The ASCE Hawaii Section Younger Member Forum (YMF) and the University of Hawaii ASCE Student Chapter recently organized and participated in a unique and challenging expedition. The mission: to find and recover the 20-foot long, fiberglass practice canoe that ended up at the bottom of the ocean in front of Ala Moana Beach Park five years ago.

The year was 1996 and the UH ASCE Student Chapter was preparing for the National Concrete Canoe Competition in Madison, Wisconsin after winning the Pacific Southwest Regional competition for the 2nd consecutive year. It was a picture perfect Saturday in mid June and a south swell was rolling in. Deciding to combine paddling training with some recreational time, the students headed down to Ala Moana Beach Park with an old concrete canoe and a fiberglass prototype of Kialoa, the first UH concrete canoe to qualify for the National competition. While having fun surfing the canoes in one- to three-foot waves in front of Kewalo Basin, the fiberglass practice canoe was swamped by a large wave. While the two paddlers were rescued by the other canoe, the fiberglass canoe vanished beneath the waters off the Ewa end of Ala Moana Beach Park. Although the canoe sunk in shallow water about 20 feet deep, very poor visibility on the order of only one to two feet made locating the canoe using mask and snorkel impossible. To make the situation even more challenging, the unpainted fiberglass canoe is the same color as the sandy bottom.

This past June 16, nearly five years to the day since the canoe sank, the YMF and Student Chapter gathered at Ala Moana Beach Park in hopes of finding and retrieving the sunken vessel. Determined to find the canoe, and equipped with SCUBA gear, YMF members Danny Liu and Jeff Kalani, and Student Chapter members Geoff Ries and Lori Nishida descended beneath the surface of the murky Ala Moana waters. Although separated by only a few feet, the extremely poor visibility made it impossible for the divers to see each other. With no means of communicating visually, the divers communicated with signals that were conveyed by tugging on a rope that they brought to pull the canoe to the shore. The divers also held onto the rope to maintain a spacing that would enable them to cover the most area while sweeping across the bottom in a search pattern. Though many doubted that finding the canoe would be possible after all this time, the sunken canoe was discovered after less than a half-hour of searching! Now covered with barnacles and a quarter filled with lagoonal silt, which was home for many unusual marine slugs and other creatures, the bow of Kialoa's fiberglass prototype was discovered where it lay quiet, motionless, and unseen for five years. After securing the rope to the bow and stern of the canoe, which now weighed close to 300 pounds, the divers managed to drag the canoe to the shore where they were greeted and assisted by the other YMF and Student Chapter members. Despite being completely covered with barnacles, the hull's integrity was structurally sound - the canoe was cleaned out and deemed seaworthy again!

Following the canoe's retrieval, the YMF and Student Chapter enjoyed a potluck lunch, which included volleyball and horseshoe matches. To cap off the day's success, the canoe proved itself once again and even carried a passenger while being towed via kayak to the Magic Island-end of the beach park where it is being stored temporarily until the Student Chapter decides on the fate of the once lost and sunken canoe!

Expedition divers from right to left with recovered canoe:
Jeff Kalani (YMF), Lori Nishida (SC), Danny Liu (YMF), and Geoff Ries (SC).