Posted on: Monday, April 28, 2003
Fast starts help winning paddling teams cash in on Kaua'i
By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer
Fast starts led to some fast cash for the winning paddlers in the inaugural Steinlager Kaua'i World Challenge on Saturday.
O'ahu paddlers Kai Bartlett and Aaron Napoleon received $2,500 for winning the men's division. Lauren Spalding of Maui and Noe Sawyer from Kaua'i also got $2,500 for winning the women's division.
The race offered a $20,000 purse — the largest ever for a paddling race in Hawai'i.
"The whole thing was first class," Bartlett said. "To get paid for this is unbelievable."
The open divisions featured two paddlers alternating on a one-person canoe in a relay format. The 34-mile course from Wailua Bay to Salt Pond was divided into four legs, and each paddler had to paddle two legs.
On the winning men's team, for example, Bartlett paddled the first and third legs, while Napoleon did the second and fourth.
Bartlett and Napoleon completed the course in 3 hours, 41 minutes, 31 seconds. Karel Tresnak Jr. and Maui Kjeldsen were second at 3:44:13, and Mike Judd and David Beck third at 3:47:04.
"I got ahead of Karel by maybe 50 yards at the end of the first leg," Bartlett said. "Then Aaron got in and had a great leg and got us ahead by even more."
Tresnak said the race for first was all but over by the third leg.
"Kai got that early lead and nobody could catch him," Tresnak said. "I ran into some problems during the (third leg) and Kai just took off even more. That was pretty much it. We were going for second after that."
It probably helped that Bartlett was one of the few paddlers familiar with the course. He practices every time he visits his parents, who live on Kaua'i.
"That was one of the keys," Bartlett said. "The conditions were pretty good — it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. So I thought that was to my advantage, because I knew where to find some of the (wave) bumps."
Spalding and Sawyer paddled to an even more impressive margin in the women's division. They completed the course in 4:23:26, which was more than 20 minutes faster than second place Theresa Felgate and Dane Ward (4:43:49).
By the end of the first leg, Spalding had already built a lead of about six minutes.
"I just put my head down and hammered," she said. "I was kind of surprised at how far ahead we were."
Spalding and Sawyer even beat several men's teams to the finish.
"We were just concentrating on whoever was around us," Spalding said. "If there was a guy ahead of me, I focused on trying to chase him down."
Age-division winners also received cash prizes. More than 60 teams participated.
The race, including the prize purse, was sponsored by Steinlager, the Kaua'i Visitors Bureau and the Hawai'i Tourism Authority.
Many of the same teams will participate in another relay race on Sunday — the Starbucks Kaiwi Channel Relay. That course will travel from Moloka'i to Magic Island.
