How long does it take to make a canoe halau?
That’s the question North Shore paddlers have been asking for more than a decade since the city first pledged funding. T.his money Mayor Rick Brunjadi released it earlier this year.
The city’s Department of Design and Construction will design the structure and put it up for tender, said Nathan Serota, spokesman for the Honolulu Parks and Recreation Authority.
Harous serves not only as a safe haven from hostile elements such as ocean waves and hull-cracking UV rays, but also as a place to refresh traditional canoes and come together as a community. Fiberglass racing canoes cost over $20,000 each to replace.
And this problem is more serious than finance.
Dave Fuga, president of the Manu O Ke Kai Canoe Club of Haleiwa, said:
North Shore paddlers say they’re underserved dDespite the region’s status as a center for water sports.
Makaha, Waianae, Nanakuli, Kihi Lagoon, Ala Moana, Hawaii Kai, Waimanalo, and Kailua canoes reside in city-sponsored harauss, safe from oncoming waves. Haleiwa’s canoes are still stored on the thin sandy beaches along the coast.
“We got here yesterday in a storm and had to canoe down the beach,” Fugue said after a recent weekend in December. I sat and hoped the waves wouldn’t come and steal my canoe.”
“everything is everywhere”
Fugue was athletic but not a rower. His sister was a paddling coach at his Waimanalo canoe club and convinced him to try his hand at the sport for a week when he was about 20 years old. “I have been paddling ever since,” Fugue said.
It wasn’t just physical beauty that attracted him.
“After a few days, I feel connected to my culture. It’s like, this is what my ancestors were doing,” Fugue said.
Manu O Ke Kai is home to a decades-old canoe halau built by club founder ‘Uncle Randy’ Sanborn and recently renovated by current members. But Fuga believes it’s still a long way from the rest of the island’s cities and halau.
“If you need to fix your canoe, you need a space where you can fix your canoe,” he said.
Fiberglass particles are virtually impossible to remove from current dirt floors and are at risk of contaminating the environment. Larger facilities will allow more canoes to be stored.
But Manu O Ke Kai also admitted he was lucky compared to other clubs like Haleiwa Outrigger, another small canoe club on the North Shore.
The Haleiwa Outrigger has no halau of any kind. That is, canoes line the beach along the Kamehameha Highway. We have monthly revocable permission from the Department of Land and Natural Resources to allow us to store our equipment on the beach.
According to Haleiwa Outrigger Mai Tani Way’s president, there is no designated indoor storage space and club members only keep some of their paddling equipment.
“Everything is everywhere because there is no one place to put it,” she said.
Even Hawaii Kai has a few canoes outside the gated and locked halau as the other 36 slots are already filled.
formerly contested parcels of land
Mauka on Kamehameha Highway, seen from a Haleiwa Outrigger canoe, is the parcel of land the club envisions building a halau.
it’s a parcel It has some history.
The city purchased the park decades ago, but never used it. In 2012, former state senator DG “Andy” Anderson proposed building a hotel there. Many community members were scratching their heads, imagining that this would bring extra traffic to an already strained infrastructure.
“Don’t you think it makes more sense to use this area for the benefit of the paddling community? What a valuable resource and way to perpetuate culture,” said local Blake McElhenney. I was.
The Union fought back, persuading the city not to sell the land and instead to promise to build a halau of canoes. The council approved the budget in 2012 and allocated funds for its construction, along with other halau in Kaneohe and Kahalu.
It’s a long process, Serota stresses. The location of the proposed flood zone for the halau requires special consideration. Also, new construction is inherently more complex than simply retrofitting an existing structure.
Even if all goes well, the North Shore paddling community will likely never use a city-built halau. Years, he said.
