lahaina yacht club history

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An Ode to Lahaina

• By Neil Rabinowitz
• September 6, 2023

I came to Lahaina from the south. After 13 days on an unleashed reach out of French Polynesia , I clung to the mast top, my legs wrapped in a death grip. We swung west into Alenuihaha Channel, known to Hawaiians as the river of laughing waters. The sun blazed and the trades howled as 20-foot rollers raced up our stern and frothed over the rails. Flying our heaviest chute was risky, as the channel boiled with towering whitecaps, but the Beach Boys blared from the deck speakers, and Maui loomed ahead in all its verdant glory. Cobalt-blue waves cascaded on the approaching lava rocks of Kaupo. Hana stood lush to the east, with the Big Island’s Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea silhouetted to the south.

I hadn’t been back to America in years, and I now charged full-tilt—unvanquished from the south seas under a swollen spinnaker, drunk on Brian Wilson.

It was gnarly up the mast. The horizon was a sweep of white water wrapped along the Maui shore, with roller after roller that threatened to bury us in the troughs. We broached, like a dog shaking a rat on a rope, and I slammed hard onto the deck with the bosun’s chair tangled around my legs. Our keel broke the surface as we buried the spreaders and spun out of control. All of us hung white-knuckled until the boat shuddered violently and tried to stand. We were a seasoned crew, baked brown and stringy by the sun. We hadn’t dropped the chute in 2,000 miles since leaving Tahiti. The closer Maui inched, the more we felt invincible. Landfall does that. After days at sea, every south sea island is an intoxicating rebirth of the senses, a virginal stirring of the heart. Lahaina was all of that. We had the boat tidied by the time we slipped past Kaho’olawe, into the lee of west Maui and the tranquil, humpback-strewn waters between Lahaina and Lanai.

Among cruisers around beach fires back in the South Pacific, Lahaina’s reputation was as a dusty, one-horse whaling town. I was on the beach in Huahine, set to hitch a berth to New Zealand, when “Hurricane Annie” Musselman, a striking female sailor fresh ashore after a 20-day sail from Maui, convinced me of the fun awaiting me in Hawaii, where I could then catch a boat to New Zealand next season.

In Hawaii, an endless arrival of passagemakers and wannabe sailors from the mainland made Lahaina their first stop. Those flying over never felt the same passion for the place; landfall was the only way to fathom the prize of Lahaina. From the sailor’s eye after days on the open ocean, Lahaina offered seduction like no other, bathed in the late-afternoon sunset sweetened by the fragrance of tuberose and mango that wafted miles offshore.

It wasn’t the thought of endless lilikoi cocktails, or the fantasy of tropically toned women exuberant with song and dance, their hair pinned with red hibiscus flowers and with plumeria leis around their necks. Beyond the fertile earth, fresh fruits, waterfalls, perfect surf, and harbor life of ocean sailors was the stunning Hawaiian backdrop and a celebratory welcome for sailors fresh from the sea, dues paid. Welcome to the land of earthly delights.

Lahaina’s harbor, first seen as mast tops peering over a small breakwall, was packed with working and provisioning yachts. At the entrance lay a weary 19th-century whaling ship, long in the rigging, and over its shoulder was an old missionary plantation home and museum adorned with whaling artifacts and reminders of the invasion of the Hawaiian Kingdom centuries ago.

The waterfront public library next door was the best place to watch the sunset through the palms, and next to that loomed the colonial, columned veranda of the Pioneer Inn, with its red roof, green sides, creaking wainscoting, whirring ceiling fans, open-air everything, and swinging saloon doors with a carved figurehead standing guard. The sound of a honky-tonk piano player pounding the ivories and wailing rousing tunes drifted from the saloon and across the anchorage, serenading us. Just beyond reach of the saloon was the canopy of an enormous banyan tree spreading a hundred yards in every direction. A missionary gift, it had been planted in 1873 by the widow of King Kamehameha. Lahaina, the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which Kamehameha violently united, became the whaling capital of the world and commanded respect.

Even with its tin-pan serenades drifting across the water and its promises of revelry ashore, Lahaina was a sacred destination for those crossing the Pacific. Its backdrop was a riotous splash of color—a transformative sight after weeks at sea. Lush green cane fields rose up the slopes behind town, waving in the trade winds like a frozen sea. Red earthen foothills, ascending steep slopes to the majestic cloud-shrouded tops of the West Maui Mountains. Lahaina’s low-slung waterfront foreground bustled with green, shanty-style houses and humble shops all the way to the sugar cane mill, where every so often the sweet bouquet of molasses would blanket the town. Most harbor regulars nursed dreams of sailing to the South Pacific and were stopping just long enough to find a berth on a yacht heading south. Bikini-clad gals hawked sailing charters while gruff, unshaven sport-fishermen pitched billfish hunts. Sunset-cocktail-excursion captains, in bright-white uniforms with golden epaulets, recruited passengers. Sport divers in wetsuits hauling scuba tanks joined in the shouts amid the beer-drinking revelries of black coral hunters, stewed in their constant highs from too many daily 300-foot dives.  

Lording over it all, doling out privileges and access like a pirate king, was the leather-skinned, gray-bearded harbormaster. The rest of the town was second fiddle to the workings of that tiny harbor, the heartbeat of the town. Inebriated or not, the harbormaster could make or break sailing futures in this part of the Pacific. Flippant declarations boomed from the breakwall as he stalked the docks, banishing boats from the harbor, relegating them to endless hobbyhorsing at anchor, scheduling impossible departure times, and controlling the pace of work and supplies to replenish desperate sailors amid bribes, favors, and hard-luck tales.

A steady stream of entrepreneurs, street hustlers, harbor alcoholics, and starry-eyed youthful adventurers were always coming and going, convinced that they were at a pitstop en route to the South Pacific. Seemingly every waiter and waitress had dreams of being discovered, landing a berth on a boat heading south.

For many other locals, content with their hospitality and construction jobs, Lahaina was just home. Several hundred one-story houses of all shapes and tropical colors led from the water’s edge to the hillsides by the mill, sprawling neighborly toward the Kaanapali beaches to the north and the Olowalu beaches to the south.

Kaanapali, with its stretch of high-rise beachfront resorts, kept a good distance, about 4 miles from the hum of Lahaina, so their pampered guests could join the tourist hordes swarming town and then return to the civilized world of luxury Hawaiian resorts.

By contrast, many of Lahaina’s simply constructed neighborhood homes had basic tin roofs and green plywood sides, and were smart with a humble pride of ownership. Most houses had flourishing window boxes, and were peppered with hibiscus and plumeria hedges under the shade of towering mango and avocado trees with sweet gardenias, all thriving with minimal care. There was no need for heat or air conditioning, or even screens, in these homes. The streets were alive with locals and young folk making ends meet in town. Dogs barked, kids played, barbecues were everywhere, and bicycles were fine for getting around.

Kids wearing flip-flops and swimsuits skateboarded by the park or pedaled banana-seat bikes through town to the harbor break with surfboards under their arms. Pickups were the vehicle of choice, practical work vehicles suited to racing though cane fields. They’d cruise through town, tunes blasting with surfboards piled high, heading to the beach. Older locals surrounded by their broods of kids and grandkids hosted hula dances and strummed ukuleles beneath the banyan tree, or at the beach or grassy town parks, picnicking to beat the heat.

Lahaina was a tropical mecca of American pizzazz, where mainlanders swapped tales of the South Pacific. With the romance of the south seas under my belt, I was in no hurry to go back to sea, so I ran sailboat charters from here on a handful of yachts from 40 to 65 feet long that swept tourists off the beach for a heart-stopping sprint out to the Pailolo Channel wind line. We got a charge exciting the passengers, shifting without warning from a gentle, drink-sipping 7-knot drift to a rollicking, heeled-over, mai-tai-be-damned 15-knot dash into the teeth of the trades. If the passengers did not seem like they could handle the wind line’s excitement, we sailed calmly to Lanai’s Manele Bay, stopping halfway for a swim with the whales.

The real charter yachts were too big and too busy to handle the daily traffic in and out of Lahaina Harbor, so we sat on moorings off the resort hotels. There was Johnny Weismueller’s 60-foot 1929 schooner, Allure ; Barry Hilton’s Alden 57, Teragram ; the 54-foot aluminum ketch Minset ; the Hermaphrodite schooner Rendezvous ; and a handful of performance catamarans, which had the best layouts to accommodate hordes of tourist passengers, complete with midship bars, and could be rammed right onto the sand for loading and offloading. And the charter fleet wasn’t the only thing humming with intensity and tourists: Lahaina’s Front Street, the town’s waterfront artery, was the place to be. You could grab a drink at the Blue Max—a tiny, second-deck bar overlooking the seawall—and discover Elton John playing a surprise session on the piano. Jim Messina might drop in to perform at Kula’s Silversword Inn; Taj Mahal could be seen playing the congas to an empty beach at sunset; and Stephen Stills and David Crosby were regularly jamming aboard their boats at anchor. I recall Peter Fonda’s 73-foot sloop, Tatoosh , returning from the Marquesas, where I had recently shared trails with its crew while hiking the Nuku Hiva jungle. There were celebrities everywhere on Maui, a place where they could enjoy themselves without facing fandom.

One weekend, we filed aboard the square-rigged Rendezvous with friends and sailed to Oahu to hear the Eagles play Diamond Head crater. Days later, we rounded up our festival-weary crew for a quiet sail back to Maui. Getting around the islands was as easy as going down to the harbor and sticking out your thumb. One friend stood at the harbor entrance and hitched a ride on a sport-fishing boat heading to Oahu. He planted himself in the fighting chair and opened his paperback, ready for a nice read. Next thing he knew, the crew had hooked into something. They grabbed his book, strapped him in, and handed over a live rod. He spent the next four hours landing a 750-pound marlin for the first-ever fish thrill of his life.

Most of the Maui charter boats dragged lines just in case. They often landed ono, mahi, ahi and billfish. Once ashore, they would sprint to the best seafood restaurant in town and pocket a few hundred extra dollars for the crew. I recall a wedding sailing charter aboard Minset around Molokai’s Mokuhooniki Rock that double-hooked two big ono. After the wedding party fought and landed both fish, they returned to the dock bloodied, drunk and still smiling, with rave reviews.

The break at the harbor entrance was sweet enough to lure sunrise surfers from upcountry, a 30-minute drive from the volcanic slopes of Haleakala. As thick as tourists were in town, Lahaina’s waterfront shops had to cater to them. Along with its bounty of missionary folklore and whaling nostalgia, open-air bars, dive shops and salad bars, Lahaina sold trinkets, T-shirts, ice cream, Hawaiian-style jewelry, and the sort of faster food that tourists craving the hotel pool could quickly sample.

Around it all were the locals, living a life in the seams of tourist traffic, enjoying a shady beachfront tuft of palms and greenery, sitting with relatives on the sand, eating fish packets and coconut rice on the seawall. The proprietary goods that they depended on were relegated to tired one-story shopping centers on the periphery of town. The tourists came and went; it wasn’t difficult for residents to still feel a sense of steadfastness to Lahaina town. They tolerated the young people who moved in to take their hotel and tourism jobs. Compared with the relentless tide of visitors who abandoned their sensibilities when they became tourists, sailors often arrived with purpose and were commonly the most welcome of outsiders.

The famed Lahaina Yacht Club, host of the Victoria to Maui race and open to all visiting yachtsmen, was as unpretentious as there ever was a yacht club. It hosted none of the functions that typical yacht clubs host; it had no docks, no sweeping nautical lobby. Accessed through an insignificant Front Street doorway, the private club was disguised so well along retail row that visitors rarely found it on their first attempt. Inside, the dark, narrow hallway was decorated with photographs of classic sailboats finishing the Transpac and Victoria-Maui races, and framed letters from appreciative yachtsmen. A basic waterfront bar hung over the water with an intimate collection of tables. Dangling from the ceiling were burgees from visiting yachts from all around the world; upstairs, the loft had a few tables and backgammon boards. I participated in a couple of the Victoria-Maui races, as well as the dockside parties afterward. The bright-eyed patrons greeted us at all hours like heroes returning from the sea, offering flowered leis for each sailor, champagne, and lots of fresh fruit and pupus.

It’s an ecstatic moment for racing sailors, but cruising sailors wear their hearts on their sleeves and their first landfall is like a first kiss that can never be repeated. It’s a taste of wonder and redemption, almost salvation from any miscues of the passage, and a gratitude for an ocean’s drop of grace. In racing, the motivation is victory, the mission is speed, and glory the reward. While that’s a thrill worth seeking, in cruising, the promise of landfall is all heart.

The aching loss for this breathtaking Pacific landfall is that it will never be the same in Lahaina. The sailors will still come, but the landscape and the romantic legacy of a town that was an authentic kingdom’s home, a whaling mecca, a missionary post, and a working blend of tourism and local ohana is gone. What now remains of this legendary alluring paradise is but a barren gray stretch of ashen slabs and ghosts.

The town will be rebuilt and redefined by developers, legal setbacks and the buying power of realtors, but the soul of this Pacific pit stop and the prevailing Hawaiian spirit is at risk. The magic of this mythical landfall will never be quite the same.

Neil Rabinowitz is a longtime and frequent contributor to Cruising World as both a photographer and a writer. His work has appeared in Men’s Journal , Sports Illustrated , National Geographic , Outside , and The New York Times to name a few, and just about every marine publication. He has completed numerous ocean passages on both racing and cruising yachts and often finds inspiration recalling the romance of his first south seas landfall. He lives on a sunny farm on Bainbridge Island in the Pacific Northwest. 

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The Lahaina Yacht Club building may be gone, but the community most certainly is not.

by Kerri Meade

Nestled inconspicuously in the heart of Front Street, recognizable by the burgundy wooden exterior and the signature sperm whale burgee, resided Lahaina Yacht Club.  Pushing your way through the old saloon doors, you were temporarily blinded by the afternoon sunlight, forced to throw on your sunglasses and give your eyes a moment to adjust. 

You would find the regulars perched at the bar in their usual spots, their stools permanently indenting the floor.  Past the bar you made your way through the dining room to the railing which served as the club’s fourth wall, framing the iconic view of the ombre blue water and the island of Lana ʻ i in the distance. 

Most importantly, the deck provided the ideal viewing platform to cheer and heckle the sabbat racers below.   A secret hatch on the left side of the dining room floor could be lowered to access a set of stairs which led down to the small rocky beach only visible during low tide.  The wooden wall panels, saturated with laughter and alcohol, preserved the stories held within these walls.  

  On August 8th, an untamable wildfire ravaged its way down Lahaina’s hillside, devouring Front Street in mere minutes.  There was no warning.  There was no time to escape.  It left nothing in its wake except unimaginable loss.    

The town is gone, but the whispers of memories remain.  Like every building in Lahaina town, LYC had a rich history.  Founded in 1965, Lahaina Yacht Club was originally a dilapidated building falling into the ocean.  Ian Ponting, Sailing Director of LYC, recalls, “There was a pool table, a ping pong table, and a keg of beer. 

That’s how it started.  Not much different from now,” he says with a laugh.  1969 marked the inaugural race of the VicMaui, which brought more outside interest and reciprocal members to LYC’s doorstep.  Additionally, Lahaina Return, an annual long-distance regatta from Maui to O ʻ ahu on Labor Day (a staple race for sailors in Hawai ʻ i), would have celebrated its 80th anniversary this year.   

But possibly the most hotly contested prize among these relics was the trophy for the annual softball game of Lahaina Return weekend where the LYC Moby Dicks would battle the O ʻ ahu Thundercocks fueled by a keg of beer, hotdogs, and hamburgers.  The soul of this yacht club was its unpretentious atmosphere.  Ian says, “It was never about stuffy pressed collars and ties.  Our by-laws say you have to wear a shirt and shoes after 5 p.m.  That’s our dress code.”

Over the past 10 to 15 years, the club developed vigor in its activity and sailing programs.  Ian is already looking forward, determined to preserve the legacy of the club: “My dream of dreams is that we do this right.”  Since the location of the future club is unclear due to potential building restrictions, he envisions rebuilding a facility that will provide better access to the water and harbor facilities. 

He imagines adding a hoist at the loading dock, dry-dock boat storage, six club keelboats in wet slips, a visiting dock, and a boat ramp, essentially making the space a recreational harbor open to the public.  His visions are not quixotic; he realizes “the planning of the future is going to be like juggling chainsaws.  Think of the Wild West.  People find a nice lake or stream and build their town around it.  That’s kind of where we’re at.”  

While the infrastructure of the new club will take time, Ian is in the relentless pursuit of keeping the sailing programs alive.  He has already secured a keelboat at Kaneʻohe Yacht Club on O‘ahu so LYC members may compete in the Sir Thomas Lipton One-Design Challenge this October.  He is in conversation with the U.S. Coast Guard about the future of Lahaina Harbor.  He is focused on efforts to have the junior sailing program running by next year, working with what survived: “I’ve got 4 Fevas, 6 Bics, and a 13-foot whaler.  That’s all that’s left.” 

If you’d like to donate to the recovery efforts for Lahaina Yacht Club’s staff and infrastructure, please visit their website at www.lyc.us .  Be a part of the movement as this club rebuilds brick by brick, cementing the blocks with love and determination.

Photos courtesy of Ian Ponting & www.lyc.us

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Of Kings, Whalers & Missionaries - The History of Maui

There's a sense of deja vu the first time stepping ashore in Lahaina. One may think their GPS malfunctioned and routed their yacht to the Florida Keys rather than the Hawaiian island of Maui. For Front Street in Lahaina, has all the familiar trappings of Duval Street in Key West. Restored and faux 19th century architecture now house bars, restaurants, art galleries and souvenir shops chockablock. In season, the population can quadruple due to tourists visiting the city. But if one can look past the hawkers selling snorkeling adventures and surfing lessons, a peek at a fascinating slice of Hawaiian history awaits.

The island of Maui was settled by Polynesians from the Marquesas who paddled and sailed their canoes across vast tracts of the Pacific Ocean around 400 A.D. They were followed by a wave of Tahitian settlers about 350 years later. The Tahitians laid the foundations of Hawaiian language, religion and culture. After the island's founding, a hereditary group of chieftains governed different sections of Maui. The chiefdom in West Maui was called Lele, and ruled from the site of present day Lahaina.

Maui was also a demi-god of the Polynesians and a rascal in Hawaiian mythology. It was Maui who used his great fish hook to pull the Hawaiian Islands up from the ocean floor. And it was Maui who snared the sun with his ropes to slow it down in its path to create longer days in the summer for raising crops and drying bark cloth.

Through the 16th century Maui continued to prosper under a strict adherence to a four-tier caste system, a complex land tenure system and a society goverened by kapu or taboos. The first documented European that there is documentary evidence of coming to Maui is the English explorer Capt. James Cook who just sailed by looking for an anchorage in the autumn of 1778. Eight years later, French Admiral De Galaup landed just south of where the town of Kihei is located today.

In 1779, Capt. Cook was on the big island of Hawaii where he met with a young chief with a string of 12 names. Rather than continually reciting his litany of names, he was come to be known as Kamehameha. Kamehameha had a vision, first to unite the clans of the island of Hawaii under one king (himself ) and then to conquer all the Hawaiian Islands and rule them as his united kingdom. He accomplished the first task in 1791. Maui fell to King Kamehameha four years later after an assault by almost 1,000 war canoes and 10,000 of the king's soldiers. The only island not to succumb to the new king was Kauai. Even so, the Kingdom of Hawaii was declared as complete in 1810, and Kamehameha I ruled as an absolute monarchy.

After the king died in 1819, his son, Prince Liholiho, was crowned King Kamehameha II. The following year he moved his kingdom's capital from the western shore of the big island to the western shore of Maui and the town of Lahaina. Lahaina remained the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii for 25 years. During that time two groups with very different philosophies became prominent: whalers and missionaries.

In the early 1790s Yankee whaling fleet from New Bedford, Mass., expanded into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru in its ever increasing need to meet the demand for sperm oil for lamps and lubrication. As soon as they opened a new fishery, the whalers hunted the sperm whales to extinction, and new hunting grounds needed to be found. In 1820, the first New Bedford whaling ship hunted sperm whales on the Japan Ground. It was located halfway between Hawaii and Japan, and the Hawaiian Islands became a perfect waypoint for stocking up on fresh local produce and water and making ship repairs and finding new crew. Honolulu and Lahaina became the main Pacific ports for the North Pacific whaling fleet. Although Lahaina did not have a well-protected harbor like Honolulu, Lahaina Roads had good holding and became a busy anchorage.

In 1824, more than 100 whaling ships anchored off Lahaina, and 30 years later it rose to 400 ships per year. Lahaina was the nexus of the prosperity of whaling and the seat of government of the king. Brothels, taverns and inns sprung up along Front Street. The sailors were quite pleased with that arrangement, but the Christian missionaries were not.

Just as the whalers came from New England, so did the missionaries of Maui. Presbyterian and Congregationalist missionaries arrived in Lahaina in the early 1820s. These early missionaries frowned upon the practice of sailors taking Hawaiian women back to their ships for their pleasure. But the sailors chafed at the intervention of these pious Christians, so the whalers attempted to demolish the house of a reverend and even shelled the town with their cannon in retaliation. In response to the cannon fire, a fort was built along the waterfront of Lahaina, and the reconstructed ruins of its walls are an attraction to this day.

Eventually, the whalers and missionaries learned to live with each other. The missionaries went about their business of spreading Christianity and civilizing the native population. That included inventing a written version of the Hawaiian language, which had been learned by word of mouth. The oral traditions of the Hawaiian culture could now be put on paper and passed on to future generations. Since much of the Hawaiian culture involved a religion of Polynesian gods and mythology, it was difficult for the Protestant faith to take hold. Through perseverance though, there were 13 churches on Maui by 1870, and all of them had Hawaiian pastors. The pastors were trained at Lahainaluna Seminary, founded in 1831, which remains as Lahaina's high school and is known as the oldest high school west of the Rockies.

By the 1870s, the whaling industry on Maui was gone. Petroleum oil had been discovered in Pennsylvania and black gold supplanted the use of whale oil. The Confederate navy and its raiders destroyed many of the Yankee whalers during the Civil War. Sugar cane and pineapples and the plantation system used to grow those crops soon provided enormous profits to the descendants of the original missionaries. Today, whaling in Lahaina is limited to whale watching during the December -to- May season.

Visitors still continue to come to Lahaina by sea. The town has a small, picturesque harbor, but the majority of slips are used by commercial boats providing sportfishing, diving, snorkeling, whale watching and sailing trips. But the Lahaina Yacht Club has saved the day by providing seven free moorings just outside the harbor entrance. Just pick up a mooring ball, dinghy ashore at the harbor and walk the few short blocks to the yacht club for dinner and a few libations while watching the sunset.

Planning to cruise the Hawaiian Islands?

These are must-have resources:

" Cruising Guide to the Hawaiian Islands" by Bob and Carolyn Mehaffey, Paradise Cay Publications, 2007 " United States Coast Pilot 7" from the National Ocean Service, 2013

‍ Also visit:

‍ noonsite.com/Countries/Hawaii

hawaiiboatingsource.com/safeharbor.html

For more marinas and an online cruising guide, visit yachtpals.com/maui

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The Resilience of Lahaina Yacht Club: Building from the Ashes

Key points:

• The feature article reflects on the loss of Lahaina Yacht Club due to the Maui fires
• Describes the author's journey to Lahaina and the beauty of the surrounding area
• Highlights the efforts of Lahaina Yacht Club to rebuild and seek temporary facilities

An Ode to Lahaina reflects on the devastating loss suffered by Lahaina Town and the Lahaina Yacht Club in the recent wildfires that ravaged Maui. Author Neil Rabinowitz shares his personal experience sailing into Lahaina and admiring its beauty before the tragedy struck. Despite the destruction, the club remains determined to rebuild and continues its activities in the short term while seeking a temporary facility. Readers are encouraged to make donations to support the recovery efforts. The article is published on Cruising World.

The summary of the linked article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence technology from OpenAI

Scuttlebutt Sailing News

An Ode to Lahaina

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"We will rebuild. We will return.

Until the day we can welcome you home again, please stand with us in our Hope Rising campaign." - Dave Schubert "Commodore"

About Hope Rising Lahaina

Photo: CNN News

Aloha and welcome aboard the Hope Rising Lahaina Yacht Club Project. All profits will support the club and the rebuilding of the clubhouse.

Founded in 1965, the Lahaina Yacht Club has been a haven for generations of kama’aina, members, guests, and visitors from clubs around the world. Sailors, fisherman, ocean enthusiasts, and even landlubbers were immediately met with aloha and advised to make themselves at home.

Walking through the saloon doors felt like a journey through history in real-time. The present has destroyed our clubhouse, sailboats, and ocean vessels. However, our future is bright. The members & guests are the heart & soul of our club.

We will rebuild. We will return. Until the day we can welcome you home again, please stand with us by participating in our Hope Rising campaign.

The Lahaina Yacht Club extends to you Mahalo Nui Loa for your kokua and your business.

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Lahaina Return: Keeping Tradition Alive

Each Labor Day weekend for nearly eighty years the legendary Lahaina Return race has run from Lahaina, Maui to Oahu with events all weekend at the Lahaina Yacht Club.  This year, however, the town of Lahaina was tragically lost in the fires, and the Lahaina Yacht Club with it.  But this infamous sailing event is being kept alive in spirit with the " Lahaina's Return Labor Day Weekend Fundraiser "!

The Hawaii Yacht Racing Association (HYRA), Waikiki YC, Honolulu YC, and Kaneohe YC are planning weekend of racing, fun, and fundraising to support Lahaina Yacht Club and the people of Maui. Saturday will see a race from Waikiki (a.k.a. "Town") to Kaneohe with over 30 boats signed up.   On Sunday, KYC will host games, dinghy racing, BBQing, and frolicking, all with a generous helping of fundraising for maui relief efforts.  Then on Monday, Labor Day, boats will race back to Town.   Boat entry fee includes a small amount to the regatta and a bigger donation a relief cause of the entrants' choice. Pacific Cup Yacht Club is proud to support our Hawaiian partner clubs with donations to their chosen causes: Maui Strong  provides recovery resources to the people of Maui, and Lahaina Yacht Club directly helps LYC staff and future rebuilding efforts. You can show your support like we have by donating to these causes and mentioning "Lahaina Returns" in the notes or comments. Mahalo! For more information: Hawaii Yacht Racing Association Waikiki Yacht Club Kaneohe Yacht Club Hawaii Yacht Club Lahaina Yacht Club Maui Strong

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• May-June 2016

Harness the Wind

Catch a ride on the salty breeze with Lahaina Yacht Club.

Story by Shannon Wianecki | Photography by Ben Ferrari

As we leave Lahaina Harbor, the Pacific Ocean is a velvet blue expanse with hardly a white nick of wind. The late morning breeze, though light, is still strong enough to propel a sailboat. That’s good, because today is the first regatta of the Lahaina Yacht Club’s 2016 season, and I’m excited to help monitor the action from aboard the race committee boat.

Ian Ponting attempts to measure the wind speed with a tiny wind vane attached to his cellphone. “Eight knots on the geekometer,” he crows, pleased with his gadget’s accuracy. Ponting serves as rear commodore, in charge of the club’s races both big and small. As we motor out into the deep blue, he and fellow club member Dan O’Hanlon heave huge yellow buoys overboard to mark today’s course. Unlike racetracks on land, regatta courses are contingent on wind direction and shift accordingly during a race. Other contingencies Lahaina yachters might encounter? Whales and submarines.

Eight trim sailboats approach the start line. Among them are Snickers , the club’s own Olson 30, and Gung Ho, the fastest boat in today’s lineup. The boat captains trade friendly banter, jockey for position, and try not to ram into one another—or worse, lose their wind. Ideally, when the start horn shrieks, they’ll sail between the buoys on a strong tack.

O’Hanlon and Ponting synchronize their watches. I raise the four-minute signal flag. O’Hanlon hollers out a ten-second countdown and then blasts the horn: the race is on! Sails fill and surge forward. O’Hanlon immediately shoots up a flag, alerting a boat that it crossed the line prematurely. Gung Ho must maneuver back to the start, losing precious minutes. Gung Ho’s captain and owner, Keahi Ho, takes the penalty in stride. Competition during these club regattas is just stiff enough to make the races fun.

Yachting is a relatively small sport on Maui—which is surprising until you consider the limiting factors. Hawai‘i is a far reach from everywhere; sailing to or from this isolated archipelago is a major commitment. Sailing within Hawai‘i isn’t easy, either. Small-boat harbors are few and far between here, and slips are in high demand. The channels separating the Islands are infamous, known worldwide for their volatile seas and currents. When you leave a Hawaiian harbor, you enter the wilderness of the open ocean.

That wilderness is a siren’s call to some, such as beloved restaurateur Floyd Christenson . Back in the 1960s, he and his family sailed around the South Pacific before setting anchor in Maui and opening Mama’s Fish House, one of the most successful restaurants in the state. He and a handful of other sailors founded the Lahaina Yacht Club in 1965. They transformed a dilapidated laundry on Front Street into an oceanfront clubhouse and contracted Hawaiian artist Sam Ka‘ai to design a burgee—the pennant that identifies the club. Ka‘ai drew a white sperm whale on a red backing.

“I grew up with that logo on everything,” says Ponting. Like most club members, he honed his appetite for yachting elsewhere before moving to Hawai‘i. He’s originally from the Bay Area, but his family has been entwined with Lahaina Yacht Club for decades. In 1974 his uncle won the club’s showcase regatta, the Vic–Maui. Held every other year since 1968, the international yacht race starts in Victoria, Canada, and ends roughly two weeks later in Kā‘anapali. When a boat arrives at the finish line—no matter what time of day—club members greet it with banners, refreshments, and flower lei.

Naturally, when Ponting moved to Maui sixteen years ago, he gravitated to the club. “It was kind of seedy back then,” he admits. Aside from the Vic–Maui, “there was no sailing.” It’s well known that sailing clubs without active boating programs become drinking clubs. For close to twenty years, the “yacht” part of the Lahaina Yacht Club languished while its sailors waited for a slip to open up in Lahaina Harbor. Finally, eight years ago, the harbormaster called. Once the club had a place to park a boat, they bought one: Snickers .

Today, Snickers trails behind the other yachts in the race. The current leaders, Noa and Boondoggle, approach the first mark, a buoy they have to clear. Gung Ho suddenly darts between them, having jibed from far behind. In one sleek maneuver, Gung Ho has stitched up its lost time. All three boats round the mark in perfect sync. Their crews strike the jib sails and hoist silky spinnakers, which inflate like brilliant balloons.

Soon the entire fleet is sailing with the wind towards the finish line. The spinnakers cut a colorful swath across the backdrop of the West Maui Mountains. On calm days like this, sailing is a profoundly serene sport. But even on gusty days when the wind roars through the rigging, a sailor’s inner ear registers the absence of an engine’s high-pitched wail—registers and rejoices. To harness the wind, to hitch a ride on the planet’s very breath is a kind of magic.

O’Hanlon and Ponting keep an eye out for humpback whales, and for the Atlantis Submarine, which has surprised a yacht captain or two in the past by surfacing unexpectedly. As Snickers passes by, they assure me that she’s not a slow boat, but is often skippered by captains and crews in training. The chance to sail her is one of the perks of club membership.

The perks are many. Throughout the year, the club hosts numerous regattas and fishing tournaments. Members have exclusive access to the clubhouse that hangs over the water on Front Street. They can flash their membership card to gain entrance at almost any yacht club in the world—including posh addresses in San Francisco or Shanghai. And, perhaps best of all, Lahaina Yacht Club offers junior and adult sailing lessons.

“We’re trying to nurture the community,” says Ponting, who helped launch the club’s junior sail program in 2009. “It was the most sought-after summer camp on the island—with no advertising.” The club now hosts Hawai‘i’s largest junior regatta. “Teaching kids how to sail gives them a great sense of self, responsibility, and teamwork.”

Teamwork is essential in the final moments of today’s race, to capitalize on the building breeze. As each yacht crosses the finish line, I record its time down to the seconds. We won’t know the official winners until O’Hanlon calculates the scores based on each boat’s handicap. The last boat limps in lazily, its crew already cracking open beers. We motor off to retrieve the buoys and catch several humpbacks frolicking. We dive into the deep blue, to listen to their underwater songs—yet another perk of the sailing life.

A few hours later, the clubhouse fills with sailors freshened up and ready to celebrate. Trophies from past regattas glitter behind the bar and colorful burgees from yacht clubs around the world hang from the rafters. The chef piles snacks onto the crowded tables. I sit down beside Nancy Goode, who crewed today on Boondoggle . She remembers the moment she discovered the power of sailing, forty years ago in Southern California. A boat captain handed her a line and told her when to pull on it. She felt the boat move faster. She was hooked.

Goode and her boyfriend planned to sail around the world. When he decided to go without her, two fellows from Alaska found her crying on the dock. We’re sailing to Hawai‘i tomorrow, they said. She joined them. Upon landing in Lahaina, she got a job on a trimaran, leading snorkel tours. She now skippers monthly ladies’ sails, introducing other women to the wonders of travelling by wind.

O’Hanlon interrupts the socializing to announce the regatta’s winners: Noa places first, Gung Ho second. Jeff Kaiser, the gracious club commodore, stands to make another announcement. “Twenty years ago, Kea Ho won Sportsman of the Year,” he says. “History repeats itself. I’d like to congratulate his son, Nalu Ho, for winning Sportsman of the Year in 2015.” The deserving eighth-grader recently sailed with his father to Tahiti and back. He grins shyly and accepts his award—clearly a club member in the making. Meanwhile, Goode locks eyes with me and pencils my name in for her next ladies’ sail.

Attend a regatta:  Lahaina Yacht Club hosts regattas year-round. You can hitch a ride on a yacht for the day, enter your own boat in the race, volunteer aboard the committee boat, or help welcome the incoming Vic–Maui racers. View the club’s calendar online.

Learn to sail:   Lahaina Yacht Club offers five-day sailing lessons for adults (co-ed and women only) and juniors (ages nine to fifteen). Novice sailors should know how to swim, have strength enough to hoist a sail, bring gloves, and wear layered clothing and sun protection. Adults: $200 member, $400 nonmember. Juniors: $250 member, $300 nonmember

Become a club member:   Two existing members need to sponsor you. Attend some of the events above and you’re on your way. Visit Lyc.us or call 808-661-0191.

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Lahaina Yacht Club

Newest Maui Article: Road to Hana

Membership Restaurant at Lahaina Yacht Club

Lahaina Yacht Club is an ocean-side restaurant in the middle of Lahaina.  It’s at:

835 Front Street Lahaina, HI 96761 808-661-0191

About Lahaina Yacht Club

In order to eat at Lahaina Yacht Club (LYC), you must be a member of this club or a member of another yacht club with reciprocity. Membership here costs $500 initiation plus $500 per year dues, and you need to be sponsored by two club members. The only way around those fees is to eat here as a guest of a member, which is the way I got in.  You don’t have to own a boat to be a member.  And there are other benefits for membership besides being able to dine here, such as involvement in yacht races, sailing programs, and the camaraderie of other members.

This restaurant is next door to very similar restaurants with the same oceanfront views along this part of Front Street in Lahaina.  Those others are Kimo’s , Koa’s, and Lahaina Fish Co .  None of those require any membership, so you can eat there without the need to join the Lahaina Yacht Club.

LYC is open for lunch, dinner, and happy hour.  They have prime rib night on Tuesdays and lobster night on Thursdays. The regular lunch menu includes several choices of appetizers, salads, sandwiches, burgers, and entree plates. The dinner menu is longer, with the addition of many full-size meat and seafood entrees, plus several side dishes. At happy hour (3 to 5 PM) there are a few appetizers and snacks, and a different entree for each day of the week.

See below for the Lahaina Yacht Club menu list and food photos.

For reviews, menus, photos of other restaurants on this side of Maui see West Maui restaurants .

Lahaina Yacht Club menu (subject to change)  $$ Moderate

Lunch appetizers.

BBQ Pork Quesadilla Crispy Calamari Fresh Island Ceviche Double Lovin’ Bruschetta Coconut Crusted Shrimp Panko Ahi Roll Habanero Fire Wings Stuffed Mushrooms

Lunch Salads or Wraps

LYC Chinese Caesar Red White & Bleu Southwestern Chopped House

Lunch Sandwiches

Ahi BLT Cilantro Chicken Sandwich BBQ Pork Grilled Mahi Mahi French Dip Reuben Club House Turkey & Bacon

Mushroom & Swiss Volcano Southwestern Plain

Specialties

Fresh Hawaiian Catch Hawaiian Ribs Lemon Caper Mahi Fish & Chips Teriyaki Chicken Fish Tacos

Dinner Appetizers

Dinner salads, dinner meat entrees.

Filet Mignon Sirloin Steak Chicken Marsala Coconut Chicken Baby Back Ribs Beef Stroganoff Burger or Mahi Sandwich

Dinner Seafood Entrees

Honey Lime Ahi Crab Stuffed Mahi Bacon Grilled Scallops Fresh Hawaiian Catch Shrimp Scampi Seafood Brochette

Dinner Sides

Twice Baked Potato Mashed Potato Coconut Ginger Rice Mushroom Risotto Vegetable Du Jour French Fries

Lahaina Yacht Club photos

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What We Lost in the Lahaina Fire

T hroughout its centuries-long history, Lahaina has been many things to many people: a royal residence, a missionary post, a hard-partying harbor town, a tourist trap. For some, it was simply home.

The fire that reduced the historic town to ash on October 8, 2023 was unsparing. It took the lives and livelihoods of so many of our community members. Around 50 restaurants went up in smoke that day. As the former dining editor for Maui Nō Ka ‘Oi magazine, I can name 30 without even trying. It’s an unfathomable loss for the industry — one that feels particularly cruel after everyone worked so hard to survive the pandemic.

For many, it’s still too early to talk about rebuilding. Even apart from the grief and mourning that still hangs in the air, on a very practical and tangible level, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates it will take months just to clear away the literal toxic debris. Before the fire, Lahaina’s world-famous Front Street was little more than a patchwork of wooden shacks held together by layers of paint, cooking grease, crusty sea salt, banana sap, and gossip. Some restaurants will certainly reopen in new locations, but that unique patina that made the place so compelling is gone.

And some restaurants will never reopen, including Nagasako Okazuya Deli , the oldest and arguably most beloved eatery in Lahaina. For 120-plus years, the Nagasako family served the West Maui community, and it started with Mitsuzo Nagasako, who opened a candy store on the corner of Front Street and Lahainaluna Road in the early 1900s. With each successive generation the business evolved — into a supermarket, then a grocery, and finally an okazuya, or deli. Lahainaluna boarding students crowded the okazuya counter before school each day to stock up on the deli’s special Spam musubi: meat in the middle, fried in teriyaki sauce. Families stopped by before and after the beach for shoyu chicken and breaded teriyaki steak. A week after the fire, the Nagasakos announced through a heartfelt post featuring photos of all six generations of the family that they would not reopen. This is one of the many threads to Lahaina’s past that has now been lost.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwA-IG0pIvl/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading

The Pioneer Inn was Lahaina’s first hotel, built in 1901. Over the years it housed a saloon, stage, and movie theater. Most recently it was home to Papa‘aina , chef Lee Anne Wong’s wharf-side restaurant. Originally from New York, Wong came to Maui by way of Honolulu. She learned to cook Hawai‘i-style cuisine at Koko Head Café, her brunch spot in Honolulu’s Kaimukī, and perfected it at Papa‘aina, where she served breakfast ramen and mapo tofu loco mocos. A few years ago, Wong hosted a dumpling workshop in the Inn’s courtyard, drawing lessons from her cookbook, Dumplings All Day Wong . With her son on her hip, she taught us to roll and pinch our dough into crescents and dip them into boiling broth, much as local cooks had for the past 100-plus years. Whether or not Papa‘aina will ever reopen is unknown — right now, Wong is focusing on relief efforts for the thousands of displaced people.

Not long ago, at Kimo’s Maui , I had lunch with Paris-born artist Guy Buffet, who had immortalized the Front Street restaurant in a painting that captures the euphoria of dining there on the waterfront. When Rob Thibaut and Sandy Saxten opened Kimo’s in 1977, it was the beginning of their T S Restaurants empire, which now includes Dukes Waikīkī, Hula Grill, and Leilani’s on the Beach, among others. A trip to Maui was hardly complete without tackling a mammoth slice of Hula Pie at sunset while surfers caught the last ankle biters of the day at Breakwall. The owners have already pledged to rebuild their landmark restaurant.

Two doors down from Kimo’s, passersby could peek through a porthole into the Lahaina Yacht Club . Lahaina’s second-oldest restaurant was invite-only — but more in the piratical than prissy sense. Before transpacific sailor Floyd Christenson opened the beloved Mama’s Fish House in Kū‘au, he and a few other old salts founded the mariner’s club in 1965. They transformed a Front Street laundry into a clubhouse and contracted Hawaiian artist Sam Ka‘ai to design the club’s pennant, or burgee: a white whale on red backing. Colorful burgees from yacht clubs worldwide hung over the open-air dining room, where commodores traded navigational tips and tossed back shots of Old Lahaina Rum. If you rang the ship’s bell, you were buying the whole restaurant a round.

Across Honoapi‘ilani Highway, the Sly Mongoose boasted no view whatsoever — instead, Maui’s oldest dive bar advertised air-conditioning. Since 1977, “the Goose” had lured patrons indoors with its jukebox, goldfish crackers, and happy hour featuring $2 Jager Spice and “free beer tomorrow.”

These are only a fraction of the restaurants lost; entire chapters could be written about Lahaina Grill, Pacific’o, Feast at Lele, and Fleetwood’s on Front Street, where the Mad Bagpiper serenaded the setting sun on the rooftop every night. Restaurants weren’t the only places to find sustenance in Lahaina, either. There were food trucks, farmer’s markets, and even temples that served specialty snacks. During Chinese New Year, the Wo Hing museum offered crispy gau gee samples and moon cakes imported from Hong Kong. During the summer Obon festival, Lahaina Hongwanji and Jodo Mission hosted nighttime dances with chow fun booths. The outdoor kitchen at Jodo Mission overlooked the ‘Au‘au Channel and the steam from the boiling noodles wafted out to sea along with lanterns to remember the dead.

Lahaina old-timers will remember the little mango stand across from 505 Front Street. For years a local woman sold pickled mango there in little plastic sacks. Kids biked over after baseball games for bags of mango and sodas. In the summer, Lahaina’s mango trees were laden with the orbs of fruit. And before there were mangos, there were ‘ulu, or breadfruit, groves. Lahaina’s ancient name, Malu ‘Ulu O Lele, refers to the ‘ulu trees that once grew so thick you could walk for miles beneath their shade. Perhaps those trees will grow again.

As enormous as this disaster was, the community’s response was even greater. The day after the fire, Maui’s chefs sprang into action. The team of the grassroots project Chef Hui mobilized at the UHMC Culinary Arts campus to do what they do best: feed and nourish their community. In the first six days, they served over 50,000 hot meals to survivors of the fire. Despite losing her Maui restaurant, Wong has been at the campus every day plating up bentos, along with Isaac Bancaco, who lost both his home and his workplace at Pacific’o. Jojo Vasquez lost his home, too, and was forced to temporarily close Fond , his restaurant in Nāpili. That didn’t stop him from messaging his Chef Hui colleagues: “Tag me in coach, I stay ready.” Joey Macadangdang turned his restaurant, Joey’s Kitchen in Nāpili, into an emergency shelter the night of the fire and has been cooking for his displaced neighbors every day since.

Hawai‘i’s restaurant owners and workers are a tight-knit crew, battle-tested and resilient. Long before this fire stretched them thin, Maui’s restaurateurs, chefs, and servers were always at the island’s innumerable charity events with knives and generators ready. I had often wondered how they kept their doors open while donating food and staff to all these causes. Now is our chance to repay them for their decades of nourishment and for helping to knit together Lahaina’s fabric — layers of history laid down by Native Hawaiians, whalers, missionaries, plantation laborers, locals, transplants, and tourists to create the Lahaina in which we lived, loved, and dined.

Shannon Wianecki is a Hawai‘i-based writer and editor who specializes in natural history, culture, and travel.

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"We will rebuild. We will return."

Hope Rising-Lahaina

Official Lahaina Yacht Club HOPE RISING campaign

All proceeds go to rebuilding the Lahaina Yacht Club

Aloha & Welcome aboard the Hope Rising Lahaina Yacht Club Project.

All profits  will support the club and the rebuilding of the clubhouse.

We will rebuild. We will return. Until the day we can welcome you home again, please stand with us by participating in our Hope Rising campaign.

Founded in 1965, the Lahaina Yacht Club has been a haven for generations of kama’aina, members, guests, and visitors from clubs around the world. Sailors, fisherman, ocean enthusiasts, and even landlubbers were immediately met with aloha and advised to make themselves at home.

Walking through the saloon doors felt like a journey through history in real-time. The present has destroyed our clubhouse, sailboats, and ocean vessels. However, our future is bright. The members & guests are the heart & soul of our club.

The Lahaina Yacht Club extends to you Mahalo Nui Loa for your kokua and your business.

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Published on August 13th, 2023 | by Editor

We are Lahaina Strong

Published on August 13th, 2023 by Editor -->

Wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui have killed over 90 people, and that number keeps increasing. More than 250 buildings in historic Lahaina Town have been destroyed which includes Lahaina Yacht Club on Front Street.

The fires started August 8 and fanned out across the island, growing in size and destructive power. It became national news as Hawaii declared a state of emergency on August 9, with aerial video showing the devastation.

As the co-host of the biennial Victoria to Maui International Yacht Race , Lahaina Yacht Club has been home to members and visitors since 1965. Here is a message from LYC Commodore Dave Schubert :

I write this with pure sorrow. Our beloved Lahaina Yacht Club and Lahaina Town has been devastated. The entire town of Lahaina and our home is gone and now just ash and rubble. What you are seeing in the news is probably accurate but just a small part of our reality. No power, water, etc… but we are an amazing community.

The people here are resilient. I have received many emails from reciprocal clubs across the country offering support and I want to assure that we will strive to rebuild, rebound, and come back better. We love and appreciate all of the heartfelt sentiments and support across the country.

To those amazing Commodores sharing such respect and support, I will absolutely share those caring messages after I get my/our lack of housing in check. To date quite a few of us Commodores, Past Commodores, and Board Members are now without homes. I do ultimately believe it will take all of us to be involved in rebuilding and all will commit to our future commitment to LYC.

Without hesitation, I am far more afraid for our general membership and their well-being. This town has so many amazing people. We are Lahaina Strong and most importantly we need to look out for the health and well-being of our families, friends, and membership and all those we love.

I hope this all makes sense. I am shedding tears as I write it. Lahaina Yacht Club and our strength has always been our family approach, our strength at its finest. Love and support to Lahaina and LYC.

To read the comments from this post on Facebook, click here . To support LYC with donations, click here .

Tags: Dave Schubert , Lahaina fire , Lahaina Yacht Club

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The yacht club trustee and Dave's Metal Detecting .

The Lahaina Yacht club was located on Front Street between where Kimo's and the Fish Company used to be.

The club's bell was hung temptingly on the old mast from the Carthaginian. If you rang the bell you bought every one in the club a drink.

The LYC bar had a tradition that if you walked in wearing a tie , the bar tender cut it off and tacked it on the wall.

Did you get a chance to visit the Lahaina Yacht Club?

Practice aloha .

The Getaways.

5 replies to this topic

Good memories - we went there. Happy they found the bell. Thanks for your post. Best to you.

Many years ago we were lucky enough to go there with the wonderful Trevor Jones. Spent an afternoon singing sea shantys, telling stories and having a few drinks and pupus! Great memories!

Thank you mini

All the best to you

https://www.vicmaui.org/

1965 was the first year they had the Victoria to Maui race!

Our last meal at the Lahaina Yacht Club was the lobster night dinner at a table next to the bell.

The club had such a great history, from the land purchase to the many volunteers who built it.

The members had a greeting committee for the yacht races. We were assigned a boat to greet and celebrate their arrival. We always hoped our boat would not arrive in the middle of the night.

I admit I only rang the LYC bell once.

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Painting by Jim Kingwell

Lahaina's Return Labor Day Weekend Fundraiser

Keeping lahaina traditions alive 2023  .

Sunday, August 27

Kaneohe boats feeder race from kaneohe to waikiki, mooring provided at waikiki  , saturday, september 2,        nor                   race from waikiki to kaneohe  .

Skippers Meeting 7:30am at WYC, Race begins at 9:00am

Lahaina's Return Fundraiser Race: Hawaii Yacht Club

For a list of verified Maui Relief Agencies and Charitable organizations see Civil Beat's list .

Or donate to Support LYC's Fire Relief Fund  

Sunday, September 3

Entry to kyc   activities.

Make a Donation to a Trusted Charitable Relief Organization* see FAQ

  Present your receipt upon entry and receive a Drink Ticket!   

Use the links below to reserve your plate, reserve your activity and make payments. 

SMOKE OUT EVENT at KYC   - Be a G rill M aster!  

$100 donation. S how off your Skill at the Grill (starts on Saturday and goes all night). Only 15 spaces available!  Meat will be provided. Contact Victor Lozano 808-551-3044 for details and to claim your spot.

PRE-ORDER a SMOKER PLATE - Pre-order Your Plate !   

$ 25 for a delicious BBQ meal with sides. They will go fast . 

August 30th: deadline to purchase your plate

3:00pm Meals will be ready to eat!

DINGHY RACES - Sign Up!

10:00am Topper Relays & Shenanigans $50 / Team of 4 

Combine your team's sailing and softball skills! 

Yep, you heard it right, sign up and see what's in store!

TOURNAMENTS - Sign U p!

All Skill Levels Welcome!  

8:00 am Pickle Ball Tournament  $20 / Team of 2

11:00 am Corn Hole Tournament $20 / Team of 2

WRAP UP at 3:00 pm

3:00 pm Sunday's activities will conclude , and results of the August 27 cruise,  Saturday's Race, and Sunday's Competitions will all be announced!

FRONT STREET FROLIC with Go Ask Alice   at 6:00pm

Honor Lahaina’s long history by rocking out with some of that Ol’ Time Rock n’ Roll.

Monday, September 4

South shore boats race from kaneohe to waikiki,                             - nor    a ll in one with saturday's race.

Is this a fundraiser for Lahaina yacht club? 

Lahaina Yacht Club is one of the many organizations we are encouraging our participants to support.

You may choose Lahaina Yacht Club as one of your “qualifying” donations by us ing this link: Donate (lyc.us)  

See the following article to see where LYC is currently at with their in-house fundraising campaign.

https://sailinganarchy.com/2023/08/18/true-love/

*How do I make a donation and know  it's a legitimate Maui Relief Organization?

Here’s a link to a list of trusted organizations with their services and some tips to avoid scams 

 LIST: Help Maui Fire Victims: Here's Where You Can Donate (civilbeat.org)    

Please be sure to include your yacht club as the business or organization affiliation so we can track our joint efforts.

When you submit your donation save a copy of your receipt/ payment.

Why do I need verif ication of my donation?

Lahaina’s Return Race: present your receipt from your phone or in hard copy to Travis Scott as part of your entry.

To be a Grill Master: present your receipt from your phone or in hard copy to Victor Lozano as your entry to the Smoke Out. 

When you join in on the Sunday activities: present your receipt on your phone or in hard copy at the Donor Assistance table in the Kaneohe Yacht Club Lounge to get a free drink ticket. 

This is where you get your tickets or coupons for BBQ plates, games, etc. 

Make sure to pre-order your plate and register for your spot for the activities!

How do I sign up for activities?

You can sign up for activities at https://kaneoheyachtclub.com , click on ”Our Club” and select “Calendar of Events” to make your choices.  

Do you have to be a member of KYC to attend the event?

Sailors throughout the state are invited to register their boat for the races. 

Members of yacht clubs that are supporting the race and fundraising campaign are welcome as guests. 

Guest parking (non members) is not available in the KYC lot.

Is this a one-time event?

We are looking at the likelihood that this event will be repeated until LYC finds they are ready to host a Maui to Oahu race again.

I have fond memories of Lahaina but don’t live in the islands or am not going to be on island to participate. What is your recommendation to show my support?

  Donate directly to one of the trusted Maui Relief Organizations

Donate directly to  Lahaina Yacht Club, using this link: Donate (lyc.us)  

Keep an eye out for more to come within the Hawaii Sailing Community right here on HYRA.us/Lahaina

Who can I get in touch with if I have other questions about this event?

HYRA: Leslie Foster: [email protected]

Kyc: office 808-247-4121.

Reciprocal Yacht Clubs

Past Commodores

In Memoriam

LYC Membership

Opening Day 2024

Kingwell Art

Click below to view your account

PO Box 12496 Lahaina HI 96761

(808) 661-0191

[email protected]

© 2024 Lahaina Yacht Club, All rights reserved.

Secondary address

Related members, related boats.

Event Details

Reciprocal Yacht Clubs

Past Commodores

In Memoriam

LYC Membership

Opening Day 2024

Kingwell Art

Click below to view your account

PO Box 12496 Lahaina HI 96761

(808) 661-0191

[email protected]

© 2024 Lahaina Yacht Club, All rights reserved.

Secondary address

Related members, related boats.

Event Details