The Moloka’i Hoe is one of the longest running annual team sporting events in Hawaii, second only to football. It perpetuates one of Hawaii’s and Polynesia’s most important and historic cultural traditions, while honoring outrigger canoe paddlers around the world. It tests the limits of physical and mental strength and endurance, courage, determination, and teamwork, and paddlers must also battle nature’s most extreme elements. Each year over 1000+ paddlers from around the world compete in the men’s world championship in outrigger canoe racing. They race for 41 miles of open ocean in the treacherous Ka’iwi Channel from Molokai to the Duke Kahanamoku Beach in Waikiki, Oahu. It takes about 6 hours to complete the race. There are six paddlers in each canoe. The crews consist of 9-10 paddlers and each canoe is followed by an escort boat, which carries the paddlers not in the canoe. Crew changes occur every 20-30 minutes in mid-channel with paddlers in the canoe rolling over one side while the rested paddlers are climbing in the canoe from the other side.
These are scanned color negatives of the race finish in 2002.