History of Outrigging

History of Outrigger Canoe Racing

He struck his paddle once into the sea and the canoe rushed by the little islands along the coast and passed to Niihau. From Niihau in four paddle strokes the canoe lay before the coast of Hawaii...

From the legend of Iwa

Outrigger canoes have been travelling the Pacific Ocean for 4,000 years. In around 2,000 BC a wave of seafaring people emerged from Asia and ventured out into the Eastern Pacific Ocean, for the first time in Human history. The earliest outrigger craft are thought to have originated at this time and we now know that ancient Polynesians and their ancestors settled the most remote islands of the Pacific in Outrigger and Double-hull Canoes.

These Canoes were often sailing vessels and could be much larger than today's racing OC6s. When the first Europeans arrived in Polynesia, Sailing Canoes of up to 30m in length were recorded, designed for long ocean passages.

In Hawaii ocean-sports have a long and rich history. Board Surfing and Canoe Surfing were pastimes enjoyed by the ancient Hawaiians that often had deep ceremonial and religious significance. Certain breaks and types of surfboard were reserved for the ali'i, or hereditary chiefs and several ancient stories tell of the lethal consequences of breaking a kapu (taboo). The ancient Hawaiians even had a 'god of sport' (akua pa'ani) who presided over events at important festivals, such as the Makahiki.

The Hawaiian way of life suffered an almost terminal clash with Western civilisation over a few short years in the nineteenth century. In the 1820s reports were being published in Western literature of large-scale involvement in Surfing and other ocean-sports but by the 1850s such sights were becoming a rarity. Western disease decimated the Hawaiian population, and influx of haole traders and whalers robbed the locals of economic power and Calvinist Missionaries sought to eradicate what they saw as 'primitive' and 'immodest' practices - including a broad range of Hawaiian sports.

Ironically, it was left to two Westerners to stimulate a revival of the 'old ways'. Author Jack London and Waikiki businessman Alexander Hume Ford publicised and promoted the sport of surfing and in 1908 founded the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Club for the purpose of 'preserving surfing on boards and in Hawaiian outrigger canoes'.

It took another 70 years for Outrigger Canoe Racing to reach Australia. Outrigger canoe racing began in the Whitsundays on Hamilton Island in 1982. It was started as a fun sport between the islands for the staff and guests. The first club was started by Tony Henebery. Tony also started the Australian Outrigger Canoe Racing Association was also started in 1985 and Sydney's first club was formed four years later in 1989.

There are some suggestions that Polynesians may have visited Australia as early as 1,000 AD. Archaeological evidence points towards a small Polynesian presence on Norfolk Island around this time, possibly settled from New Zealand, the Cook Islands, or the Society Islands. Captain Cook's later arrival in the Whitsunday's is marked by his observation of 'a canoe with outriggers’; although this is likely to have been a local, not Oceanic, design.

Today, Outrigger Canoe Racing is a growing sport in Australia. There are more than 50 canoe clubs in the country, 8 of them within easy reach of Sydney. The Eastern Suburbs Outrigger Canoe Club was founded in 2000 and has over 50 members. ESOCC canoes paddle out of Rose Bay and are crewed by paddlers from the Eastern Beaches and surrounding areas.

Our club's ethos is echoed in the words of Clive Mann in his speech at the Outrigger Canoe Club of Hawaii in 1964:

Let this be a place where man may commune with sun and sand and sea, where good fellowship and aloha prevail and where the sports of old Hawaii shall always have a home.