Waka ama crew paddle to Hawaii
Ocean off Hawaii will pose a different challenge for senior team contesting world championships
In August, the tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii is about as far as you can get from wintery Lake Taupō. However, one local waka ama team will be paddling into a very different climate after they qualified for this year’s World Sprint Championships in Hilo.
The Taupō Waka Ama senior master’s team is made up of six women aged over 50, all from different walks of life, from DoC rangers to health care and postal workers.
They also range widely in their time with the club; some, like Janet Bishop, have a couple of years of paddling under their belts, while
Brenda Lawson is notably a former Olympian and world champion rower.
It will be the first time a Taupōbased team have qualified for the international competition, which team member Alice Street said is an amazing achievement in its own right.
“One of the [best] things for me is that we’re a small club with a very small pool of master’s women.
“Other teams may have 20 or 30 master’s women, and we’ve got pretty much just us.”
The Taupō team beat the competition at January’s Waka Ama National Sprint Championships on Lake Karāpiro to qualify for the international championships, which will take place in the Northern Hemisphere summer.
Taupō Waka Ama was an underdog compared to those in other towns with more members, with clubs based in other towns like Rotorua fielding multiple teams in their race.
For one event, they even “had to borrow a paddler from Whakatā ne”, said team captain Sheena Jury.
The ocean will present a new set of challenges compared to the lake the team is used to, but that’s not the only thing the master’s women will have to get their heads, and paddles, around.
Waka ama aren’t exactly transportable by air, so the teams use provided boats to race in.
They’ll be hopping into a Matahina waka, a type that none of the paddlers have ever set foot in before.
The model they’ll be using is known for being harder to turn, which in combination with the differing conditions from lake to sea means the event will be challenging in every respect.
Due to the number of teams taking part in the championships – teams from 35 countries are expected to compete, with 92 club teams and five elite teams from Aotearoa making the trip – each group is given a tiny window to acclimate to the new boats, said Street.
“There are teams from all over the world who haven’t used the boats, so we only get an hour timeslot each to practice.”
And there’s little chance of trying them out ahead of time, as Jury notes “there are only a few of these boats in New Zealand”.
There is plenty of preparation to be done ahead of August, both for racing and to fundraise for the high cost of sending the team.
To raise money, the club is volunteering at events such as Taupō ’s Ironman, as well as seeking sponsorship from local and national companies.
Street said she’d been “writing to everyone I can think of”, with donations coming in from organisations including the Tokaanu Trust.
As amazing as it was to have a world-class team of women aged over 50, it had its drawbacks, she said.
“We’re probably in a different position in that we’re not youth, so there are a lot [of grants] we can’t apply for.”
Taupō Waka Ama club is seeking sponsorship for their women’s master’s team-contact taupowakaamaclub@gmail.com.