WILDWOOD CREST – Six-person outrigger canoe racing is a sport with deep ties to Maui and to Hawaiian culture, and after a thousand years of popularity among Pacific Islanders, it has taken hold in South Jersey thanks to the hard work of a local lifeguard.
Wild Isle Outrigger Club in Wildwood Crest is the first of its kind in Cape May County. Ronnie Ayres, a 26-year veteran of the Wildwood Crest Beach Patrol and founder of the club, said that the sport caught on so quickly after their first meet that he had to hold as many as five practices a week to keep up with demand.
“In 24 years of doing sports at the Shore, I never once saw an outrigger canoe on the bay, in the ocean, anywhere. Let alone launching from the beach at Rambler Road,” Ayres said. “It’s great to get adults out and trying new things, but it’s also great to develop another vein for youth sports.”
Like any good sport, the concept is easy to understand but hard to master. A team of six paddlers sits inside an outrigger canoe – supported by counter-balances that extend out to one side – and race on the open ocean and in back bays. The boats are massive, typically between 40 and 45 feet long.
They are also incredibly heavy. Transporting their boats – two are Tahiti Matahina V6 race boats donated by the manufacturer to get the club off the ground – was a significant challenge. A team from Lewes, Delaware, loaded the Wild Isle boat onto their trailer and the two teams traveled together to Brigantine, the site of the Hoe Va’a 10-mile race.
Wild Isle Outrigger Club placed seventh of nine at the race despite being by far the least experienced. One of Wild Isle’s racers only had two practices before the race, their first as a team.
Axel McCoy, a local high schooler who just learned to row this past summer, said that the team’s placement was a huge accomplishment. McCoy sat fourth from the front in the canoe, a position he called the “engine.”
“Fourth and fifth position are supposed to paddle the hardest,” he said. “But even the strongest team in the world would be useless if the six rowers can’t synchronize their strokes.”
Riley McDade, a college student who learned how to row this year, said that she was happy to even finish the race, which took them through the inlet between Brigantine and Atlantic City. They battled 30 mph winds that day, among the most challenging conditions they faced all summer.
Outrigger racing might be new to South Jersey, but it traces back to ancient Polynesia. Today’s canoes are made out of sophisticated synthetic materials; originally they were made of wood.
Ayres first encountered outrigging when he lived in Hawaii and saw how it brought together men, women and children of all ages and backgrounds.
“You have this massive cultural entity where the clubs bring together multiple generations,” Ayres said. “You’re paddling with your grandparents, your granddad is steering your canoe. There’s this rich cultural attachment that I was lucky to step right into. It was an incredible way to see Hawaii from a canoe and be welcomed into that community.”
Ayres has spent most of his life on the beach and is in the ocean almost every day. He sees his knowledge and easy access to the water as a gift he wants to share with others.
He started the team in part because he thinks the sport, at least in America, is having a tough time recruiting younger members. Cape May County as a whole is something of a sports desert in the off-season. In the wintertime, there’s hardly a sport for non-school-age young adults other than pickleball. Ayres’ club was going full steam all the way through the end of October, and only stopped because the water got too cold.
“I already know and understand – and have the equipment – how to get out there on the open ocean. It’s a privilege I wanted to share with more people,” he said.
Contact the reporter, Collin Hall, at 609-886-8600, ext. 156.
