Watch: How To Surf An Outrigger Canoe At Waimea Bay...And Survive
Taking a 25-foot, four hundred-pound outrigger canoe out to ride waves Waimea Bay takes a certain kind of commitment not necessarily found in your run-of-the-mill big-wave surfers. Which is where watermen Ikaika Kalama, Mike O’Shaughnessy, Kaeo Abbey, Mark Healey and Gavin Sutherland come in. With a bombing northwest swell forecast to hammer Hawaii on December 2, the crew decided it was the perfect time to tempt fate, pick up their paddles and give it a go.
“Waimea, for me anyway, for the canoe, is perfect,” explains Kalama. “Reasons being that you have a wide open channel, all the energy focused off the rocks, it kind of pushes you into the channel. The way the wave comes in, it just kind of stands up, has a big drop, then kind of fades off. And for the canoe, after the drop you’re pretty much out of the impact zone.”
The talent behind the team, Kalama sat in the back of the boat and served as the steersman, meaning that he was largely in control of what waves the boys took off on and which ones they dodged.
“I’m the dumb labor on the canoe, I’m just paddling, I’m taking orders, so it’s a lot of faith in your steersman, really,” explained big-wave hero Healy, who's no stranger to Waimea and Hawaii's myriad of outer reef breaks.
Some of the largest ridden waves by a four-man outrigger ever captured on video, somehow nobody got hurt and they all made it back to the beach to celebrate another harrowing adventure in the Pacific.
