I am paddling my one-man outrigger into the wind a mile from shore, through swells with one- to three-foot faces, when the wave hits. It's just a bump, but it blindsides me, sending me lurching to the left. This is not good.
I had started out a half hour before from the Outrigger Canoe Club under the burnt sienna hulk of Diamond Head crater at the eastern end of Waikiki. The water was sea-glass green and clear in the morning sun, and a green sea turtle the size of a coffee table had greeted me as I paddled out. The only hint of the ocean's danger was a 15-foot-long piece of wood from the Victoria, a 42-foot sailboat which had wrecked two nights before on the reef at Tongg's surf spot, a quarter mile to the east.
The fact that I could undertake such a solo trip at all is a testament to the massive changes taking place in the sport of outrigger canoeing, which is seeing both a surge in popularity and solid advances in boating design. It was not long ago that there were no one-man boats like the one I use. People like me, who are new to the sport, had to earn a spot on a six-person racing team just to paddle at all–and that was aboard an expensive and hardwood canoe. But I'll get to all of that.
For now, I had come out into the Pacific with the idea of seeing the remains of the Victoria, whose keel was reportedly still wedged in the reef. As the Honolulu Advertiser and the lifeguards down at the beach told it, the Victoria's story was a heartbreaker. Her Maui-based owner had bought the boat for $4,300 on eBay and spent two years fixing her up before sailing her to the islands. Upon her arrival, the Victoria promptly wrecked on the reef in front of the Honolulu Elk's Club, where she was torn up by the waves that make Tongg's a primo spot for longboarders.
By the time I came out in my new-for-me, 21½-foot outrigger canoe, the remains of the Victoria had been removed from the reef. So I had headed west on a downwind run through the heart of Waikiki, to the big red buoy marking the Ala Wai boat harbor.
As I came back up wind toward Diamond Head, the weather turned. A light squall blinded the sun and turned the water oily gray. That I was a mile out without a life jacket – a custom in Hawaii – didn't worry me. That I also failed to bring a leash tethering me to my boat seemed idiotic, especially after the wave bumped me. For a split second, as I lurched, I imagined falling into the water while my craft left me behind to fight the wind and waves.
Fortunately, I stayed on my boat, held onto my paddle and made it back. Later my wife, Malia, scolded me for going out alone. A few days before, she told me, a woman was rescued after falling off her one-man not far from the spot where I almost lost it. If it hadn't been for a keen-eyed observer watching from the beach, there's no telling what would have happened to the woman, Malia said. I didn't tell her about my near-spill, but I decided to get a leash.
BIRTH OF THE OC-1
That I was out on the Pacific Ocean in Waikiki was hardly surprising. We had moved to Hawaii, in part, to be near the ocean where my wife had grown up swimming, surfing and paddling. What was surprising was the craft I was using.
Although Polynesians have been sailing and paddling outrigger canoes for millennia, the one-man outrigger is a new thing. According to Steve West's meticulously researched Paddler's Guide to Outrigger Canoeing, the first crude one-man was invented in 1980. But it was 1986 before anything resembling the current designs came along. It was then that Walter Guild modified a 27-foot, one-man Tahitian outrigger by attaching a rudder and putting a deck over the cockpit. This made the canoe more friendly for Hawaii's open ocean than its predecessor, which was designed for Tahiti's flat, reef-protected lagoons. The rudder also made the boat easier to steer, setting the stage for an explosion of popularity over the past 20 years.
