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It’s hailed as the Olympics of canoe racing. Every year in September, hundreds of women paddlers line up at Hale O Lono harbor on Molokai to race across the Kaiwi channel to Oahu’s famed Waikiki beach.

This year, 72 crews from throughout the Hawaiian islands as well as California, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia entered the race.

But the Sept. 23 competition got off to a treacherous start. Video and first-hand accounts of the event show massive 8-foot to 12-foot waves “Hawaiian” — that’s 16-foot to 24-foot in mainland measurements — pummeling canoes as competitors struggled to paddle out to the starting line.

The wave heights were enough to challenge the most experienced surfer. And if you are in a 400-pound canoe with five other people, the situation can quickly turn deadly.

Kimberlee Stuart, a fit grandmother, experienced paddler and schoolteacher, paddled for the Hanalei Canoe Club.

“I watched wipeouts and that was frightening. It was absolutely frightening,” said Stuart.

She was in the second crew that went out on a motor boat. The canoe and boat crews switch throughout the race, which is about six to 9 hours long. She said that the girls paddling out in the first crew were quite young.

“I was scared to death for these girls,” she said.

“They were so scared and befuddled that once they got out there they took a sigh of relief. The wind was just howling.”

Around 8 a.m., 10 of the canoes were in distress, either capsized or swamped, and 30 people were in the water, according to Maui Fire Services Chief Lee Mainaga. Local fire departments responded to emergency calls.

In addition to the heavy surf, a rare event for that harbor, winds were gusting, participants say. Video shows a chaotic scene of dozens of boats knocking into each other as they charged out from the harbor. Capsized canoers can be seen caught in sets as boats get tossed by waves coming toward them. One of the Kailua Canoe Club’s boats was damaged after another boat crashed into it.

Hannie Anderson, the organizer of the Na Wahine O Ke Kai race, adamantly defends the decision not to delay or cancel the race and said that there was nothing she would have done differently.

“This is what they want,” she said in regard to the challenging surf. “If the water is flat they’re disgusted.”

She said the women train for months for this and are in top condition.

Anderson said she was getting calls from local coaches thanking her for not canceling the race, as well as paddlers from all over the world excited by the footage of the race.

“They’re saying, what is this all about? Are we missing something?” said Anderson.

But for Stephanie Dean, a Lanikai White team member, it wasn’t fun. The pounding surf bruised her ribs and shoulder and she was taken to Molokai General Hospital unable to compete.

“I find it very hard to believe that anyone had experience being in a six-man canoe in that type of surf in their entire lives,” she said. “Few people would choose to put themselves in that situation.”

She called it “truly miraculous” that nobody was killed or that more people didn’t get hurt.

Her canoe managed to stay upright, but others capsized.

“That would have been the worst situation you could have been in — in the middle of a 400 pound canoe being jostled about and huge whitewash trying to pull you under is a paddler’s worst nightmare,” she said.

She’s asking paddlers to contact leaders in the paddling community and share concerns about safety issues.

Pressure to Start?

So why not simply cancel the race?

Event organizers would have lost thousands of dollars if they had canceled Na Wahine O Ke Kai.

Anderson, who has been organizing the event for 45 years, said to produce the event costs between $160,000 to $180,000.

Sponsors covered about $5,000 this year, which Anderson said she would have returned if the race was canceled. The entry fee is $850 per crew, which brought in about $60,000. The majority of the costs are made up through merchandise sales during the race.

But Anderson said that financial pressure was not a factor in the decision to proceed with the race.

“I wasn’t thinking about myself, I was thinking about the girls that wanted to do it,” she said.

Some of the participants questioned why Anderson and other committee members didn’t just postpone the race a few hours until the swell went down. But Anderson said that they had to get started so paddlers weren’t traversing the channel at night.

Postponing the event could also have been a logistical nightmare for all the crews not from Molokai who had to book travel, rental cars and lodging, as well as have the canoe shipped over.

Anderson said that she and other organizers timed the sets and lulls and discussed the conditions with coaches.

“The coaches felt very confident that their teams could make it,” she said.

Checking Conditions

Na Wahine O Ke Kai has safety guidelines that are listed on the event .

According to its cancellation policy, the event committee will listen to weather reports and consult with the U.S. Coast Guard, boat captains, and if necessary, race sponsors, before making a decision to cancel a competition.

Adverse weather conditions include wave heights of 12 to 15 feet and winds in excess of 25 miles-per-hour, according to the policy.

Anderson said that she didn’t check with the Coast Guard about weather conditions that morning. She said there was no cell phone service in the harbor.

Contrary to reports from participants, she said that maximum wave heights were 6 feet and that “it was not windy at all.”

In the 45 years that Anderson has organized the race, she has only canceled it once, in 1980, due to huge swells and high winds.

She said that this was only the second time that she had seen the channel break like this.

“It was just a freak thing,” she said, but stressed that it was “not that bad.”

Liability

Much of the responsibility for ensuring that crews are safe falls to the canoe clubs, as well as their coaches and steerswomen.

If crews don’t do radio safety checks or have big enough powerboats to escort them, they can be fined $500.

Pregnant women are also prohibited from racing.

According to the rules:

If a pregnant paddler races without the knowledge of the Race Committee, or if a crew member knows of a paddler who is pregnant and races without the knowledge of the Race Committee, that crew will be disqualified and subject to sanctions that may include a $1000 fine and no future participation in any Na Wahine O Ke Kai race.

Participants must sign liability waivers saying they won’t sue if they get hurt and crews must obtain insurance to race.

Canoe Clubs Rally to Defend Race

Anderson has her supporters.

Dana Miyake, president of the Kukuiula Outrigger on Kauai, said that part of being a paddler is being able to handle yourself in the water.

“I know a lot of girls were kind of anxious and panicked just watching the carnage occur. They saw canoes flipping on top of each other,” she said. “But I think they made the right decision. It’s really sad that some people got hurt. I think it’s just part of canoe paddling and learning and respecting the ocean.”

James Weller, president of the Kamehameha Canoe Club in Hilo agreed. While he didn’t attend the race, he said that the club’s crews trained for high waves and practiced capsizing their canoes.

“This is what you are faced with,” he said. “It’s up to the coach. They know their crews and if they feel their crews are up to the challenge then they go ahead and do the race.”

But Stuart, of the Hanalei Canoe Club, who has done the race 12 times, said that the situation was extremely dangerous.

She too supports the decision to have continued with the race, but said that it was poorly executed.

The gridlock in the harbor as crews jockeyed for position in the start-up line beyond the breakers could have been mitigated.

“They should have been a lot more organized and akamai about the way that they had people get out to the starting line,” she said.

Crews also didn’t time it right, getting caught in sets. She said there was a different, and safe route off to the west of the peninsula, that only a few crews knew about.

Stuart said she hopes that this year’s event is a wake up call to people about the potential dangers of canoe racing, but said she hopes it doesn’t bode badly for future races.

“I worry if everybody gets scared and sets up more and more rules, it kind of becomes so prohibitive that the true open ocean adventure is kind of taken out of it,” said Stuart.

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Check out these dramatic scenes from the start of the race:

produced by PF Bentley

from on .