Canoe club helping to perpetuate Hawaiian culture
By Fernando Brum, Staff Writer

SAN LEANDRO - The Kaimanu Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Clob wascreated to keep the wives and children busy while the men were golfing, but it has grown into much more than that in its 23 years of existence.

The club is a focal point for families trying to perpetuate Hawaiian culture and provide a setting where family members compete together.

Debbie Green, president of Kaimanu in San Leandro, said she was paddling while pregnant with son Robert, who began paddling at a very young age.

Green's 2- and 3-year-old granddaughters might be paddling by next season. Green, her daughter, Dana Miyake, and her son-in-law, Keone Miyake, will be among the 10 coed crews competing in Bradley Class 45-foot long canoes when Kaimanu hosts a 10-mile Hawaiian outrigger race Saturday at 9 a.m. in the San Leandro Channel.

Green said part of the group has been together for about 20 years and the women often joke about how the club increases its membership.

"We don't recruit, we reproduct," Green said.

She is the stroke setter and sits up front. Dana will be at the back steering and Keone and the others provide the thrust with their paddles. They race to a buoy 5 miles out from the Spinnaker Yacht Club in the San Leandro Marina and back.

"This is really nice," Dana said. "When I was younger, I was not good enough to be on my mom's crew. It's really a big accomplishment to be on her level. To have my husband on the crew and to be paddling with people you care about is really a nice feeling."

As a teenager, Keone and a friend decided to check out the Kaimanu. Since then, paddling has kept him out of trouble, he said.

"It changed my life," said Keone, who was born in Kauai. "I was on the wrong track. I really missed home. Paddling made us feel at home away from home. And I met Dana through Kaimanu."

Dina Kakalia is a member of the Kaimanu women's crew competing against nine other crews from throughout the state. Her husband, Lance Kakalia, is paddling with the coed crew. Lance has been paddling since he was a teenager.

Donald Kakalia, Lance's father, was one of seven Puka Da Sky Golf members out of Skywest in Hayward that helped form Kaimanu, which has 80 members and 60 active paddlers. While the result has been a great activity for the whole family, the seven men created the club to keep the wives and children entertained during the men's golf outings.

Dina, who will steer the women's canoe, said that Kaimanu brings Hawaiians together and makes people feel like family. Her job is to keep the paddlers in sync and encourage the crew while maneuvering the canoe through the unpredictable currents in the bay.

"You never know what the tides will be like in the marina from day to day," Dina said. "It makes it ideal for this type of race. When there are swells you fight the waves going out and surf or ride the waves coming back. It's exciting to be out there instead of on flat water."

Thirty-two crews are expected to participate as the annual San Leandro Channel resumes Saturday after a two-year break. Kent Meyers, a former San Leandro City Councilman and one of the event coordinators, said his heavy work schedule and unfavorable tides prevented the race from being held the past couple of years.

There are 14 active clubs governed by the Northern California Outrigger Canoe Association and 20 that belong to the Kalifornia Outrigger Association in the south. All host races throughout the year.

Some of those competitions were scheduled during the time when the tides were perfect for racing.

"This year, I kicked and screamed. 'I'm having my race,'" Green said.

She thinks the number of crews entering the race would have been higher if not for the World Sprint Races going on Aug. 12-20 in Townsvilla, Australia. The sport is practiced in many countries including the United States, Canada, Fiji, France, Italy and Australia.

At one time, outrigger canoes made out of Koa wood were the main form of transportation to the islands of Hawaii.

According to the Kalifornia Outrigger Association, competitive outrigger canoeing was first introduced as a sport in California in 1959. Albert Edward "Toots" Minvielle arranged to have two Koa wood outriggers shipped from Hawaii to Southern California and put together two All-Star paddler crews.

The Hawaiian All-Stars paddled the Niube the 23 miles from Avalon on Catalina Island to Newport Dunes inside the California Coast in five hours, while the California crew in the Malia made it in 5 hours, 11 minutes. This competition became an annual event held Sept. 9-10 and is now one of the premier offshore distance races.

In 1984, a demonstration was held to educate the Olympic committee about the sport and drum up support to make it an Olympic event. The season begins with the sprint competitions in June and July. The long-distance races start in August and end in November with the Northern California Outrigger Canoe Association state championship.

Kaimanu became the first club to win the state title three consecutive years starting in 1987. It got its name from one of the founders who was rescued after four days adrift aboard a vessel named Kaimanu.

Thursday, August 22, 2002 - 10:16:01 AM MST

Kaimanu club wins outrigger canoe race

Home team outlasts field in anniversary race
By Fernando Brum STAFF WRITER

SAN LEANDRO -- Hawaiian outrigger canoe crews battled against the northerly current and southeasterly 4-foot swells during the 10-mile 25th anniversary race in the San Leandro Channel.

With these counter forces and choppy water, it was a struggle just to avoid a dreaded huli (flip). The elements often won out, forcing several crews to take a dip in the freezing water of the Bay last Saturday.

But the Kaimanu Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Club coed crew capitalized on the home-water advantage to win by more than three minutes. After nearly two hours of struggling against the current and waves, paddlers still had the strength to express their joy at the finish.

And crossing that final buoy was especially thrilling for Debbie Green, president of the host Kaimanu club.

Green was there for the club's first San Leandro Channel race and was the winning pacesetter during the 25th anniversary race. It was a proud day for this 47-year-old grandmother in the front seat of a six-person boat, and everyone knew it. As her boat edged past the buoy more than three minutes ahead of the second place Kilohana Club of Redwood City, onlookers could be heard exclaiming: "Good for Debbie."

"It was a big accomplishment -- a huge accomplishment," Green said. "Our founders were here to see it, that's why I say that. They're some of the people who coached me when I was young."

Green didn't even mind their critic. She is just glad to be competing instead of coaching from shore. Perpetuating this facet of Hawaiian culture is very important to her, but there are times when she contemplates breaking away from the Kaimanu ohana (family).

"I thought about it for a while," Green said. "One of these days, I'm going to quit. But everyone says 'You'd never quit. You'd be bored.'"

They might be right. As her head nearly sank below the crest of the waves and rose high above the whitecaps, she couldn't stop giving instructions to her daughter, Dana Miyake, the steersman.

Miyake used her own knowledge of the course, plus her mother's experience, to break away from the pack and have some fun.

"I was trying to see how much air we could get," said the 30-year-old helmsman. "The louder her screams, the better the air."

Sitting in the back of the boat, Miyake was simply gliding, but her mom was getting slammed when the bow slid down a wave and caught another swell.

Mark Piscotty, vice president of Kaimanu, actually took a dip after a huli. Though that's always a possibility, he said that knowing how to swim is preferred, but not needed to join Kaimanu. The $45 annual fee ($60 for the family membership) is the only requirement.

Piscotty devotes about 45 minutes to weight lifting and an hour to cardiovascular running or biking three times per week. In the off-season, he focuses on building shoulder and upper body strength just to be able to endure miles of muscle numbing paddling and bone crushing thrashing in the waves.

This is no exaggeration. Green once ruptured a kidney during a race.

"When they were putting up the boat, I said, 'I'm going to the hospital,'" Green recalled. "They thought I was kidding, but I was hospitalized for five days."

And the Bay regattas are just a warm-up for a 29-mile race in Catalina Island and a 41-mile race Molokai in Hawaii.