The Hamilton Island Cup is Australia's top event for outrigger canoe paddling. More than 60 teams from around the world participated in this year's event.

"When you throw together a crew like this, you never know if it's going to work or not," said Team Hawai'i paddler Jimmy Austin. "But it worked out perfect because we all got along. We made our own decisions and ended up having a great race."

Team Hawai'i had five paddlers from the Outrigger Canoe Club (Austin, Kapono Brown, Byron Ho, Mike Kane and Karel Tresnak Jr.), one from Kailua (Donovan Leandro), one from the Big Island (Nate Hendricks), one from Maui (J.B. Guard) and one from California (Danny Ching).

Lanikai Canoe Club of O'ahu placed second in 3:10:38. That crew featured several paddlers from the 2004 Moloka'i Hoe championship team.

Tresnak steered the Team Hawai'i canoe, and he described the conditions as "really rough."

"A majority of it is upwind and the current is such a big factor," he said. "It's really a tactical race."

Tresnak said he followed some of the Australian crews early in the race to avoid getting caught in a bad current.

"Our strategy was to be in a good position for the stretch run and we pretty much did that," he said. "The guys really stroked hard in the upwind stretches and we kind of knew we had it in the last hour as long as we didn't make any big mistakes."

Because the team did not have a coach, Austin said decisions were made as a team.

"We were all there with one goal in mind, and that was to win the 42K race," Austin said. "A coach usually calls all the shots, but we did our own thing and it worked."

The 42-kilometer race is the highlight of the event, but there are also shorter races during the week.

Team Hawai'i won the 16-kilometer race, and Lanikai won the 1,000-meter sprint.

As the top team in the Hamilton Island Cup, Team Hawai'i received $7,000.

"It doesn't cover the whole trip, but it's still nice to get a chunk of money like that to help," Tresnak said.

Austin said an Outrigger crew was originally supposed to enter the race, but when some of the Outrigger paddlers opted not to make the trip, he called friends from other clubs to form Team Hawai'i.

"After we won it, we were all asking each other if we should go back and defend, and everybody was interested," Austin said. "So maybe it wasn't just a one-shot deal."

Notes

A different Team Hawai'i competed in the senior masters division of the event. They placed first in that division of the 16-kilometer race and second in the 42-kilometer race.

In the golden masters division, Team 'Anuenue of O'ahu placed first in the 1,000-meter sprint and third in the 42-kilometer race.