NAC Catalina Crossing History: Generations Across the Channel

This weekend, outrigger paddlers will once again point their canoes across the Catalina Channel for one of the biggest races of the year: the Catalina Channel Crossing – US Outrigger Championships.

For Newport Aquatic Center paddlers, Catalina weekend is the culmination of a season. Months of early mornings, long practices, crew changes, escort boat logistics, and plenty of miles come down to one stretch of open ocean between Newport Beach and Catalina Island.

But this race is bigger than the end of a season. The Catalina Crossing is where California outrigger racing began.

It Started Here

On September 20, 1959, the first outrigger canoe race in California launched from Avalon and headed across the channel toward Newport Dunes.

Duke Kahanamoku served as Grand Marshal, helping establish what became known as the original California Outrigger Classic.

Two koa canoes had been shipped from Hawaiʻi for the race: Malia, meaning “calm waters,” and Niuhe, meaning “shark.” A Hawaiian All-Star crew raced aboard Malia, while a newly formed California crew took on the crossing aboard Niuhe.

The Hawaiian crew won in five hours. The California crew finished just 11 minutes behind.

And just like that, outrigger racing had arrived in California.

The Newport connection went even deeper. The California paddlers had spent the months leading up to the race training right here at Newport Dunes. Lorrin Harrison, steersman of that original California crew and later founder of Dana Outrigger Canoe Club, remembered paddling at the Dunes until 9 p.m., often training in heavy wind as the team prepared for an ocean they had barely experienced.

After the race, the two Hawaiian canoes were scheduled to return home. Recognizing that California paddling couldn’t grow without canoes of its own, Noah Kalama and Tom Johnson made a mold from the Malia hull.

California outrigger canoe building—and an entirely new paddling community—grew from there.

More Than 65 Years Later

The boats are lighter. The paddles are definitely lighter…and actually have handles. The training has changed, equipment has changed, and today’s crews have all sorts of new things – LIKE AUTO BAILERS AND FOOT BRACES!?

The challenge of the channel, however, remains.

The Catalina Crossing is a change race, meaning crews rotate paddlers in and out of the canoe from an escort boat while underway. Paddlers jump into the open ocean ahead of the canoe, climb aboard as teammates exit, and then settle immediately back into race pace. (see – why jump out of a perfectly good boat)

Conditions across the Catalina Channel can change quickly. Wind, swell, current, and boat traffic (hey skipper – is that a container ship crossing the race field?) all become part of the race.

The fastest line on paper isn’t necessarily the fastest line on race day, and every crew depends on its paddlers, coaches, and escort boat captain to get them safely across.

NAC Across the Channel

Catalina has also become an important part of NAC Outrigger’s own history.

SCORA’s archived results show NAC crews consistently racing near the front of the field across multiple divisions.

In more recent years, such as 2017, a NAC Open Coed Unlimited crew was the fastest boat in the Women/Coed overall results, finishing in 4:51:23. The following year, NAC placed third in Open Coed Unlimited and won the Women’s Masters Unlimited division. In 2019, NAC’s top men’s crew finished third overall in 3:56:45, while another NAC men’s crew finished fifth overall.

NAC had another standout Catalina in 2021. Canoe 88 won Open Coed Unlimited and finished first overall in the Women/Coed race with a time of 4:15:40. NAC also won Women’s Masters Unlimited that year.

The results kept coming.

NAC won Senior Masters Coed Unlimited in 2023, and its top Men’s Unlimited crew finished sixth overall. In 2024, NAC again won Senior Masters Coed Unlimited, while the Open Men’s crew finished eighth overall behind a stacked field of Tahitian and Hawaiian teams.

Then came 2025.

Seven NAC crews took on the crossing, representing Open Women, Open Men, Open Coed, Masters Coed and Senior Masters Coed. The weekend included a fifth-place overall finish for NAC’s top Open Men’s crew and another Senior Masters Coed division victory.

From crews fighting for the front of the field to paddlers making their first crossing, Catalina has become one of those races woven into the fabric of NAC Outrigger.

But NAC’s Catalina History Goes Back Decades

NAC’s relationship with the Catalina Crossing isn’t a recent one. Billy Whitford’s Catalina history stretches back to at least 1971, when he steered a crew across the channel. John Wayne’s yacht, Wild Goose, served as an escort vessel for the crossing, with a young Ethan Wayne helping crew the support skiff.

By the 1990s, Newport Aquatic Center crews were already making their mark across the channel.

In 1998, the NAC women’s crew won the Catalina Crossing. When they returned to defend their title in 1999, the crew was led by Mindy Clark and included JoJo Toeppner, Sharon Attlesey, Vicki Mills, Julie Wolfe, Dru Van Hengle, Cheryl Villages and Christine Turney.

For Clark, Catalina history went back even further: she had competed in the very first women’s Catalina race in 1979. Twenty years later, she was leading an NAC crew across the same channel.

And there is another name on that 1999 roster that NAC paddlers will immediately recognize: JoJo Toeppner.

Long before today’s unlimited canoes, carbon paddles and GPS tracks, these women and the NAC crews were already making the crossing. Nearly three decades later, they are still part of the tradition.

The next generation was coming right behind them. In 2011, the NAC Junior Boys took first place in the Catalina Crossing, adding another chapter to NAC’s history across the channel.

And here’s where the story comes full circle. Two of those junior paddlers, Mike Reo and Bruce Schwartz, are now established escort boat drivers, not only for NAC crews but for SCORA. During Catalina weekend, Bruce serves as Safety 2, running behind Billy Whitford and helping oversee safety across the course.

They went from shop kids and junior racers to trusted escort boat drivers keeping today’s crews safe across the channel. Turns out, the shop kids clean up pretty well.

That makes Catalina more than the final race of the SCORA season for NAC. Generations of Newport paddlers have trained for this channel, raced across it and passed that experience on to the crews that followed.

One Channel. Generations of Paddlers.

There is something pretty special about realizing that today’s NAC paddlers train on the same stretch of water where California’s first outrigger paddlers prepared more than six decades ago.

Those first California paddlers practiced at Newport Dunes before climbing into Niuhe and taking on a race nobody in California had ever done before.

Today, hundreds of paddlers arrive with carbon paddles, unlimited canoes, chase boats and years of racing experience behind them.

But eventually every crew reaches the same point.

Newport disappears behind you. Catalina sits somewhere ahead. There is a whole lot of Pacific Ocean in between.

And you paddle.

The 2026 Catalina Channel Crossing – US Outrigger Championships takes place September 12–13, with the Women/Coed crews racing across to Catalina and the Men’s/Masters Coed crews racing back to Newport.

For NAC, it’s another Catalina weekend.

And another chapter in a story that started right here.