JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM Team Hawaii paddlers who will compete in Tahiti this week are: (clockwise from top left) Mike Judd, Kai Bartlett, Manny Kulukulualani, Andrew Penny, Karel Tresnak Jr., Danny Ching, Kekoa Cramer and Timmy Twigg-Smith. Not pictured is Thibert Lussiaa.

Hawaii’s best come together for big race

No matter how it seems, the paddlers of Team Hawaii didn't plan for this.

And yet, there remains a big opportunity for payback as they prepare to compete this Wednesday through Friday in the Hawaiki Nui Vaa -- a race among the Leeward islands west of Tahiti that is the country's biggest outrigger-canoe event and one of the most prestigious in the world.

After all, it was just three weeks ago that Shell Vaa -- with a time of 4 hours, 46 minutes and 4.5 seconds -- convincingly broke the race record in supposedly unfavorable conditions at the Molokai Hoe, and led a Tahitian sweep of the top three spots in Hawaii's 55-year-old race that's considered the world championship of the sport.

But Team Hawaii paddlers organized with the intent of participating in the three-day Hawaiki Nui three months ago, well before the Molokai Hoe. For the first time in several years, there was no schedule conflict between the two huge races, and they knew they could do both.

Still, they acknowledge that there is -- at the very least -- a bit more at stake after the Molokai Hoe.

The decision to participate in the Hawaiki Nui "had nothing to do with the Tahitians spanking us," team coordinator and paddler Mike Judd said.

For the Molokai Hoe, Judd paddled with Lanikai Canoe Club -- the winner the previous two years and former race record-holder -- which finished in fifth place.

"What they did here -- especially taking the record, on top of (winning) and taking top three -- it fires us up," Judd conceded. "But it's not the reason we're going. We're going down there to represent Hawaii. ... It's more a camaraderie thing. If we do well, it's the icing on the cake."

Team Hawaii is an all-star crew of nine world-class paddlers, with eight from different clubs throughout the state and one from California with Hawaii ties.

Besides Judd, Karel Tresnak Jr. (Outrigger), Manny Kulukulualani (Hui Lanakila) and Timmy Twigg-Smith (Hui Nalu) are also from Oahu. Kai Bartlett and Kekoa Cramer are from Hawaiian Canoe Club on Maui, while Andrew Penny and Thibert Lussiaa are from Tui Tonga on the Big Island.

Danny Ching regularly paddles for Lanakila of California, but his family is from Hawaii.

Kulukulualani and Ching will be paddling in the Hawaiki Nui for the first time.

Cramer participated with a different group two years ago.

"I'm sure a lot of (Hawaii) guys want some revenge, deep down," Cramer said. "But whatever happens, happens. ... We just want to compete against the best."

The rest of the crewmembers have raced together in the Hawaiki Nui before.

But, because of the previous schedule conflict, most of them last participated in 2001 as Team Kukio -- the only Hawaii team to win one of the three legs (the last) of the race and, at fourth place overall, its top finisher since the race began 14 years ago.

That 2001 performance was the culmination of three straight years of participating in the Hawaiki Nui with basically the same core group.

Though a few have dropped out since that last trip, Judd, Bartlett, Lussiaa and Twigg-Smith paddled together for all three of those years, while Penny was there for just 2001 and Tresnak the two years before.

"I think everyone who was in that canoe on that (third) day, except for Andy, had done the race all three years," Bartlett said. "We all knew what to expect on the last day and," after sitting out the second leg while others on Team Kukio paddled, "four of the guys were fresh off a day's rest. A lot of the crews down there, they just go for the 'iron' (same six paddlers for all three days)."

"We (borrowed a) great (Tahitian canoe) that year as well," he added. "The first two years we had shabby equipment, but we finally got a good relationship with one of the top clubs down there."

Choosing the 41-mile, single-day Molokai Hoe over the Hawaiki Nui -- which covers nearly 80 cumulative miles -- since hasn't gone unrewarded: Tresnak, Penny and Lussiaa won it in 2003 with Team New Zealand/Hawaii, while Judd and Bartlett were both on Lanikai's championship teams the following two years.

Tahitian power Rai made the same choice in 2002 and won the Molokai Hoe -- the last from Tahiti to accomplish the feat before Shell Vaa.

Yet Team Hawaii's paddlers -- along with everyone else in the sport save, perhaps, the Tahitians themselves -- were surprised at how the 2006 Molokai Hoe unfolded.

"After what Shell did, you're like, 'Whoa,'" said Tresnak. "That was a pretty big statement.'"

Team Hawaii left yesterday for Tahiti.