How to try outrigger canoeing this weekend
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Loading the canoes. Photo: Courtesy of Hanohano club
If you're having a bad day, consider jumping in a giant canoe with five of your friends and paddling out into the ocean.
The big picture: Most cities can't offer this type of therapy, but San Diego is rife with opportunities to try outrigger canoeing, either just for fun or to satisfy your paddle-driven need for speed.
Flashback: Outrigger canoeing began in Polynesia thousands of years ago and expanded to Hawai'i around 200 AD for transportation and fishing.
- Then, as humans tend to do, they made it competitive.
Fast forward to today, and San Diego has seven different outrigger canoe clubs that compete in races around Mission Bay, up and down the coast, and all the way to Lake Mead in Nevada.
How it works: The canoes are 45 feet long and have an "ama," a special floating pontoon 5.5 feet off one side.
- Think the boat in Moanna.
- There are six seats onboard and they each have different roles, from the stroker in the front who sets the paddle cadence to the steersperson in the back who, well, steers.
Zoom in: San Diego's Hanohano club has 120 members and 75% compete in races, Suzanne Serafin with the club told Axios.
- They practice three days a week from March through September and do 2-3 races a month.
Friction point: Sure, it's easy to dip your paddle in the water, but what's harder is engaging your body to move the canoe as fast as possible, Serafin said.
- "You've got to build some muscles you're not used to using, particularly the shoulders and the lower back," she said.
- Serafin started at 13 years old, is 61 now, and races competitively.
- She plans to continue well into her 80s.
One reason she loves it is that unlike rowing crew, you're facing the direction you're going.
- "Because you have to see the waves and the wind," she said.
What's next: On Saturday, the club is hosting Aloha Day, an annual outrigger open house.
- Anyone can join for $35 and spend the day learning to outrigger canoe.
- "We teach them what to do on the beach, how to get in and out of the canoe, hold the paddle, all the technical stuff," Serafin said.
- By the end of the day, they host races, and every team gets to race at least twice.
- It goes from 8am-1pm at Crown Point in Mission Bay.
"Sometimes I'm like, 'Oh, I'm so stressed. I can't be here right now,' but the second you get in the water, it's just so still and meditative, and then before you know it, an hour and a half has gone by," Ashley Harbecke, another Hanohano member, told Axios. "And you think, 'Oh, wow, I feel like a different human being than when I came out on the water today.'"
