As a teen growing up on the Big Island, Damion Sailors says he got himself into all kinds of trouble, including drugs and crime. But at the age of 17, after discovering paddling and sailing, his life made a turn for the better.

"I was fortunate enough to steal away on a sailboat through the South Pacific. I was 17 at the time, hauling cargo — rice, flour, sugar," he said.

"When I came back a year and a half later, my friends were still using drugs, living with their moms, ripping people off."

The 36-year-old Sailors is now a marine skills instructor for the Marimed Foundation in Kane'ohe. "I suppose it's in my blood somewhere," he said, referencing his surname.

Most of the boys who enter Marimed's residential program are court-ordered to do so. It's Sailors' role to help the at-risk teen boys turn their lives around, just as he did.

As their paddling coach and sailing instructor, he hopes not only to encourage the youth to grow stronger, but also help them grow mentally and emotionally.

"When the kids come into the program ... they are usually pretty messed up — coming straight from lock-up. They've been told all their lives that they're failures and someone else has the control. What we try to do is give the control back to them," Sailors said.

"Their self-esteem grows every time they come out of the water. Their bodies physically become stronger and more fit. Their behavior changes dramatically, which is the most important part," he said.

When the teens, known in the program as cadets, first enter Sailors' marine skills class, Sailors starts with teaching them the basics of six-man outrigger canoe paddling. As they learn the teamwork and determination it takes to paddle a canoe, they move on to learn sailing skills.

Eventually, the cadets graduate to learning to race Hawaiian sailing canoes.

"They need to be strong paddlers, and they need to know how to sail to function on the boat," he said.

Conditioning for paddling can be vigorous and includes weight training — light weights with high repetition — twice a week distance runs, swimming laps several times a week at the Kailua Recreational pool and, of course, lots of paddling.

READY TO RACE

Under Marimed's unofficial club, the Kailana Outrigger Association, the teens are able to participate in races against other teams in the community, even teaming up with Kane'ohe Canoe Club to race in the Na 'Opio/Police Athletics League regattas in January and February.

The Marimed-Kane'ohe Canoe Club partnership, called Koa Kamali'i, took the Division A championship at that event last fall, Sailors said.

A team of cadets also sailed Marimed's Hawaiian sailing canoe, the Ho'ailona, last July in the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association's Kane'ohe Bay to Hale'iwa race. The team earned a seventh-place finish out of nine teams.

"That was fairly significant for us. It was the first time there was an 18-and-under team participating in the sailing canoe race," Sailors said. "It's a really demanding extreme sport, which requires not only physical strength, but teamwork. I'm really proud of the guys to be able to rise to that level."

Sailors stresses that his job is less about helping the kids earn titles, and more about building their self-esteem and helping them achieve their own life goals.

"What I really like about teaching canoe paddling is that when they leave here they have a viable alternative to what they were doing before," Sailors said. "We all know that idle hands are the devil's tools. If they go back with nothing, with no alternatives to drug use or whatever it was that they were doing, they'll slip back into their old pace. This is a positive alternative they can use when they leave."

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.