We Build Canoes. That three-word statement proudly proclaimed above was the simplest way to express what we do at Kamanu Composites. But the meat of that phrase is We Build. We don’t outsource, re-sell, or source canoes. We build them. Carbon fiber and epoxy come in and canoes go out.

The world is changing so quickly that it can be hard to catch a glimpse as it slips by. Five years ago most of us had never heard of Facebook or Barak Obama. Our phones hadn’t taken over our lives. Money was cheap and jobs were plentiful. Climate change was a distant threat. Tahitian dominance in the Moloka’i Hoe was still being blamed on flat water. And almost nobody was building canoes in Hawai’i. We, as Americans, were on top of a cloud. Debt financing was the way of the future. We didn’t have to produce anything. The cloud was supposed to take us as long as we kept consuming.

But it didn’t. Our extreme leveraging caught up with us and we collapsed. The market peaked in October 2007. Nearly the exact day that Kamanu Composites produced its first canoe. As fate would have it, we began our future here as millions of Americans saw their futures disappear along with their savings, homes, and jobs in the Great Recession.

That is the world that Kamanu Composites grew up in. And it has had a profound impact on where we’re at today. The canoe brought us together; formed us as individuals, as a company, and as a community. But, in the end it’s not really about the canoe. It’s about building. It’s about local production. It’s about being one small gear in this great machine of a world. It’s about the fact that we can’t continually rely on someone else. As a company, Kamanu Composites has framed every decision around one simple premise. We believe wholeheartedly in local manufacturing. Because part of America’s problem was that we forgot how to manufacture after giving it all away. Once we understood why we were doing what we do, it became easy to do what we do. As a community we can have a much greater impact than a small canoe building shop. Every decision we make puts us either one step forward or one step back. The answers are easy, but it starts with understanding why.

BEEP BEEP BEEP
As I separate dreams from reality.
It’s still dark, why did my alarm go off?
Shoot, it’s winter.
Do I really need to paddle this morning?
Maybe I’m coming down with a sore throat.
Is that rain I hear? Must be a thunderstorm.
I’ll sleep for just 15 more minutes and then feel better.
Uuuggghhhh…. My bed is so warm. I hate paddling.

For most people in the Northern Hemisphere, winter means holiday music, fireplaces, and hot chocolate. For us it means paddling OC-1 in the dark. In the cold. In the rain. It means coming home late at night or leaving early in the morning. It means not seeing our family. Taking time off of work. Spending lots of money.

Paddling is a huge commitment. We all do it for different reasons. Whether it’s for racing, to stay in shape, to be on the ocean, to feel connected to our ancestors, to meditate, or all of them combined. We’ll never be able to agree on why we paddle. But we can all agree on the importance of making sure that every workout counts. That all of the sacrifice is worth it.

There are a few ways to train. Most common for recreational athletes would be a flat and linear method. Meaning that training density (volume/intensity) is relatively consistent throughout the year. Maybe for a couple of weeks before a big race it’ll come up, but for the most part we’re doing the same thing year round. What happens with this method is that the body will quickly adapt to the training and then plateau. So the only improvements we see are mechanical or knowledge (race experience, surfing ability) related.

Another method that a lot of elite athletes do is also linear, but the training density slowly increases to keep the body from adapting and plateauing. However, what invariably happens is that the athlete will increase the training load until they literally fall off the cliff. They will go from overreaching to overtraining. The body will reach its physical limit and without being able to recover and adapt, it will break down.

The most effective way to train is to combine these two systems. It’s called Progressive Overload. Training will increase in a linear fashion until the athlete goes to the edge of their physical abilities, and then they will stop and recover. Everytime you stop, the edge of the cliff gets extended. Your body supercompensates. The most common way of instilling this in to your training program is to separate each month into a four week cycle. Each four week cycle consists of three weeks of building and then one week of rest. Then the next cycle starts with a slightly higher training load than the previous. In this fashion you keep increasing the load, you avoid plateauing, but you also avoid overtraining. The hard part is finding the sweet spot. Finding the edge of the cliff. Go too far and you overtrain, go to little and you plateau.

The other key training tool is Periodization. It’s an intimidating word for an extremely simple concept. It’s a term for splitting your year into periods, or phases. The reasoning being that the body adapts to different intensities in different ways. Our body has three main energy generators. If you make a movement right now (throwing your computer out the window for example), the energy used for that motion is stored in your muscles in the form of Adenosine Triphosphate. You only have a couple of seconds worth of stored energy before you need to start converting glycogen into the energy required for motion. If you were to throw your computer out the window and then sprint after it, you would be metabolizing carbohydrate without the use of oxygen. Which is a quick and powerful way to produce energy, but the by-product is lactic acid. There is recent evidence that suggests that lactic acid produces Human Growth Hormone, but, we’re concerned more with the fact that lactic acid causes rapid fatigue in the muscles. It’s that burning sensation you get at the end of a regatta. As paddlers, our primary source of energy is going to be aerobic. It means that we’re metabolizing glycogen for energy but able to take in enough oxygen to neutralize the lactic acid. It is where the energy would come from after you chased down the computer, realized it was broken, and then had to run to the Apple Store to buy a new one. Anything over a couple minutes will be aerobic.

Each energy system reacts differently to training. Anaerobic fitness comes quickly, but goes just as quickly. Aerobic fitness is slow to come, but slow to go. Which is where the term base training comes from. Base training means that we are working on expanding our aerobic potential. It’s the low intensity training that expands our lung and heart capacity, our metabolic pathways, our circulatory system, and even the mitochondria in each cell. All of these physical changes occur very slowly. Whereas high intensity anaerobic training adaptations happen much quicker, especially if someone has a well developed base. What this means, and what Periodization does, is that high intensity training will be focused at the end of the year. Right before the race that you want to achieve peak performance in. The hard part, for paddlers, is to put in the time at low intensities.

A lot of the physical adaptations from training will happen at both high and low intensities. But, the main reason to focus on keeping the intensity low for most of the year is that your body can’t handle high intensity and high volume. So, you get more benefit with a higher training volume and a low intensity.

With all of that in mind, setting up a training schedule according to the precepts of Periodization and Progressive Overload is easy. The next blog post will be on the specifics of Periodization and on how to set up the schedule.

So that next time your sitting in the dark in your car, with your windshield wipers on, your heater blasting, your coffee cradled in your hands, debating on whether you should rig your canoe. You’ll have an answer. And hopefully you’ll have a little more inspiration to get on the water.

I know this isn’t Friday and we promised to update the blog every other week, but… this is a special occasion.
Makana Denton (Team Kamanu rider extraordinaire and Kamanu Composites canoe Finisher/Repairman/Sprayer extraextraordinaire) has put together a short clip of the Ka’apahu.  The footage is from a practice run they did with some GoPros and the end footage is from an Iphone at the Pa’a ‘Eono Hoe (that the Ka’apahu won).
And, the canoe also happens to still be for sale.  The price has been reduced to $18,000 (comes with ‘iako, hull, and ama), and can still be custom painted.  You can read more about it here: kamanucomposites.com/2011/kaapahu.

Here’s our newest commercial.  Thanks to Devin Graham for filming the solo and putting this together for us.  Hopefully next time there’s a bit more surf.
It will appear on the three episode outrigger canoeing series that will be on Shaka Shakedown on K5 and hopefully one day on Ocean Paddler Tv.

For all of our California, Washington, Canada, and Japan customers– Here are some much needed updates.
Our container should arrive at Newport Aquatic Center next week.  Danny Ching will be unloading the canoes and then contacting all of the California customers to arrange for pick-up.

The Seattle and Canada canoes will be getting picked up by KAS Transport on the last week of October.  Canoes will be driven up to Alan Goto in Seattle by the end of the month.

Our five Japanese Pueos are all under production, and will hopefully begin shipping out on JAL in early November.  Because of the way the air-freighting works, they likely will fly up in pairs as they are completed.  Kenny Keneko will receive and distribute them as necessary.

A huge Mahalo to Newport Aquatic Center and all of the staff there for their support of our annual containers.

One day changed everything for the outrigger canoe in Hawai’i.  On October 17^th, 1976 the Tahitian built canoe, Tere Mata’i, followed by three other Tahitian crews, blazed across a glassy Kaiwi channel to dominate the Moloka’i Hoe.  The Hawaiian and Tahitian outrigger canoes went down drastically different paths in the 19^th and 20^th centuries; and it was not until the 1976 Moloka’i that the varying canoes and styles of paddling came into direct competition with each other.  The victor of the competition was clear, and it forced Hawai’i to figure out an identity for the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe.

The Tahitian domination brought Hawai’i into the modern age of outrigger canoeing as a sport and those who participated in Hawai’i were forced to look deeply into the meaning and preservation of that sport.  The controversial spark of 1976 was the Tere Mata’i.  Not only was it completely revolutionary in design, it was equally revolutionary in construction.  It was built with laminated strips of balsa wood, which allow the builder to move out of the matrix defined by the Koa log.  In pre-contact Polynesia, the individuality of each log made every canoe unique.  When massive Redwood logs would drift from North America and land on the shores of Kaua’i and Ni’ihau, Hawaiians would use those logs to make huge voyaging canoes.   These Redwoods of pre-contact Hawai’i opened up possibilities for the Hawaiians in just the same way that composite and laminate canoes open up possibilities now.  The Tahitians moved on from the matrix of the log with wood laminate construction without qualms as part of the evolution of the canoe.

The success of the Tere Mata’i in 1976 divided the paddling community.  The HCRA adopted a strict set of strict regulations based on measurements of fifty hybrid fishing canoes in Hawai’i in order to ensure that the Hawaiian Canoe did not move out of the matrix defined by the log; effectively ending the evolution of the canoe.

The Tahitian canoe has continued to evolve freely with very few restrictions, while its Hawaiian counterpart has only had halting progress within the regulated limitations. There are currently only two sanctioned competitive models of canoe in Hawai’i.  Nowadays OHCRA sanctioned canoe races are extremely fair.  When someone wins, the design of their canoe will rarely be considered a factor in the win.  This has brought the focus completely on the people in the canoe rather than the canoe itself.

In removing the uniqueness of each individual canoe, we are losing sight of what makes paddling more than just a sport.  It’s not a test of fitness.  We don’t race merely to see who the best paddlers are.  We paddle to perpetuate the canoe and the history of Polynesia.

The Moloka’i Hoe is undoubtedly the greatest and most influential outrigger canoe race in the world.  Other races are longer, harder, and more competitive, but the Hoe is the granddaddy of them all.  It also happens to be governed by the only remaining association in the world that won’t let go of the archaic restrictions on design.

“Kamanu,” in our name, references the Manu on a six-man canoe.  It is a unique design feature only found on Hawaiian canoes.  It leads the canoe, encompasses the canoe, and is a constant reminder to us that whatever path the company takes, we will always be rooted in the tradition of Hawaiian canoe paddling.  It doesn’t mean that we have to restrict ourselves to what has been deemed “traditional,” but it means that we should never forget where we come from

In the same fashion.  Let’s never forget the path that the canoe has taken, but lets perpetuate the life of the outrigger canoe by letting it evolve.

Goodluck to all of the competitors in the Moloka’i Hoe this weekend.  Be safe, take care of the ocean, and respect your canoe.  It has traveled over 2,000 years to arrive at its present state.  Let’s hope that it continues to evolve over the next 2,000 years.

“Un… Duex… Trois….”  Hundreds of motor-boats and thousands of spectators on land, all counting down the seconds in unison.  It felt like the fate of the world rested on the outcome of this timeless battle.  “Quatre… Cinq…Six.” Everything seemed remotely familiar.  But nothing was clicking.  Was this paddling?  The sport that I’d committed my life to felt like a shadow of what I was witnessing.  “Sept… Huit…Nuef.”  He crosses the line and the crowd goes berserk.  Possibly the most epic instant in outrigger canoe racing history went down somewhere between sept and nuef. And nobody outside of Pape’ete on August 6th, 2011 knows anything about it.

I was at the Super Aito.  Lucky enough to have convinced my wife that it was in her best interests to spend the last day of our honeymoon on an 18’ motor boat.  Not going through the picturesque lagoons of Tahiti’s outer islands, but through Pape’ete harbor and the surrounding area.  Dwarfed by 200 other diesel spewing boats watching the 100 best Tahitian paddlers battling it out to become 2011’s Super Aito Champion.

The race started innocently enough with a time trial.  Each paddler is traditionally released in one minute intervals.  It’s a race against the clock and against the mind.  You’re battling only with the ever-present specter of your competitors.  After a one hour time trial Rete Ebb was 1st with a 13 second lead over his soon-to-be nemesis, two time 2nd place finisher, Yoann Cronsteadt.  Nearly a third of the pack finished within three minutes of Rete’s winning time.  Meaning that the race was open to nearly anyone going into day two.

At seven the next morning we were jockeying for position among the hundreds of security patrolled spectator boats to try and see the action up front.  For most of the race it was only between two people.  Rete and Yoann. The throng of spectator boats surrounding them was enough to throw off a surfable wake to everyone else behind them.  But they were alone, as if in their own private ocean.  Dead calm, so every stroke was taken as if it were their last.  Yoann was able to pull away and finish with a 20 second lead over Rete.  The minute between 2nd and 3rd felt like a short eternity in the scale of Tahitian racing.  Usually the pack is so tight, the competition so intense, that open water between paddlers is a rarity.  The next six finishers were all within 30 seconds of each other.  After two hours the last place finisher was within 20 minutes of the leaders.

Going into the final race Rete had a seven second lead over Yoann.  And they each had over a minute on their nearest competitor.  Making it clear that this race was just about the two of them.  The final leg started at noon, the hottest and windiest part of the day.  The course starts with a brutal 90 minute leg straight upwind.  Even with hundreds of spectator boats throwing off wake, it wasn’t enough to give a second of rest to any of the paddlers.  Rete and Yoann sat about a hundred yards behind the leaders for most of the upwind portion.  And then, as if on cue, they both pulled up to the leaders together in time for the turn at Point Venus.

The race proceeded straight downwind through very surfable conditions for half an hour and then into the lagoons near Pirae and into Pape’ete Harbor.  Rete outsurfed Yoann and put a massive lead on the rest of the pack.  Enough so that most spectators didn’t even bother to follow the pack as it went on its course five minutes past the finish line to circle around back.  Nobody doubted that Rete was going to walk away as champion.  And then something happened.  In the final minutes of the race, when most paddlers begin to resign themselves to their fate, Yoann made an incredible comeback.  As we sat moored on the finish line watching the pack come at us, we saw Rete looking as if he was running from something.  And then Yoann emerged from the crowd of boats.  With a look of determination I’ve never seen on a paddler, and closing huge gaps with every stroke.  Rete, from an insurmountable lead looked as if he was about to get passed by Yoann, who only needed to come within seven seconds to win the race.

It was like no paddling event I’ve ever imagined.  I felt like I was on the sidelines for the final seconds of the Superbowl.  Witnessing the losing team throwing an impossible hail mary in slow motion into the fumbling hands of a running back in the end zone.  Rete crossed the line ahead of Yoann.  “Un.. deux…trios.”  Everyone counted outloud.  And then Yoann crossed right at Sept.  Seven seconds.  And the crowd literally exploded.  For one instant, nothing else in the world mattered but the titanic battle we all felt a part of.  After fighting each other for five hours and 23 minutes over two days and three races, they tied.  Regardless of how the judges analyzed the split seconds, everyone knew it was a tie.  The final call was in favor of Rete.  But, neither of them gave an inch, and neither was able to walk away with it.

- Luke Evslin

Wow.  We’re finally following through once again.  If you’ve tried to order apparel from us sometime in the last year, you probably heard us say that we were on the verge of having an online store.  But then twelve months passed by and you forgot our false promise.  Well, we’re proud to announce that the day that you’ve all been waiting for is finally here.  The Kamanu Store is open for business.  Don’t judge it too hard, as it’s still being worked on and items will be added all the time.  As a way of saying sorry for the delay, we’re offering free shipping on almost* everything in the store to anywhere in the US through October 1st.

store.kamanucomposites.com

*Seats, ‘iakos, rudders, and canvas canoe bags do not qualify for free shipping.

This is a new format of post for KamanuComposites.com.  This essay was written on the eve of the Na Wahine and the Moloka’i Hoe in order to bring awareness to the dangers of open ocean changes.  What is written is entirely the opinion of the author.

The Moloka’i Hoe has repeatedly changed my life.  When I was twelve, I watched in awe from the escort boat as my dad and the Kaiola Canoe Club senior masters raced across the Kaiwi.  I remember thinking, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”  Five years later as a desperate and reckless seventeen year old about to leave Hawai’i for college, I stole my brother’s ID card and switched to a canoe club that didn’t know my age.  I did that channel thinking that I may never get the chance to race across again.  But I came back.  Repeatedly.  I would fly home from college every year to race in the Moloka’i Hoe, the Moloka’i Relay, and the Moloka’i Solo.  I couldn’t get enough of the Kaiwi channel.

What I learned over 20 crossings is that the race is never the same and it’s nearly impossible to prepare for.  Just when you think you have a good grasp of what’s coming, the channel changes.  Which is what I’ve learned life is like also.  At last year’s Moloka’i Hoe I was poised to jump in for the first change off of La’au Point.  Standing on the edge of the boat waiting for the call to jump, I was confident in my knowledge of the channel, confident in my skill as a paddler, and confident in my physical fitness.  Before every race start, I would visualize and attempt to embrace the pain that I knew was coming.  I’m sure that I had a smile on my face as I jumped in, thinking about the pain that was about to consume me for the next six hours of racing.  But, as confident and knowledgeable as I felt, I had no idea what was coming.

To make the story short, I jumped in and was run over.  The prop hit me five times.  It split my pelvis, severed the gluteal muscle in my right leg, and broke off three spinal processes. Through luck and the fast actions of my escort driver, my team-mates, my coach, the paramedics, the Moloka’i fire department, the Maui Air Ambulance, the surgeons, and the 3rd floor nurses at Maui Memorial Hospital, I lived.  And now, with the support of my family, my friends, and the paddling community, I may have a full recovery.  The prop was less than an inch from ending my life or paralyzing me on nearly every pass it made through my body.  But it didn’t.  I can walk, I can paddle, and I’m alive.

But I’m not writing this to tell everyone my story.  I’m writing this because it’s important that we don’t forget how dangerous it is out there. Shortly after my accident a swimmer was hit and killed off of the Big Island.  A couple of months ago a diver off of Lana’i was hit and killed.  Two days ago a swimmer was hit in a race off of Maui and is currently battling for his life.  These are not isolated accidents.  They won’t stop until we do something about it.  The next time it happens in the Moloka’i Hoe somebody will probably die.  And it will be our fault for standing by and letting it happen.

There is no substitute for prop guards.  I understand that there are price and efficiency concerns, but they are irrelevant.  Every boat in every relay race in Hawai’i needs a guard.  Period.  The organizers won’t do it if they feel there is community resistance.  So we need to stand up together to make sure that it happens.  But, until that gets enforced, there are some basic things that we can do to avoid accidents.

Every team should have a simple change protocol in place.  Maybe that protocol will vary depending on the team and their driver, but it needs to be followed regardless of the experience level. An example could be:

1)    Before any paddlers jump the engine needs to be in neutral.

2)    A spotter, other than the captain, will verify that the prop is disengaged and will give the call for each paddler to jump.

3)    When every paddler has swum well clear of the boat, the spotter will notify the captain that the prop can be engaged.

4)    When picking up paddlers the same process will be reversed.  The captain will come within swimming distance of the paddlers and then disengage the prop.

5)    When the spotter verifies that the prop is disengaged, they will give the call to the paddlers to swim to the idling boat.

It’s up to each of us to enforce that protocol.  Until the governing bodies sit down and figure out how they are going to make the race safer (making it an iron race, extending the first change, mandating prop guards, etc), it’s up to each of us to do it for ourselves.  More than anything else, the paddlers, the coaches, and the drivers all need to be aware of the acute danger of propellers.  Let’s work together as a community to make sure that nobody gets hit again.

- Luke Evslin

This is long overdue.  Our website has become hopelessly outdated and even our previous excuse is now two years old (but still worth reading to understand why updates are always on the back-burner).
This post is the start of a new beginning.  Or at least a semi-promise to try and have a new blog post every other Friday.  Most of the time they will be about what’s going on at the shop or possibly a race story.  But sometimes it may end up being just a couple of sentences rushed out on a Friday afternoon in order to uphold our promise.  But regardless, please bear with us as we attempt to keep the world updated on Kamanu Composites.
I don’t want to use up all of our topics on one post, so I’ll write about just a few of the recent going-ons.

Company Retreat

We followed through on another long overdue promise by taking the whole shop to Kaua’i for a blissful weekend of not working.  For the first time ever, the shop was closed Thursday-Sunday as 14 of us camped at Poli Hale for two nights.  Hanging out at the beach and playing in the ocean on Kaua’i was a solid reminder of why we do what we do.

Team Manufacturing

As some people may have noticed, we’ve been experimenting with different methods of organizing our shop for production.  Between January and July we had two teams.  You may have received a canoe from us that had either “green team” or “blue team” written on it.  The shop was basically split in half, with each half completely responsible for producing three canoes a week.  All scheduling and problem solving was left to each team.  Recently we switched to a simpler method that allows for more specialization, while retaining the scheduling, increased communication, and creative freedom of the original method.  Now each step in the production has a team.  Spraying, Laminating, Guts, and Finishing are all separate teams.  We can easily pinpoint kinks in our production flow and hopefully it will allow us to isolate flaws and areas that need improvement.

Hiring

Our first hire under this new process will be for the “Finishing” team.  This is the final step in the process and it requires a very quality oriented individual who enjoys problem solving, working with their hands, and working with a team.  Interested individuals can send a cover letter and resume to Keizo@Kamanucomposites.com

California/Seattle/Hong Kong Container

We’re nearly finished with our sixth full container for overseas.  Canoes will be distributed along the West Coast, Canada, and Hong Kong.  However, this container has a unique and exciting difference.  Tim Lara of Hawaiian Paddlesports is importing V-3s and V-1s from Tahiti.  So we can avoid having to put 50 canoes in the container and so Tim can save some money on shipping, we’re joining forces and merging our containers.  This next container will arrive at Newport Aquatic Center filled with Pueos and with Tahitian Va’a.  It’s exciting to have such a large number of Tahitian exports arriving in Hawai’i and the mainland.  However, it’s making the arrival of this next container rather unpredictable because we’re not completely certain when the container of Va’a will arrive in Hawai’i.  If you’re a customer waiting for a canoe, keep in touch with your reps for updated information.

Australia

Travis Grant and Peter Corbishley are currently building the Pueo (OC-1) and Ha’upu (V-6) in Australia under the subsidiary name Kamanu Composites Australia.  So far they’ve built 4 V-6s and 6 OC-1s.  For more information, contact Travis at info@Kamanucomposites.com.au.

Hong Kong

We now have an official presence in Hong Kong.  We are now one of the few composite products to be imported into China.  Adam Giles and Andy Cummings are Kamanu Composites’ Hong Kong representatives and are anxiously awaiting arrival of approximately eight custom Pueo within the next month.  For Hong Kong ordering information, email Adam@Kamanucomposites.com.

So here’s to the end of broken promises.  Or at least the beginning of upholding this one promise.  There will be a new blog post every other Friday from now on.  And hopefully some website updates along the way.  As always, thank you for your continued patronage and support.