Latest news with #Hokule'a
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Hokule‘a, Hikianalia depart after 2-day weather delay
After a two-day delay caused by hazardous ocean conditions, the Polynesian voyaging canoes Hokule 'a and Hikianalia departed early Monday morning from Mauliola—commonly known as Sand Island—en route to Hilo. The canoes launched at approximately 5 a.m., taking advantage of a safe and favorable weather window to cross the Alenuihaha Channel. The channel, which lies between Maui and Hawaii island, is known for powerful currents and strong winds and is considered among the most dangerous in the Pacific. The Polynesian Voyaging Society postponed the originally scheduled Saturday morning departure to ensure crew safety. The Hokule 'a and Hikianalia are expected to arrive in Hilo on Wednesday afternoon, where a public cultural arrival ceremony is scheduled to begin around 4 p.m. at the Grand Naniloa Hotel. The event will follow traditional arrival protocols and is open to the public. According to PVS, the delay reflects the organization's ongoing commitment to safety and cultural practices, which include close observation of weather and ocean conditions before launching each leg of the Moananuiakea Voyage. The four-year Moananuiakea Voyage aims to sail approximately 43, 000 nautical miles, visiting 36 countries and archipelagos, nearly 100 indigenous territories and more than 345 ports. An estimated 400 crew members from Hawaii and throughout the Pacific will participate in the voyage, which promotes Indigenous knowledge, ocean conservation and global collaboration. While in Hilo, the crew will take part in several community events designed to foster learning and connection. Weather permitting, the Hokule 'a and Hikianalia are tentatively scheduled to depart Hilo on May 30 to continue their journey to French Polynesia, the next major stop on the Moananuiakea Voyage. The following events are planned in Hilo in coordination with Hawaii County and the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau, Grand Naniloa Hotel and local community :—Welcome ceremony tentatively scheduled for 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Grand Naniloa Hotel—Public dockside engagement 3-6 p.m. Thursday at the Grand Naniloa Hotel—'Hokule 'a Ho 'olaule 'a, ' 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Wailoa Boat Harbor, makai side of the Wailoa Bridge, near Suisan Fish Market The event will include canoe tours, music, cultural demonstrations and food vendors.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Yahoo
Public sends off the crew of Hokule‘a, Hikianalia
RELATED PHOTO GALLERY Dozens of people gathered under gray skies and intermittent rain Friday morning at Mauliola—also known as Sand Island—for a public blessing and send-off ceremony as the Polynesian Voyaging Society prepares to relaunch the Moananuiakea Voyage, a four-year, 43, 000-nautical-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean. The event took place at the Marine Education Training Center, where the public was invited to offer farewells to the voyaging canoes Hokule 'a and Hikianalia before they depart Hawaii for the next leg of their global sail. Departure is currently scheduled for early Sunday morning, though the timeline remains weather-dependent. The canoes will first stop in Hilo for community engagement and final preparations. Weather permitting, the crew plans to depart Hilo for French Polynesia on May 29 or 30. Among those present for Friday's ceremony were about 20 preschoolers from Kulaniakea's School of Nature and Hawaiian Immersion, accompanied by four teachers. The students—ranging in age from 19 months to 6 years—opened the event with an oli, or chant, for Hokule 'a, protocol and inviting others to offer hookupu, or gifts, to the crew and canoes. Kulaniakea teacher Kaula Tauotaha said the school centers Hawaiian language, culture and values in its curriculum. Students are taught primarily in 'olelo Hawaii and learn traditional practices both indoors and outdoors—including aboard a double-hulled sailing canoe that serves as a classroom. 'Now we have two double-hull sailing canoes that they practice sailing on, ' Tauotaha said. Lessons in Hawaiian navigation are also integrated into the indoor classroom. Many of the students had previously welcomed Hokule 'a home from a prior voyage between California and Alaska—an experience that strengthened their connection to the canoe. 'They had only seen pictures of Hokule 'a, ' Tauotaha said. 'They practiced protocol so they were ready to receive her, but it was the first time they actually got to see her in person and the scale of how big she really is.' Now, with more time and experience, that connection has deepened. 'They're a lot older now, ' she said Friday. 'They've developed a different relationship with Hokule 'a … There's so much excitement and pride. The students are confident and they're very prepared for today.' Tauotaha said watching the ceremony was especially meaningful, knowing how much has changed across generations. 'We're very proud of them, ' she said. 'It's one of those things—a couple of generations ago, it wasn't something that you could see or wasn't allowed.' She added that the students not only carry the kuleana of speaking 'olelo Hawaii and practicing culture within their families, but also help inspire others. 'They have this power to inspire others, which they've done in many ways.' Since returning to Hawaii at the start of 2024, PVS crew members have used the pause in the voyage to deepen their training and community outreach. Over the past six months, they completed a statewide sail, visiting 25 ports and reaching more than 12, 000 students across the islands. They also voyaged to Lahaina several times, participated in the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture and celebrated Hokule 'a's 50th birthday in March. Crew member Jonah Apo said the time at home was far from idle. It allowed for more intensive preparation and meaningful engagement with communities and keiki before continuing the journey. The Moananuiakea Voyage, which began in Juneau, Alaska, in June 2023, was paused in December after Hokule 'a returned from San Diego due to hazardous El Nino conditions and the impacts of the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires. Apo said the voyage is about much more than sailing—it's about building connections across the Pacific and amplifying shared values. 'A lot of it is just spreading … the importance of the oceans, especially the Pacific Ocean, the one that we call home, ' Apo said. 'It's that massive ocean that really doesn't separate us, but connects us.' The four-year journey is expected to include about 400 rotating crew members, sailing in groups of 10 to 12 per leg. Participants span a range of ages and backgrounds from Hawaii and across the Pacific. 'Being a part of that overall voyaging family is really fun, ' Apo said. He emphasized the need to educate the next generation about voyaging traditions—which, until recently, were not commonly taught in schools. 'It's important for even every student, no matter how young they are, to learn about voyaging and understand its importance in our culture, ' he said. 'Being able to carry on this tradition that's not only something of the past, but also something that we've been continuing ' is part of the long-term vision, he added. Reflecting on his earlier journey to Alaska during the first leg of the Moananuiakea Voyage, Apo said reconnecting with northern Indigenous communities highlighted the deep relationships Hokule 'a has forged over decades. 'These are all connections that were made because of the canoe, and connections that are older than I am, ' he said. Sailing alongside glaciers and through snow-capped mountain landscapes, he added, was 'something pretty surreal.' Navigator Lehua Kamalu said she plans to join the leg of the voyage from Hilo to Tahiti, currently expected to depart in late May or early June, pending conditions. Kamalu called the Moananuiakea Voyage one of the most ambitious since Hokule 'a's Worldwide Voyage, which ran from 2013 to 2017. That journey began with a sail throughout the Hawaiian archipelago before the canoe circumnavigated the globe, returning home in June 2017. She noted that the voyage offers a major opportunity for young leaders like Apo to gain real experience and take on more responsibility. 'This is really their opportunity to actually get some experience and training out on these deep voyages, ' Kamalu said, adding that many seasoned voyagers who began 15 to 25 years ago are now mentoring the next generation. With Hokule 'a marking its 50th anniversary, Kamalu said the focus is increasingly on the future. 'There's never a bad time to be out, ' she said. 'The work is continuous.' She said the guiding principle of Moananuiakea—'this is all one ocean and one large community '—remains at the heart of the effort. Strengthening ties between Hawaii and other Pacific communities is as vital as the voyage itself. 'There are things that happen on the water. There is community organizing on land, ' Kamalu said. 'What's really valuable is that they all see one another, meet one another, and start to build relationships with these communities that will continue to support this network of voyaging and islands into the next 50 years.' Following the planned arrival in French Polynesia, the canoes will spend four weeks visiting the sacred marae of Taputapuatea and other locations including Papeete, Mataiea, Moorea and Tautira. The voyage will then continue on to the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Aotearoa (New Zealand ) later this year. Future legs in 2026 and 2027 are expected to include Melanesia, Micronesia, Palau and parts of Asia such as the Philippines ; Taiwan ; Okinawa, Japan ; South Korea and China. In 2028, the canoes will sail to Mexico, Central and South America and Rapa Nui before returning to Tahiti and ultimately home to Hawaii. Altogether, the Moananuiakea Voyage will visit 36 countries and archipelagos, nearly 100 Indigenous territories and more than 345 ports. It represents a continuation of traditional navigation and a renewed commitment to shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean.
San Francisco Chronicle
09-05-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
How Clyde Aikau spoke to the ocean, celebrated his brother's memory and big-wave surfing
I had as much respect for Clyde Aikau as any athlete I ever met. Just the thought of him, and what he represented, brought home the true spirit of big-wave surfing. When he died in his native Hawaii last weekend, at 75, it was time to appreciate a career unbroken by tragedy, corporate invasion and the knowledge that on those craziest days on Oahu's North Shore, he might not be returning to land. Clyde spoke to the ocean on such days, and in his mind, the ocean spoke back. It had already taken the life of his brother, Eddie, leaving the younger Clyde to deal with the consequences. In time, through his grief, he helped create a big-wave contest in Eddie's name — an event of such soaring magnificence, it elevated the legacies of both men into the highest echelon. In the meantime, 'Eddie would go' became a catchphrase not just for surfing, but for walks of life throughout the world. On March 16, 1978, Eddie was part of a 16-man crew aboard the Hokule'a, a 60-foot twin-hulled sailing canoe launching a 2,500-mile journey from Honolulu to Tahiti. The trip would take some 30 days, navigated without instruments — 'the old way,' as its creators mused, replicating Polynesian voyages some 1,200 years in the past. Well trained as a North Shore lifeguard and always one to prepare for the worst, Eddie brought along a special big-wave surfboard — but no one had any idea how terrifying this trip would become. A fierce storm raged in darkness over the Molokai Channel, known for its life-threatening treachery under stormy conditions. In the days before highly sophisticated forecasting, there was no feasible preparation for the giant waves and fierce winds that capsized the canoe that night. Some 20 miles from the island of Lanai, the crew was now chilled and helpless, clinging to the craft with no food, communication or hopes to be spotted. That's when Eddie grabbed his board and jumped into the maelstrom, determined to reach the coastline and trigger a rescue mission. The crew members survived, rescued nearly a full day later after a passing airplane spotted one of their last remaining flares. A desperate, lengthy search fetched only his surfboard. Eddie was never seen again. 'Eddie was one hell of a waterman,' his good friend and fellow big-wave surfer Peter Cole told me some years later. 'But I don't think anyone was going to survive in the Molokai Channel that night. Not with 30-foot seas, intensely strong winds and a current taking him farther from shore. You just don't come back from that.' Immersed in sorrow, Clyde couldn't shake the notion that his brother was somehow alive — but the reality cast him into retreat. 'I didn't come to the North Shore for five years,' he said in my interview for 'North,' Brown Cannon's recently published coffee-table book. 'I was just a wreck. I didn't even want to surf, anywhere, so I windsurfed every single day from sunrise to sunset. And thank God I did, because heaven knows what I would have done — jumped off the cliff or something. Because me and Eddie were the closest of the closest.' They had grown up with three other brothers and a sister outside Honolulu — 'real poor,' as Clyde said, on the property of a Chinese graveyard, acres of which the family cleaned by hand. Eddie was always the best surfer, the best slack-key guitar player, the most comfortable around the girls, and eventually the man selected to be the North Shore's first lifeguard (1967). Clyde had a severe handicap, speaking with a stutter well into his adulthood, but he overcame that, eventually becoming proficient in all of Eddie's pastimes, especially when it came to riding the giant surf of Waimea Bay. 'I had no problem taking number two spot to Eddie,' he told author Leslie Wilcox in 2009. 'Because he was a hero, a Hawaiian hero. I was just fine behind, right behind him.' It was Clyde's idea, along with George Downing, a born-and-raised Hawaiian who pioneered big-wave performance in the 1940s, to create the Eddie Aikau Invitational, launched in 1985 at Sunset Beach before finding a permanent home at Waimea the following winter. 'The Eddie,' as the event came to be called, grew into surfing's greatest contest. Nothing else comes close. It's not about money, or even winning, merely being invited into Waimea's grand theater, witnessed by some 50,000 spectators in a natural amphitheater along the beach and hillsides. There are no scoreboards or clumsy intervention from sponsors (if they even exist), just a same-day notice — 'Get out here, it's on!' — and a bunch of men and women thrilled beyond words as they compete in two separate one-hour heats throughout the day. Maui's Kai Lenny, an all-around waterman without equal — foiling, stand-up paddling, windsurfing, tow-ins, you name it — found himself a changed man after competing in the last two Eddies. 'I've never been part of an event like that,' he said after finishing fifth in 2023. 'People say they feel like Eddie's looking down, smiling, and it really does feel that way. I feel like the love I have for surfing has never been stronger.' Among those who remember Greg Noll and the other hardy souls who pioneered Waimea Bay in the late 1950s, it is generally agreed that Eddie and Jose Angel, the San Francisco-raised waterman who died on a black-coral diving expedition off Maui in 1976, were the most fearless surfers ever to challenge the Bay at maxed-out, 50-foot-plus sized waves. (Noll called Angel 'the gutsiest surfer there ever was,' recalling that he wouldn't just wait for the biggest wave, he'd occasionally leap off his board into a full somersault, assuring him the worst possible wipeout, and come up laughing.) In the spirit of those two legends, Clyde renewed his relationship with the North Shore's distant outer reefs as the Aikau contest took shape. He'd ride them alone, in the days without leashes, safety vests or watercraft assistance, because he felt at home out there, supremely prepared for The Eddie's Waimea debut 1986. The place looked especially dangerous that morning. A number of surfers sounded as if they'd prefer some other day. But that's when the iconic Mark Foo (who died at Mavericks in 1994) looked straight into a camera and said, 'Eddie would go.' A slogan was born, and 24 surfers flat-out went. In a story often told over the years, Clyde noticed a couple of turtles in the water as he paddled out. That wasn't so unusual, except they kept following him, all the way out to the lineup and beyond, to a spot Clyde believed would be special. 'It was the spirit of Eddie and Jose,' Clyde said, and you didn't have to believe him, but in a field of historically big-name talent — Foo, Ken Bradshaw, Roger Erickson, Brock Little (then just 18), Tony Moniz — the winner was Clyde, so overwhelmed by emotion that he was unable to speak. As the years went on, with younger surfers dominating the media's attention, Clyde didn't just show up. He placed fifth in 1990, 10th in 2001 and eighth in 2002. And yet, none of that compared to his performance in February of 2016. The man was 66 years old, and a wave of anxiety swept over the crowd as he took a titanic wipeout on his very first wave, nearing ripping the right shoulder of its socket. Minutes later he banged his right knee on his board on another wipeout. Heading to the beach, he scraped his left forearm on the reef and developed a cramp on his left thigh. I was watching from a viewpoint above the east-side rocks, and the beaten-down Clyde was draped over his board sideways, as if clinging for dear life. More than a few people said they were in tears as he was helped up the beach. A couple of hours later, wait a minute — Clyde's going back out for his second heat! Paddling with one arm. Catching one last wave, for Eddie. For himself. For thousands of people getting the 'chicken skin' shivers. 'That's what people mean when they're talking about this contest,' said Santa Cruz surfer Peter Mel, an annual invitee. 'Right there.' Clyde nearly lost his life two years ago when, on a work trip to Las Vegas, he collapsed after dinner and was rushed to a hospital, where he underwent emergency open-heart surgery for an aneurysm in his aortic valve. It was known during his recovery that he wasn't doing well, and the Aikau family revealed that his death came 'after a long, hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer.' Survived by his wife Eleni, his son Ha'a, his sister Myra and a large extended ohana of nieces and nephews, he was said to have died peacefully at his home in Waimanalo on Oahu's windward side. His was a life of privacy of humility, but friends knew there was much to tell. 'Not a lot of people realize that aside from operating beach concessions and a surf school for many years in Waikiki, he worked with the Department of Education for underprivileged and unhoused kids in Hawaii, making sure they had food, school supplies and transportation,' said retired North Shore lifeguard Mark Cunningham, a longtime mainstay of the surf community. 'He was so touched by people who deserved a better fate in life. Clyde Aikau was the essence of a loving, caring Hawaiian.'
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legendary Hawaiian waterman Clyde Aikau has passed away
HONOLULU (KHON2) — The surfing community lost another legend as Clyde Aikau passed away Saturday evening in his Waimanalo home, surrounded by his sister, Myra, wife, Eleni and son, Ha'a. The Aikau family said his death came 'after a long hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer.' Video: Salt + Air Studios 'While that road was a difficult one, he never allowed it to get in the way of his eternal optimism and zest for life. He continued on with his family duties, supported his wife's dog boarding and training business, and ensured the success of his brother's event,' the Aikau family said in a statement. Born in 1949 on the island of Maui, Clyde was the youngest of six children. The Aikau family, known across the world as expert watermen, lost Clyde's older brother, Eddie when he set off to get help for his crew aboard the Hōkūleʻa in the 1978. He was never seen again. 'Incredible,' familiar and young faces show up for The Eddie opening ceremony A big wave invitational was created to commemorate the memory of Eddie and Clyde has lovingly honored him, sharing countless stories of his beloved brother with the world and ensuring that Eddie's heroic nature was never forgotten. Clyde won the inaugural event in 1986, becoming the champ of The Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. He continued to ride in subsequent events over the years. In 2016, just before calling the competition on, Aikau told KHON2, 'It's just a privilege for me to ride one more time, and ride one more big one for Eddie,' he said. It was the last invitational that he competed in. 'Clyde and Eddie were the closest of brothers, sharing a passion and commitment to family, Hawaiian culture, and the ocean. They both served as North Shore lifeguards; voyaged on Hokule'a (separate voyages); rode giant winter waves at Waimea Bay; and were famous for their impromptu slack key guitar sessions that they shared with family and friends around the Islands and the world,' the Aikau family said in a statement. Clyde Aikau was 75 years old. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Hokule'a invites you to free dockside tours in Honolulu
HONOLULU (KHON2) — Continuing to celebrate their 50th birthday, crew members are inviting guests to step aboard and learn about the history of navigating the Hokule'a. WakeUp2Day's Chris Latronic went live from outside of the Hawaii convention center with a preview. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
