who have made arrangements according to Epic’s website post about the official May 18th date, PA’A has asked Epic to return to it’s original plan to hold an OC1 division. The reply from Epic’s rep, Mark Sandvold, was that Epic would keep its OC1 division for the 18th.

The idea of holding a Molokai OC1 only race on April 27th was something PA’A and Epic have talked about since November, and the date depended on a lot, a lot, of variables. Originally, PA’A was planning since July to have a separate OC1 solo which would feature paddlers from Hawaii, the mainland US, and abroad. PA’A’s race was never a secret as indicated by some of the posts on the OCpaddler forum; however, the idea of the race was not made public because there were still some unresolved issues, and we did not want people to commit to a race that was not yet confirmed. In the meantime, PA’A did poll various paddlers in order to collect feedback about the idea of having a separate OC1 solo race date, however, most of them did not even want to think about the solo until long after the Na Wahine and Molokai Hoe crossings were over. As a result, it wasn’t until late December that the idea of having a separate OC1 race was overwhelmingly supported.

As for the conflict of local races being held on the April 27th weekend, the State Race already conflicts with the Maui to Molokai race since the two fall on the same weekend, and this has been a problem in past years. PA’A is working with Kanaka Ikaika to find an alternate date for the State Race, and has also been working with coordinators of the Maui to Molokai race since December to figure out other date options.

All date options have been considered and weighed out. The idea of having the race before the Molokai Relay (May 4th) is to keep the race in conjunction with the relay so that outside paddlers can do both races while they are here if they wish. Here’s some quick explanations of why some of the suggested dates have conflicts, although these explanations only skim the surface of all the underlying issues:

  • May 4th Molokai Relay
  • May 10th weekend – Kauai Challenge
  • May 17th, Saturday, the day before Epic’s race. Hula Ka Piko event weekend that causes limited lodging, limited flights, limited escort boats. A bigger problem is with escort boats reaching Molokai in time for the race – boats come from Oahu and most drivers don’t go up until Saturday because they work on Friday and are not willing to take off from work just to go up for the race. If escorts left on Saturday morning, it would be cutting it too close to the race.

For clarification these are the two race dates:

  • April 27th, 2008 – Hawaiian Solo OC1 World Championship presented by PA’A
  • May 18th, 2008 – Molokai World Championship presented by Epic

A PA’A registration site will be posted soon.

Mahalo for your patience and all of your support.

Manny Kulukulualani
PA'A

Posted by keizo on Tue, 01/15/2008 - 9:18am

4 comments

Mahalo for all of your hard work, Manny and the rest of the PA'A team.


#1 Tue, 01/15/2008 - 10:27am


Kia Orana Manny - congratulations and all the best for this year.. thanks for your hard work so far, and I hope all Hawaiian paddlers give you all the support you need. I hope this is a solid step towards all the various paddling/island associations working together for the benefit and future development of canoeing in Hawaii.


#2 Tue, 01/15/2008 - 2:09pm


Right On PA'A!! Keep up the good work!


#3 Tue, 01/15/2008 - 3:09pm


Aloha Manny,

Mahalo nui for keeping our sport moving forward and giving it the focus it deserves. Aloha no...


#4 Sun, 01/20/2008 - 12:30pm


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