Favored San Diego Outrigger Team Upset

Three days before Saturday’s La Jolla to Del Mar Ironman race, Dee Van Winkle, San Diego Outrigger Canoe Club’s coach and a member of its defending champion men’s open team, guaranteed a victory.

“We will win,” he said, without hesitation, as the San Diego team was fine-tuning for outrigger canoeing’s long-course season finale and state championship.

That was Wednesday, a day when it was cloudy, threatening rain and the ocean was a little too rough to ride. All Van Winkle wanted for a perfect repeat performance was perfect weather.

It was warm and sunny at La Jolla Shores, Saturday, but to Van Winkle and his teammates, it was much gloomier than Wednesday. Roger Malm, San Diego Outrigger’s No. 1 steersman, came down with the mumps and could not race.

And in the final stretch of the men’s open championship, Newport Outrigger Canoe Club, a team that had not won a race all season, blew by San Diego to win.

Newport’s victory proved to be the biggest upset in a day filled with strange twists and a series of races that went off about as smooth as the choppy swells off the coast.

In the earlier women’s open race, an escort boat the canoes were to follow apparently overshot the up-and-back course’s turnaround point off Del Mar, making the race much longer than planned. To compensate for lost time, officials shortened the ensuing men’s race by two miles.

Before the final event, a novice race, officials called a conference to discuss canceling further racing because of worsening off-shore conditions, then decided to shorten the course from four to three miles.

But those troubles were nothing compared to the disappointment experienced by San Diego Outrigger’s men, who looked to be a sure-shot winner going in and were the best hope of any team among three San Diego area clubs.

San Diego led the men’s open race through the turnaround point off Del Mar, but had trouble steadying the canoe as it headed south toward the finish. Newport caught San Diego and the two see-sawed for the lead. With approximately three miles left, Newport, which hadn’t placed higher than third in an ironman race all season, pulled away.

Newport’s paddlers looked almost stunned that they had beaten San Diego, champions of this race three of the past four years, and appeared almost hesitant to celebrate when they returned to shore.

“It was a hard race,” Van Winkle said. “There was a lot of wind and chop. Our steersman wasn’t able to paddle.”

Van Winkle later said that it was he who had replaced Malm as steersman--the paddler positioned at the rear of the boat who must both steer and propel the canoe--and that he was doing it for only the second time in 15 years of racing. Lucky Hookano, Newport’s coach and steersman, never stopped paddling.

“It was a steersman’s game out on this (rough) water,” Hookano said. “I had difficulties, but everything worked out well. It’s hard to tell what happened to San Diego. They’re a tough team.”

Despite his auspicious first name, no one could accuse Hookano of being merely lucky. He spent all Friday modifying his canoe’s “ama,” a bow-shaped pontoon appendage that lends balance, but can also aid in performance. Hookano said he cut 10 inches off the nose and shaved three inches off the back the fiberglass beam, and the adjustment worked.

“With my experience, I know my boat performs best when I cut the ama down to 75 inches (long),” Hookano said. “It ran very well today.”

There were no surprises in the elongated women’s open race, won by Offshore I, currently the fastest long-course team in the world. But if you ask Deseree Snellman, it was still an upset.

Before the race, Offshore I inserted Snellman at the front of the canoe, in a position known as “stroker.” As stroker, Snellman’s primary function was to set the paddling pace and cadence. But midway through the race she was stricken with a severe cramp.

“I didn’t know what to do,” said Snellman, who had to be carried onto the beach after the race. “I was talking to myself a lot, but I was also thinking about my teammates and I just kept going.”

Snellman got some psychological help from the person sitting behind her, Angie Stafford, a chiropractor by trade.

“I told her to relax, breathe and think about other things,” Stafford said. “We did a little transing, a little hypnosis out there.”

Offshore I went on to beat Offshore II by about 200 yards. Both boats were entered by Offshore Outrigger Canoe Club of Newport Beach, currently the hottest racing club in California. Both its men’s and women’s open teams set records in the Molokai to Oahu Challenge last October.

And had Offshore brought its No. 1 men’s team, which had competed in Australia’s Hamilton Cup series earlier in the week, Van Winkle wouldn’t have made his prediction and the sting San Diego felt might not have been as severe.