KP's race 2013

For the second year running, the Motueka Waka Ama Club held KP's (Khema Paala's) memorial race. KP was an Abel Tasman legend; but paddlers didn't need to have known him to take part in the race.

 The day was all about having fun in KP's memory. As you can see from the photos, there were smiles all round. Thanks to Karaena Vincent for taking the awesome photographs. 

Thanks to everyone who came and took part in the day.

Waka Te Tasman 2012 photos are up!

Karaena Vincent has done an incredible job with the Waka Te Tasman photos. They're now all available to view online. Contact Karaena by email [karaena at lycos dot com] or via her facebook account, to purchase high resolution image files. Just let her know the image number that you want, and the Club that you belong to. Here's a selection of the photos.

It's awesome going through all the photos and seeing what an incredible time everyone had. The fun and intensity were pretty amazing.

Great little vid

Check out this video from Makaira-Interislander's onboard camera during their Waka Te Tasman race. Looks like they had an awesome race despite losing a paddle!

Waka Te Tasman photos - a taste!

We were lucky enough to have Karaena Vincent take the Club's Waka Te Tasman photos. She loved taking the photos and says that it was a real adventure being in the support boat, thrown about by the waves, in the pouring rain (on Saturday), trying to make sure she took photos of everyone in every race. Sounds like it was a mission, but the photos look incredible and they'll soon be available on the web to view and buy. But, until then, here are a few of the photos she took last weekend.

Taz (in yellow), and Todd. Both from Motueka Waka Ama Club.

W6 Novice women, "Kekeno", Motueka Waka Ama Club.

W6 Open mixed, "Cos That's How We Roll", Motueka Waka Ama Club.

Waka Te Tasman Results 2012

So Waka Te Tasman on the weekend was a great success! We had a record number of paddlers competing this year (almost 300), everything went smoothly, and a great time was had by all. Thank you to all the participants and to everyone who helped make it happen!

Here are the results of the races:

And many thanks to our wonderful sponsors:

This looks like fun

TE WAKA O AORAKI SPRINTS

Pegasus Town Lake (north of Christchurch)
Saturday December 8th 2012

• V1 singles qualifying for Nationals 2013 500m & 250m

• W6 500m, 1000m and 1500m all divisions

• Oc1 (ruddered) 500m OC2 500m men /mxd /wmn

Please enter only one event in this category as time restrictions will apply.

8am Competitors Sign in

8.30am Karakia

Expressions of interest and registrations to: Carmel Barrett
Email: twoa.president@gmail.com
Phone: 0276668493

Entries close December 4th (no entries on the day).

$5 entry fee.

Prize-giving will be held at the conclusion of racing at the Pegasus Town café.

Molokai Hoe 2012

Last week, club member Todd Jago was in Hawaii for the Molokai Hoe 2012, the men's world championship for outrigger canoe racing. His team, Te Awahaku, came 30th out of 100 teams - which is awesome, and the best result the team has had in five crossings. The race was 75kms, which they paddled in 6:15:53. Considering that the winning time for the first ever Molokai Hoe, in 1952, was almost 9 hours, Te Awahaku did pretty well!

The day before the race, Todd's crew member, Daniel Firth, wrote:

"Race day tomorrow but unfortunately there is no swell and no wind! The forecast for the channel is 3ft dropping to under 2ft and a tail wind of 10 kts! It's going to be slow with no waves to catch and bloody HOT with no wind! At least its only 75kms. At this stage we are having some other minor technical difficulties with our support boat driver being a little bit of a con man who knew his boat is too small to be allowed to be a support boat! Hopefully we find one another one today!"
  
Find out more information about the Molokai Hoe here.