Walter J. Macfarlane Regatta
Recipient: Winning Military Crew
Top Inscription:
Outrigger Canoe Club
Walter J. Macfarlane Regatta
Invitational Military Race
Brass Inscription
This iron beam from USS Arizona (B8-39) was gifted by the Commander Navy Region Hawaii Pearl Harbor to Outrigger Canoe Club for its annual 4th of July canoe race in honor of our nation’s service men and women – Past, Present and Future.
Base Inscription:
I have felt the pounding sea . . .
the deadly blows of infamy.
I am ARIZONA. Do not forget me.
At its 73rd annual Walter J. Macfarlane Memorial Regatta on July 4, 2015 Outrigger Canoe Club introduced a very special new trophy saluting our nation’s service men and women in uniform: The USS Arizona Award for the winner of the Military Invitational Race.
This was the sixth year Outrigger had extended an invitation to the island’s five major military services – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard – to compete against each other in a special canoe race celebrating our nation’s birthday… a race OCC has made a permanent part of the Macfarlane Regatta with the enthusiastic support of the Oahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association (OHCRA) and its member canoe clubs.
The history of this race goes all the way back to Outrigger Canoe Club’s very first 4th of July regatta in 1910 – two years after the Club’s founding. Back then there was no organized canoe racing or association of clubs for OCC to invite to its canoe race.
There were three naval ships in Honolulu Harbor at the time, however, and in those days warships all had longboat crews who raced against each other in friendly competition when in port. All three ships were invited to race each other in the surf at Waikīkī, and all three accepted enthusiastically. Those three ships were the Navy cruisers USS Cleveland, USS Chattanooga, and the Belgian naval training ship L’Avenir. Surfing waves in Hawaiian canoes proved to be too much for the longboat-trained American crews. Both swamped, but the Belgians survived to win the race and the plaudits of the crowd ashore.
As more local crews from such early clubs as Hui Nalu, Healani and others began competing, no other military crews were invited to the 4th of July regatta until WW II, when Waikīkī’s hotels became military R&R centers. Outrigger initially organized special officer and enlisted men and women races for its 4th of July race, but not as inter-service competitions. It was not until 1945 when a service-vs-service competition was finally held – between the women’s service branches, and it was the Lady Marines who emerged triumphant.
The end of the war brought an end to service competition, and it was not until 2010 – for the 100th anniversary of Outrigger’s first 4th of July regatta – that the suggestion was made to have a military invitation race as part of the celebration, in recognition of that first race one hundred years before.
Outrigger proposed the race as a special event to OHCRA, and the entire association endorsed the idea wholeheartedly. Clubs participating in the regatta that year willingly agreed to host a service team of five paddlers, providing use of their canoes, a qualified steersman, paddles and even some quick orientation in Hawaiian canoe paddling.
Originally intended to be a quarter-mile ‘tourist-type’ race, local clubs and their adopted military sons and daughters argued for a full-on half-mile race out and back, and that was how it was run that inaugural day, and has been ever since. In a heated competition down to the wire, the Navy squeaked out a close, hard fought win by less than a second over the Marine Corps team from Kāne’ohe – and a tradition was reborn.
The 2014 race even included a crew of five admirals representing the various Navy branches of the U.S. Pacific Command, so it is no exaggeration in stating that the Outrigger Canoe Club’s salute to our military men and women in uniform has gained the attention of the highest level of command.
No better proof of this is the recent, magnificent gesture of respect extended to OCC by the Commander, Navy Region Hawai’i at Pearl Harbor, through the auspices of Jim Neuman, Command Historian, in granting the Club custody of a hallowed piece of the USS Arizona to serve as a perpetual award to the winning service crew of the Macfarlane Military Invitational Race.
On February 11, 2015 the Navy presented the Club with an iron beam from the aft deckhouse superstructure of the battleship USS Arizona (BB 39) which was sunk at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. On hand to receive the relic from the Navy were Marc Haine and Kawika Grant.
An appropriate presentation stand, designed by Tay Perry and Kawika Grant was built by the Club under the guidance of Domie Gose – from a rare and beautiful piece of koa wood generously donated by Karl Heyer IV.