Posted on: Friday, July 13, 2001
Hawai'i, Japan paddlers reach South Korea by canoe
Advertiser Staff
Watermen from Hawai'i and Japan became the first crew to successfully paddle an outrigger canoe 35 miles from Japan to South Korea yesterday.
The Polynesian Voyaging Society last night received word that the crew, which launched at 5 a.m. Friday Japan time (9 a.m. yesterday Hawai'i time) from the Japanese island of Tsushima, completed the journey in five hours.
The crew spent an hour paddling against heavy winds, but arrived in Pusan, South Korea, two hours earlier than originally anticipated, said Elisa Yadao, executive director of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
The four crew members from Hawai'i included Hokule'a navigators Nainoa Thompson and Bruce Blankenfeld, legendary surfer and paddler Brian Keaulana, and Honolulu businessman Jake Mizuno, who shipped the first six-man fiberglass outrigger canoes to Japan several years ago. They worked together with paddlers from Japan.
Before the paddlers set off, Yadao said that Mizuno anticipated crew changes along the way, with Thompson acting as steersman.
While 35 miles may not seem like much to veteran long-distance paddlers, it is a journey the Japanese paddlers have not been able to complete on their own. According to Yadao, the waters are not conducive to small, self-propelled craft. "It's challenging in terms of the wind and the weather conditions," she said.
Yadao said the goals of the expedition were to support canoe culture in Japan and South Korea, help improve relations between those two countries, and meet the physical and mental challenges associated with the voyage, which was sponsored by a Japanese technology company.
Yadao said that on Wednesday, the day before the paddle was scheduled, she received a message from Lita Blankenfeld, wife of Bruce Blankenfeld and sister of Thompson. Blankenfeld indicated the crew had finished rigging the canoe, but the weather was "not good."
The men paddled the canoe Manu O Ke Kai, and then offered it as a gift to South Korea upon arrival. Said Yadao: "All around, it's a goodwill expedition."
