Hawaii Kai is located in the South of Oahu. The race course to Kaimana Beach is a good 8 miles long. Off the beach from Hawaii Kai a buoy has to be rounded. The conditions in this first segment are flat, some smaller waves may come into the bay towards you, various currents may be favorable to get out quickly or not.
Once around the buoy you have to chose your course. It is basically east to west but you have to chose the inside, outside or, well, a neutral route. The rising and the falling of the tide in the bay helps to determine this. It seems though, that the good paddlers know the course so well, that they rather intuitively chose where they paddle.
Wind is eastern, thus in your back. The more the better. It is a surf run, yet without any challenging waves. The challenge is rather to work with the ocean to the best of your ability.
Once the bay is crossed, at Black Point, you enter the shore break around Diamond Head.
The waves come from your back left at various angles. The temptation to go 'inside' is always there, even on the biggest days.
Remember that Odysseus had to be tied to the mest of his ship while he passed the singing Sirens; their song was so beautiful, that nobody could resist the temptation to ship towards them, to finally wreck the ship on the cliffs.
Many OC 1/Oc 6 have been ruined in this section. It always seems as if it is doable - most of the time it is!
After that, another short segment and over the reef - be careful here - in to Kaimana Beach ( click images to enlarge )
On a good day this course paddles in about just below 60 min., on a flat day you have to add 5 minutes to your time.
During a recent race - PA'A Thanksgiving Race - quite a remarkable performance of the new Pueo could be observed. Not to take anything away from the individual paddler's performances, definitely not. But could it be that this new boat is just a little faster than the prior art ?
The condition were flat, little wind, a mild roll, little waves to catch all the way, but no 'free rides'. Race course: 8.3 miles.
Here are the first 25 OC 1 finishers of the race:
Pueo
Pueo
Zephyr
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Scorpius
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Pueo
Polaris
Vantage
Pegasus
Hurricane
Pueo
Pueo
Vantage
Hurricane
Hurricane
I paddled the Pueo once myself and have paddled ‘against’ it quite a few times, flat up to medium conditions, I have not seen it in ‘big’ conditions: I have seen people improve their performance quite impressively compared to last year/their other boat.
- It may be that the ama design makes a big difference.
- The boat is not a high volume boat, that means the wet surface area is relatively small.
- The boat is very well balanced, the ama comes up very easily, effortlessly and gently on every stroke, at least on the right.
- On my Hurricane I moved the seat/foot well 6 inches forward; it definitely works for me. In comparison, the Pueo has the foot well at about the same distance from the bow.
- For my size, 6’5, I would need to adapt the cockpit a little bit to get a good seating position, probably by moving the foot well forward by 2 - 3 inches. If your okole is good for two - to say: not standard size - you may not be comfortable with the seat arrangement
- The Pueo is great in the flat, observed in a canal. Paddling ‘against’ it on a Hurricane, I have to paddle the ama very, very light to regain an advantage. That’s why I think that the ama design is most responsible for the good performance.
You can watch a video of the Pueo in the 'OC 1 Video' section. Observe the different ama, the current ama is entirely different.
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