I recently had the honor of paddling in the world’s largest long-distance canoe race – the Queen Liliʻuokalani Canoe Race on the Big Island of Hawaii. It has been on my bucket list for a while so when Chris Blank, our co-ed coach, asked if I was interested in doing the race, I jumped at the opportunity. It was not only a chance to do the race but my first trip to Hawaii as well!
After enjoying a few days at a beautiful resort in Waimea, we made our way to Kona on Wednesday for an afternoon practice on the Hawaiian waters. We would be using traditional spec OC6 boats for the races and they are much heavier than the unlimited boats we use for practice at NAC. We also had been spoiled by using our very light, all carbon paddles during our outrigger season in SoCal and had to adjust to using blades with wooden shafts since they are required for the Queen Lili race. That practice was a slog but it started feeling better during our practice the next day.
In addition to practice, we also raced on Thursday as the Queen Lili has evolved into four days of racing. The OC4 races on Thursday were a fun warm-up to the main race on Saturday. It required 8 people for each team with 4 in the boat at the start doing one sprint lap and then a crew switch with the other 4 people entering from the water and doing a second sprint lap.
Somewhere in the OC4 race, each boat was required to huli (flip over) and recover. Our team opted to huli at the end of the first lap as part of changing the crew. Once the boat was righted after the huli, we got in quickly and the middle seats started bailing water out while the others paddled as hard as we could to get the boat going for the second lap. What an adrenalin rush! Our huli recovery was incredibly fast and we won our first heat even with missing the final buoy and having to do an extra jaunt to go back around it. The huli recovery was not as quick in the finals and some other glitches meant we came up short but it was still a ton of fun.
Saturday brought the strenuous single-hull canoe races. The women and older co-ed crews raced in the morning from Kailua to Honaunau. The men and the 40’s co-ed crews raced in the afternoon from Honaunau to Kailua. My team raced in the afternoon as we had one 40-year-old, three in our 50’s, one in his 60’s, and one in her 70’s. After we saw the morning crews began their race, we shuttled down to Honaunau to await the arrival of the boats as the they finished their race.
I had snorkeled in the quietness of Honaunau Bay the day before with schools of yellow fish visible from just off the rocks. But it was complete madness on race day…the number of boats was mind blowing & they were all jammed into one tiny bay. After some searching, we found our boat, carefully climbed over the lava rocks, jumped into the water & got aboard. We slowly paddled out to the open water and anxiously waited near the start line for over an hour before all the boats were ready & lined up.
Jet skis were zipping back & forth to make sure everyone was lined up, then a quick horn blast, and we were OFF! It was long (nearly 18 miles), it was hot (86 & humid), the water was beautiful turquoise & dark blue, we had boat wakes several times as some crews did it as a 9-man race (we did it iron). We rotated through the boat for very quick nutrition breaks every 45 minutes. We drank as needed. We channeled our inner Nemo…just keep paddling. Happily, we finished the race & made the podium! Third place in our division with an official time of 2:31:55! It exceeded all of our expectations.
But there was still more racing to do. On Sunday, we partnered with Dennis Campbell’s crew to do the double hull race 40-mixed race. Wow, the 12 of us really pushed it hard. We were neck & neck with a strong Hawaiian crew virtually the whole time. We stayed ahead of a team from Florida that I really wanted to beat. We didn’t podium but made the top 10 with a time of 32:05. It was an exciting way to finish our racing in Hawaii.
If you’ve never raced in the Queen Lili before, I encourage you to do it. Embrace it…do all of the races…go to the luau…attend the cultural events they have planned…enjoy the beautiful scenery. Paddling is such a huge part of Hawaiian history. Spend some time exploring the island (snorkeling, sea turtles, volcanoes, coffee, botanical gardens, waterfalls). Eat the local cuisine (poke, shave ice, spam, fresh coconuts, Kona coffee). We squeezed a lot into just one week & it was an extraordinary!
Mahalo Hawaii,
Mandy Boyers
What a great long weekend it was indeed. It was my first Queen!s race as well and I can’t agree more with your statement that every paddler should make an effort to go to this race. It was fun to race with you in the Huli Race and the Double Hull.