The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-06
A CATAMARAN
SURFING CANOE
Alexander Young Planning New
Departure in Graft for
Riding Waves.

| Alexander Young is going to build a
surfing canoe, the like of which has
never been seen in all the wide world
His plan is to connect two of the Iarg
est sized Hawaiian canoes. catamaran
fashion, build a cabin on the connect
ing platform, put in a powerful gaso-
lene engine, ana send the craft speed
ing before the waves with her twin
propellers revolving.
Mr.. Young promises himself and
friends some glorious sport, but at the
Outrigger Club the young canoe experts
declare the fun will be all theirs. They
admit Mr.. Young's premises that his
catamaran gasolene surfing canoe will
be unupsettable, but there is unani-
nous opinion that she will dive before
the first big wave straight to coral
The trial trip will probably demon
strate whether or not Mr. Young will
revolutionize surfing, or the Outrigger
Canoe Club keep to its determination
to popularize the old Hawaiian sport.
Seemingly out of compliment to the
Outrigger Club, the big surf at Waikiki
is shifting steadily toward position in
front of the grass houses and the Sea
side.
Once, in the good old days, when
1ua1 ha ci+ 40
of the clubhouses, the lagoon was filed
with Hawaiian canoes, but one day
some irreverent haoles began building
a wall about the lagoon, of rocks taken
from an old heiau. The next day the
lagoon was deserted. and it is said that
the fish all fed from the vicinity of
Waikiki.
Lately, however, since the club work
men have been burying these rocks, the
outriggerites have been catching turtles,
cells, Holsters and fish right in front of
the club grounds, while the lagoon is
filing with shrimp bait always at hand.
There may be nothing in old Hawaiian
superstitions, but certainly with both
large and small surf reforming directly
before the grass clubhouses and the fish
returning to their old feeding grounds,
there are those in the club who believe
in burying the old heiau stones as
speedily as possible.
The Hustace boys and their father
have come to the rescue of the deep
sea suffers of the Outrigger Club in a
splendid fashion. The Hnstace resi-
dence faces the big canoe surf, and here
the best suffers disport themselves. Mr..
Hustace has placed an clubhouse at the
disposal of the Outrigger Club mem
bers who wish to keep their deepwater
surfboards at the nearest point to the
big waves. This, and the fact that
line of big surf is also forming before
the club grounds, gives the outriggerites
every possible facility for becoming ex-
perts on the surfboard with the least
possible exertion so far as heaving surf
boards along the beach or swimming
them out diagonally to deep water is
concerned.
Hereafter surfboards at the Outrigger
Club will be loaned to fellow members
only on written order. Sections of gas
pipe are being run along the base of
the board racks, holes bored in the
lower end of the boards, and chains
with locks provided, so that each board
is made accessible only to its owner.
Chains and padlocks will also be pro-
vided for the canoes, only those canoes
owned by the club being loaned to~mem-
bers without written orders of the
owner.
Visitors come frequently to see the
grass houses and canoes on the club
grounds, and the cameras of tourists
are beginning to work overtime.
The surf, after two weeks of provok
ing quietude, is coming up again, and a
score of new boards are receiving their
initiation, and incidentally tossing new
members in a manner most amazing to
themselves and amusing to onlookers.
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