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History of Lanakila Outrigger Club
| 1969 / | 1970 / | 1971 / | 1974 / | 1975 / | 1980 / | 1981 / | 1983 / | 1992 / | 1993 / | 1994 / | 1998 / | 2000 | 2001 |
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Lanakila was formed in 1970 by a group of 6 paddlers, Ralph Hanalei, Al Ching, Keith Keillor, Sam Ferrar, Art Hausen and Mike Jacobs. They lived within a close proximity to Redondo Beach's King Harbor. After paddling for Marina Del Rey for several years, they longed to have a club within their Harbor instead of driving the 24 mile round trip to Marina.
In 1969 Ralph Hanalei went to the City of Redondo to secure permission to start an Outrigger Club, but ran into the usual red tape and paper work.
Meanwhile they began recruiting paddlers and building two canoes. They purchased an old Malia hull without gunnels and manus for $100.00 which had lain half buried in the sand from an extinct club called Santa Monica. The canoe was refurbished with new gunnels and manus and named the, "Kaku" or Barracuda. Art's large backyard served as boat yard for rebuilding canoes, much to the chagrin of his parents.
The second canoe was built from the specifications of the Malia, but with marine plywood covered over ribs, instead of fiber glass. It turned to out to be a v bottomed canoe, because it was difficult to bend the plywood around the bottom of the hull. In hindsight they should have used thinner sheets of plywood. It was very fast, but also very hard to steer, because the v-bottom made the canoe track in one direction. It weighed about 450 lbs, much heavier than had been anticipated. That canoe was named the Papio, after a well known game fish.
With permission to start a club granted and the paper-work finalized, the Kaku and the Papio were blessed and launched on the south beach of Redondo Pier through the surf. With nowhere to locate their club, they trailored the canoes and the equipment from Art's house, 6 miles away to the beach and launched through the surf every day.
The club was first known as the Lanakila Athletic Club, but later changed to Lanakila Outrigger Club and finally changed to King Harbor Outrigger Club. Today everyone "Unofficially" calls it Lanakila Outrigger Club. Launching from the beach every day was hectic and taught the crews to be efficient paddling through surf.