THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608220155
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 22 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Sports
SOURCE: BY LEE TOLLIVER, BEACON SPORTS EDITOR
LENGTH: 86 lines
THE MASSIVE HAWAIIAN outrigger canoe glides through the water in near silence, the six men inside working in unison as a fine-tuned propulsion machine.
As the crew works its way south from Croatan Beach to the Little Island Fishing Pier at Sandbridge, bottlenose dolphins slowly rise to greet them. The swift water mammals are so close the crew can hear the clicking of their way of communicating. They can see the curiosity in their eyes.
The apparent one-ness with nature is a big reason why the Sandbridge Canoe Club has brought the 45-foot, fiberglass rendition of the traditional wooden Hawaiian canoe to the East Coast.
``It's something else, that's for sure,'' club spokesman James Barton said. ``We're all surfers and former lifeguards down here at Sandbridge and we've seen stuff like that a hundred times before.
``But it always amazes you.''
Barton's fellow club members include brothers Pat, 32, who works with James as sales representatives for No Fear sports wear; and Hugh Barton, 33, a consultant from Washington, D.C. Other team members are Tommy Feltch, 31, a structural engineer; Chris Reckling, 33, a sports anchor for WAVY; Mark Wagner, 34, an account manager for Coastal Video; Todd Lannom, 32, a sales rep for Smirnoff in Washington, D.C.; and Eric Coulson, 26, a local Tiki statue carver who is making the awards for the contest.
Coulson is a triathlon who five years ago defeated Leukemia.
To help share their canoeing experiences with others in Virginia Beach, the club has organized the first-ever Hawaiian outrigger canoe race on the East Coast as part of the 34th annual East Coast Surfing Championships taking place this weekend at the south end of the resort strip.
The 15-mile race will feature six other teams from up and down the coast and will be run at 10 a.m. Sunday. The crew and their boat - along with a couple of one-man and two-man outriggers - will be on Croatan beach all day Saturday giving rides and demonstrations.
And the club has indications that their sport will fast become a popular one on the east coast.
``We've gotten some canoe culture books from Australia and it says in many of them that the east coast of the United States will be the next big place that the sport becomes popular,'' said Barton, a 30-year-old Kellam High graduate.
``A company in Maine is getting a boat form sent to them and they're going to start manufacturing them on the east coast. That's going to make it easier for people to get them. Since we've put the word out about this race, we've been getting lots of calls.''
Sunday's race will cover three laps on a five-mile course set up along the beach so spectators can watch. The entire race should take a little over two hours.
And like the surfers, the host Sandbridge Canoe Club us hoping for a good swell.
``We're all surfers and when there is a swell, it makes paddling the boat much more fun,'' Barton said. ``You can ride some of the waves and crash through them, you just get really stoked when it's like that.''
Right now, the club is simply stoked about the opportunity to bring the sport they got into a year ago to the area.
And they're hoping to win the inaugural event.
``We competed in the open division of the Blackburn Challenge in Glouchester Mass., and finished third out of six similar boats - finishing the 21-mile course in 2:44 and 11 minutes behind the leader.''
There were other kinds of boats in that race, so this weekend will be the first that strictly features outrigger canoes.
Outrigger canoes feature a pair of bars leading out one side of the canoe that are attached to a floatation device that helps stabilize the canoe. The vessel weighs about 400 pounds and is considerably lighter than the traditional coa wood boats made in Hawaii.
Members of the Sandbridge club eventually hope to travel to Hawaii to participate in the Molikai - a 42-mile open ocean race between islands that is the Olympics of Hawaiian outrigger canoe races.
``It gets narly out there with the swells they have in Hawaii, but we'd love to give it a try,'' Barton said.
Right now, though, they're pleased as can be about hosting a race on their home waters. ILLUSTRATION: CANOEING
Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
A Hawaiian outrigger canoe team glides through the ocean at
Sandbridge, practicing for the race on Saturday during the 34th
annual East Coast Surfing Championship.
SURFING CHAMPIONSHIP
[For a copy of the schedule, see microfilm for this date.] by CNB