The Rennaisance of the Waka

Greg Brightwell is not your average young adventurer. His full name is Greg Matahi Whakataka Brightwell and the strapping Maori carver and boat builder is going for it in a big way. He’s chosen what could look like offbeat outdoor pursuits for his endeavours. In fact, he’s reclaiming traditional Polynesian forms of art and sport. Greg’s previous claims to fame were carving of huge rock murals on the cliffs of Lake Taupo’s western shore and building and sailing the traditional voyaging canoe Hawaiki-Nui from Tahiti to the East Coast of New Zealand. Now living in Gisborne, he’s launching the Marei Kura Canoe Club. But it’s more than just a club. According to photo-journalist Gray Clapham, it’s a movement.

Now common on all waterways across New Zealand, the sight of six strong men paddling a Polynesian outrigger canoe was a rare and novel sight in 1988.

While in Tahiti building the Hawaiki-Nui it was natural that Greg Brightwell became involved in the Tahitian national sport of outrigger canoe racing. Each year the national and international regattas attract thousands of canoes and crews from all over the Pacific. They come from Hawaii, Japan, California and Australia as well as from the hundreds of clubs in islands across the vast Pacific.

The two weeks of frenzied racing were always part of a larger celebration of the Polynesian lifestyle. It became obvious to Greg that he had found a missing link in the modern culture of the Polynesians of New Zealand. Where were the Maori canoes? What had happened to the canoe building knowledge of Maori people?

“New Zealand is a coastal country, we are part of Polynesia, most of us have a love for the sea. In the islands canoe building and racing is an important part of the way of life, it is a celebration of their love of the sea. So I came back to New Zealand to revive Maori canoe building and paddling to give our people a new interest in an ancient sport that had almost been forgotten.

“Before the Europeans came the Maori were a seafaring people. They said voyaging canoes across the Pacific, they travelled and fished the coastal waters and went to battle in huge war canoes. 

"In the journals of Captain Cook there is a lot of mention of the native canoes and sailing craft, many that could outdo the speed of the Endeavour under full sail. We were so good at building and manning canoes that it became a threat to the European during the wars. Nearly all the war canoes were blown out of the water and so we nearly lost the art."

Greg's vision of setting up a network of canoe clubs throughout New Zealand is fast becoming a reality as the Marei Kura Work Trust, with a grant of $200 thousand from the 1990 Commonwealth Games Committee, is busy with a project to build thirty-six racing canoes. The canoes, in three designs, are being readied to race in the 1990 World Out-rigger Canoe Sprints which are to be held in conjunction with the Common-wealth Games on Auckland's Waitemata Harbour.

Interest in forming canoe clubs is growing all over New Zealand as news of the revival of the sport grows. Two clubs have been set up in Auck-land and another in North Auckland. Keen interest is also coming from areas in Mount Maunganui and Taupo. The Gisborne club has already been 'bloodied' in the international arena when a team of fourteen travelled to Tahiti for a major Polynesian canoe regatta last year.

The New Zealanders, both Maori and Pakeha, competed in numerous events and came away inspired even more to see the sport developed in New Zealand. The Marei Kura Club is now training in earnest for the 1988 World Sprints in Hawaii in August.

To widen their sporting endeavours on the water several of the Gisborne men have recently joined the surf life saving movement and have already made a marked impression in the competition arena with their prowess in surf canoes. In the Westpac Surf Life Saving National Championships last month the Marei Kura crew made the finals of both the Open Canoe Race and Open Canoe Rescue events. At the Northern Regional Surf Life Saving Championships in January they won the Marathon Canoe Race around the mount at Mount Maunganui.

At a prize giving ceremony after the marathon race supporters broke into a spontaneous haka which may be the first time such a thing has happened in the sport of surf life saving. Those who witnessed the finish of the race and the way the success was celebrated had to agree they were observing new ground being broken in sporting multi-culturalism in this country.

This is one of the major benefits Greg believes will emerge from the return of Maori youth to the sea canoes.

They have attracted  much attention from life saving stalwarts with their obvious speed across the.water and with  their traditional Maori and  Tahitian wooden paddles.

While Greg's ultimate intention is to give Maori youth a new direction based on an old tradition, the outrigger canoe movement is not just for Maori, he believes. While the heart of Marei Kura beats deep in the body of Maori tradition, Greg is open to the realities of the modern world and is willing to embrace new technology.   The trust workers are fast finishing carefully crafted wooden moulds for the three types of racing canoe which will soon be mass produced in fibreglass.

Greg is planning to use the latest fibreglass boat building technology in the construction of the canoes and has had the designers of the America's Cup Challenger KZ7 to his workshop to advise on products and techniques.

He is also quietly observing the structure of the surf live saving movement for help in setting up a national federation of canoe clubs. He wants traditional canoe racing to become a big thing in this coun-try, to become part of the sporting and cultural fabric of Polynesian New Zealand.

It is a movement he believes will offer young people an option away from anti-social gang and cultist movements.

The voyaging canoe Hawaiki-Nui symbolised the arrival of a new breed to this country.  Waka paddling is their sport, a physical expression of their love of life associated with traditional Maori beliefs.

It is a big dream, but a dream with real possibilities as the Marei Kura men gain national recognition for their honest and competitive sportsmanship in both the outrigger canoe and surf live saving movements.

So this is why last month a race was held in Gisborne between a Polynesian racing outrigger and life saving canoes. The handicap proved to be nearly perfect as the craft merged near the finish.

The outrigger won by 100 metres, but it was not the result but the race that the competitors celebrated. The Maori paddlers and the Wainui lifeguards shook hands and embraced in that euphoria of exhaustion and exhilaration that only true sportsmen share when they know they're on to a good thing.