Lifeguards build outrigger Malolo Taco for Catalina Crossing

Shortly before last Christmas, Tyler Morgan phoned fellow Los Angeles County Lifeguard Dave Cartlidge to ask if he would help build a six-man, outrigger canoe.

“It’s my last chance before the baby comes,” Morgan said. His wife Chelsea was due to deliver the couple’s first child in August.

“Sounds good,” Cartlidge answered.

“I knew if Tyler built an outrigger, it’d be good. His only carpentry training was wood shop at Segundo High, but I’ve seen the work he did on his house and the repairs he’s made to the lifeguard dories,” Cartlidge said.

Outrigger canoes are 45 feet long, seat six paddlers and were traditionally carved by Hawaiians out of a single koa log. Koa is now rare, so most modern canoes are molded fiberglass. Race canoes are built to specifications that require them to weigh no less than 400 pounds, the weight of a traditional koa canoe

But over the past four years, outrigger regattas have begun adding unlimited divisions. Unlimited canoes can be any design and any weight.

Morgan, Cartlidge a

nd other members of the lifeguard canoe club would build their unlimited from strips of cedar, glassed with fiberglass and carbon fiber.

Morgan was a water polo player at El Segundo High School. Cartlidge played basketball at Redondo Union High School. They met at El Camino College swimming for coach Cory Stansbury, who is responsible for more Los Angeles County Lifeguards than any other swim coach, with the possible exception of his El Camino predecessor Rudy Kroon.

After passing the lifeguard test together in 2005, the two quickly established themselves as top lifeguard competitors. Morgan focused on the surf ski and sprint paddleboard. Cartlidge teamed with lifeguard Tom Seth to become a dominant two man dory team. This past summer, at the International Surf Festival in Manhattan Beach, Morgan and Cartlidge helped Southern Section lifeguards reclaim the prestigious Judge Taplin Medley Race Cup for the first time in nearly a decade.

Morgan became interested in outrigger canoes six years ago when fellow lifeguard Danny Ching invited him  to compete with the Lanakila Canoe Club in the annual U.S. Outrigger Championships Catalina Crossing. Ching is a paddler/coach with the Lanakila and one of the world’s top paddlers. Last summer, in Germany, Ching set the stand-up paddleboard world speed record by hitting 15 kph over a 200 meter course. In 2010, Ching became the first non Hawaiian to win the World Championship Molokai to Oahu OC1 (one-man outrigger canoe) Race.

His father is Lanakila Outrigger Club founder Al Ching.

The Catalina Crossing is a 30 mile, open ocean relay race, from Avalon on Catalina Island to Newport Beach. Nine-paddlers rotate in and out of the six-seat canoes.

“I loved the race. I loved being part of a team because the competitions I usually do — swimming and paddleboards — are essentially solo sports,” Morgan said of his first canoe experience. But he had a logistics problem training with Lanakila. The club practices in the early evenings, when he and other lifeguards are still on duty. So Morgan put together a canoe of fellow lifeguards who could practice together in the early morning. Lanakila loaned canoes to the lifeguards.

In 2009, the lifeguards competed in the Catalina Crossing for the first time, in the spec (stock) division, and finished 11th. The following year they finished 7th, then 4th, then 3rd and in 2013 they won their division.

“The other teams don’t see us practicing, and we don’t compete in many regattas. So they’re always wondering why we do so well. But every day we work we’re training,” Morgan said.

Unlimited canoes are to traditional canoes what Formula 1 race cars are to stock cars. They are half the weight of traditional canoes and kayak-like skirts around each paddler prevent the boats from swamping.

For his unlimited, Morgan settled on a rounded hull designed for surfing downwind, open water races like the Catalina Crossing, rather than a flatter bottom for smooth water, harbor sprints.

He took measurements of from a Hawaiian Pure unlimited canoe and watched a Youtube video on how canoes are built. Then, working off hours at a lifeguard yard in Playa Del Rey, Morgan hand drew paper templates for the braces or stations, cut them from plywood and lined them up along a 45-foot-long aluminum spine. He made the 44 stations progressively deeper and wider as they moved from the stern to the mid point, and then progressively smaller as they moved from the mid point to the bow, all using eyeball calculations.

“There were a few warbles we had to fix,” Morgan acknowledged.

Once the boat was framed, Morgan, his dad Steve, Cartlidge and other members of the lifeguard team attached a skin made of 8-foot by four-inch by 1/4 inch strips of cedar, scarf joined end to end so there would be no gaps to caulk. Because of its weight to strength ratio and flexibility, cedar has been used for generations to make racing sculls. Not incidentally, the wood is a beautiful auburn. The cedar for the lifeguards’ canoe was leftover from the cladding for a new home in Culver City.

After the cedar skin was attached, the plywood stations and aluminum spine were removed. Bulkheads at either end and the paddlers seats would provide the structural integrity. The seats were cut from foam and plywood insulation bought at Builders Emporium,

The lifeguards utilized their experience repairing dories and surfboards to glass the boat. The bottom third of the hull was fiberglassed with clear resin to show off the beautiful cedar. The rest of the hull was glassed in black carbon fiber for lightness and strength.

Morgan was hoping the canoe would weigh under 200 pounds and he came close. It came out at 208 pounds.

In mid August, just seven months after starting work on the boat, and days after  the Morgans’  baby Haddie was born, the Malolo (Flying Fish) Taco was trailered to Carpet Beach in King Harbor and blessed by Hawaiian-born Lanakila paddler Pat Ayau. Malolo Taco is a reference to the fish tacos the lifeguards sell at fairs to raise money. But the roughly $10,000 in materials need to build the canoe came largely from Good Stuff restaurants’ owner Chris Bennett and Beach Cities Orthopedic surgeon Brad Thomas. Bennett is a longtime supporter of lifeguard competitions. Thomas is a Catalina Classic paddleboard champion and shoulder injury specialist. New canoes from manufacturers are $20,000.

Three week after the blessing, Malolo Taco left the beach at Avalon on Catalina Island for Newport, along with 51 other canoes.

In canoe’s first Catalina Crossing, with paddlers who had been training for just three weeks, the Malolo Taco finished 11th out of 16 in the unlimited division, and 13th overall out of 51 teams.

The Hawaiian team of Na Koa Kona finished first in 3:59. Lanakila was second, in 4:06. Malolo Taco’s time was 4:32.

The lifeguards’ only mishap was with their escort boat. It broke down shortly before the start. Lanakila paddler Jerry Marcil loaned the lifeguards his 12-foot inflatable, which made for a crowded crossing for the three alternate paddlers and their driver. But it saved the team from disqualification.

“We were happy with the boat and our finish, given the fact we were stepping up to the most competitive division. The engine was just a little rusty from spending so much time building the canoe and not much time paddling,” Morgan said. “But we were just 30 minutes behind the Hawaiians and Lanakila. Next year, if we train hard, we’ll be up there with them,” Morgan said. B

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