The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-20
HAWAIIAN WATER
SPORTS DELIGHT
GREAT CROWD
The Waikiki Regatta Gala Event in Which the
Sports of Old Hawaii Are Gloriousy
Brought Back Into Favor.

Old Waikiki presented the gayest
shown for years, the Hawaiian re-
gatta pulled off before the Seaside and
Moana attracting what is probably the
largest crowd that has ever gathered
at the swimming beach. There were
hundreds of sailors taking in the
sport, more hundreds of haoles from
this and other islands and tourists and
malihinis in crowds, but the majority
gagged in the sports We're Hawaiians.
1t was the Hawaiians' turn to enter
tain the visitors ashore, just as it was
the Hawaiian day for fruit distribu-
ton among the sailors af1oat, and
right royalty did the sons and daugh-
tiers of the soil turn out and grow en-
thusiastic over the revival of their old
sports of the surf
On the beach and moving about
amid the throngs of bathers during the
afternoon were at least half a hundred
Hawaiian outrigger Canoes the great
est fleet of these picturesque craft
that Honolulu has seen together at any
one time since the days when the ca
noes were depended upon to do the
waterway transportation of the peo-
pie. The number of surfboard riders
in the water, at one time as many as
sixty within the four hundred yards of
surf, with the members of the Outrig
ger Club, big and little, riding the too
seldom rollers or coasting in on the
smaller waves, standing, balancing,
diving and performing, was a spec
tacle that delighted the strangers and
induced enthusiasm among the Hawa-
iians who watched.
Altogether there were between four
and FIVE thousand interested specta-
tors of the best Hawaiian regatta Civ
en- on the beach, the crowd being ten
and twelve deep from the bandstand
in the Moana grounds, where Kapell-
meister Berger waved his baton to
psalm tunes, clear across the sands to
the extreme Eva limits of the Seaside,
while clear as far as the Brown place,
opposite which was the starting point,
. there were many who watched. On
1 the Seaside grounds Kaafs orchestra
played, the music proving a great at
traction to the sailors. The bluejack-
cts were entraneed, standing around
the hau tree platform twenty deep,
crowding in close to the players and
hanging over the backs of their chairs
lest one note of the hula airs be lost,
while their applause after each selec-
ton was an inducement to the mu-
sicians to keep on playing until forced
to stop from pure exhaustion.
The headquarters for the regatta ap-
peared to be the grass house of the
Outrigger club, which had been taken
possession of by the Hawaiian women
who padded in some of the races. 1t
was in front of the club houses that
the canoes were pulled up on the
sands and it was from the Ianais of
the matched quarters that the ''wela
ka haos'' rang loudest when favorite
crew padded for a lead and the
<'auwes'' were the deepest when an
outrigger swung into pilikia or a surf
board rider lost his balance.
With so many along the beach and in
the water it was to be expected that
there would be accidents, but fortu-
nately these were very few. The or
der of the big crowd was excellent and
there was little call for the services of
either the police, under Captain Park
er, or of the sailor patrolmen. who
were present TO the number of twenty.
There were other things taking place
within sight of the thousands on the
beach that added to the enjoyment of
the afternoon. Early in the program
there was a movement among the bat
tleships anchored beyond the reef, four
OF the vessels from inside moving out
to anchorage and the four which had
: so far remained outside moving in for