Flexible Hours

The Molokai-Oahu crossing will take our crews roughly between 5 hours 30 minutes and 6 hours 30 minutes to complete. The women can expect to be in the canoe for 2 hours 45 minutes to 3 hours 15 minutes as strokes; seats 2-5 between 3 hours 7 minutes and 4 hours and change; and the steerer may be in for the whole crossing.

The key to making your canoe go well in the crossing is to take advantage of the water along the way. The water changes every moment. The single most important thing you as a crew can do is to paddle as if connected at the top and bottom hands all the way down the canoe. Put another way, imagine your blades are all connected with thin wire; when the stroke goes forward, you all do; when the stroke puts her/his blade in the water, you all do; when the stroke exits, you all do. But while the concept of perfect timing is simple, the execution of it is not. The Kaiwi Channel offers a lot of very difficult water; swells with wind chop overlaid. The speed of the canoe will rise and fall frequently. The direction of travel will change moment to moment as the canoe (and your steerer) try to find the best swimming line across. (Canoes swim through the water, rocking and pitching and gliding and surfing and sliding all the time.) In addition the surface of the water will be in different locations relative to the gunwales all the way down the canoe every moment. And there will be wind and spray, all of which may interfere with your recovery of the blade through the air.

Is there one thing you can focus on no matter what is going on in the canoe? Yes. As a stroke, your primary task is TEMPO, a consistent pull and recovery even if you are under water or in the air. 2 seat is the backup stroke when things in 1 seat become difficult. As a member of the meat seats, you have to do your best to maintain the tempo of the stroke. You have to look up the canoe and attempt to overlap the strokes you see in the canoe. Isolate yourself from the movement of the canoe and go to the water with your blade at the entry, whether up or down, and get it out clean even if you have to sit up at the exit. But get engaged with the water just like you do in the flats.

Because the canoe will be swimming, the length of the pull may vary literally every stroke. If the canoe is running down a wave, the stroke might be very long while if coming off the back of the wave, it may be fairly short. This is where small boat experience comes into play. You must bring your small boat skills to your big canoe paddling. All of you should be familiar with the rhythm of the canoe going into and running with the waves. If you don't think you are familiar enough, then get out in a small boat in the waves more.

And all of this is FLEXIBILITY, the ability to enter the water when the others do, to exit when the others do, no matter where you are in your stroke. Start with perfect technique and then bring as much as you can of that technique to bear in every stroke no matter how long or short, no matter where you enter the water or exit it.

The crossing is hours long and you must be flexible in your paddling of it. The time to learn the skill is now, in practice before you get there.

Brent