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Outrigger canoes have been traveling the Pacific Ocean for 4,000 years. We only have modern hints of their true origin.

The earliest outrigger craft are thought to have originated at this time and we now know that ancient Polynesians and their ancestors settled in the most remote islands of the Pacific in Outrigger and Double-hull Canoes.  Outrigger Canoes were vital for food from and travel across the ocean.

New Zealand is as far south as the Polynesian Community seems to have traveled. They traveled in outrigger canoes over 150 feet in length, and spoke the same and similar languages all the way from Hawaii to Samoa, Tonga, Rarotonga, Tahiti and the NZ Islands.

The Maori, the first inhabitants of New Zealand record historically arriving in Five canoes from Havaiiki, (Hawaii), which was their home.

Modern Theory has the origin, of much of Polynesia coming from Asia, based on anthropological forensics  However Polynesians who look almost identical in some cases to the American Indian, are also thought to have come from America.

It was the Hawaiians who began racing in the 1920’s and formalized the sport in the 1950’s.

Since then there are now thousands of Outrigger Canoe clubs enjoying the sport of racing against each other, all across the Globe. There are approximately two dozen Outrigger Canoe Clubs in the Bay Area and Northern California.