25/01/2026
STORY TIME: THE BROKEN PADDLE SAGA
So, yup. I broke my paddle. Right at the start. The flag went down and I heard a snap. Next thing I know, I’m in shock staring at my paddle that is now in two pieces. I look up and hear ‘Paddle! Paddle! We need a paddle!’, the waka goes into panic. Dave (seat 1) looks back wondering what’s going on, JT (caller) is yelling at the back ‘Paddle! Paddle!’ and then looks at Dave and says ‘Keep paddling!!!’, Wayne (seat 4) is looking back at Whaitiri (seat 5) and Jeremy (steerer) yelling ‘Paddle! Paddle!’. In the confusion, Whaitiri yells back ‘I AM PADDLING 😅’ Jeremy wrenches the spare steer paddle behind him and starts passing it forward. By the time it got to me, I came to, grabbed it, and started padding my little heart out! While all this was going on, the best teams in the country are kicking out of the blocks at massive pace. If you’ve ever done waka sprints before, you would know that missing the start is a death sentence. So here we were, trying to catch up during a semi-final. We didn’t make it and this marked the end of our campaign 😭 GUTTED.
Backstory: My Dad told me not to use that paddle. I insisted. It was a vintage Tahitian Rame paddle that we got in 2005. Old school. Bigger blade, more agile, made of wood only, sleek lines and deliberate inclines. The kind of paddle you can’t buy anymore. Turns out, it would teach me a valuable lesson…
Our team was new. We decided at our last training not to do a broken paddle drill cause it was so ‘rare’. With no real experience, we relied on instinct…
During the live feed, Rāhia (Scud) the presenter, had announced that if you break a paddle at the start, then the race can be rerun. We had whānau frantically calling us from around the motu, watching the saga unfold on live tv, telling us to lodge a protest. Just my luck, turns out they had changed that rule 😑
The way we reacted fast, stuck together and gave it everything says a lot about our team. We bloody pushed harder than ever before, an epic experience, a moment to rise up, push past our disappointment and go down fighting. Bloody beautiful 🙌
“Ahakoa te whati o te hoe, i mate ururoa tonu te ope!”
