The Outrigger Canoe Club was founded in 1908 to perpetuate the Hawaiian sports of surfing and canoe racing. A few months after its formation, the Club sponsored its first water carnival which featured a variety of swimming, surfing and canoe races in the waters in front of its Waikiki Beach home. The Club has continued to be involved in every aspect of canoe racing for more than a century.
In addition to entering outrigger canoe races held in Honolulu Harbor and Waikiki, Club members were at the forefront of the sport. Club member Lorrin Thurston was instrumental in starting the 1933 regatta in Napo`opo`o Bay, Kona, which helped to revive canoe racing. OCC has sponsored the longest-running canoe race, the Walter J. Macfarlane Regatta on the 4th of July at Waikiki Beach, since 1943.
In the early 1950s Club members called for the organization of what is now the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association out of concern that if canoe racing was going to succeed as a sport it needed an organizational structure, race rules, canoe standards and a regular schedule of events. OCC’s Samuel Fuller was the first president.
OCC member Toots Minvielle proposed the Molokai-to-Oahu long-distance race (now the Molokai Hoe) for men, and other Outrigger coaches developed the first long-distance race for women, the Dad Center Memorial Race, which led to the creation five years later of the Na Wahine O Ke Kai women’s Molokai race. And not only have Outrigger Canoe Club and its members contributed so much to the sport, we are also the winningest canoe club ever; we have more Territorial, State, Association, and Molokai championships than any other club. Read more