Five Islands Outrigger Canoe Club

Five Islands Outrigger Canoe Club Lake and ocean paddling in the Illawarra — learn, train, race and connect.

🇸🇬 Singapore so far…A couple of days in and our Five Islanders are well and truly immersed in the 2026 IVF Va'a World Sp...
21/08/2026

🇸🇬 Singapore so far…

A couple of days in and our Five Islanders are well and truly immersed in the 2026 IVF Va'a World Sprint Championships.

We’ve found our feet, soaked up a little of Singapore and taken in everything happening around Marina Bay.

Course familiarisation gave us our first chance to get out in the canoes and experience the race venue from the water — always nice after so many months of preparation back home.

The opening ceremony was a completely different kind of highlight. With paddlers from all over the world coming together, it was colourful, noisy, social and a lot of fun — and a great chance to appreciate the scale of what is the largest World Sprints ever held.

The elite racing has now wrapped up and tomorrow it’s our turn, with the V12 racing getting underway.

We will be lining up with crews from Scarborough, Sunset Bay, Mooloolaba and Noosa.

We are all looking forward to finally being on the water.

Wish us luck! 🇸🇬🌊

16/08/2026

🌏 World Sprints are here! 🇸🇬

The 2026 IVF Va'a World Sprint Championships get underway in Singapore this week, bringing together more than 3,000 paddlers from over 30 countries for one of the biggest events on the international va'a calendar.

And amongst them will be six paddlers from Five Islands, joining crews from around Australia and representing Wollongong on the world stage.

For John Leard, this will be his second World Sprints, while Martin West, Kelvin Mulholland, Carmen Koller, Bev Tener and Tamea Rice will all be experiencing a World Sprint Championships for the first time.

We might be wearing a few different club colours when we hit the water, but there’ll still be plenty of Five Islands out there!

Here’s who to look out for:

John Leard – GMM
V6 500m & 1000m with Sunset Bay Outriggers
V12 with Scarborough & Sunset Bay Senior Masters

Martin West – GMM
V6 500m & 1000m with Sunset Bay Outriggers
V12 with Scarborough & Sunset Bay Senior Masters

Kelvin Mulholland – GMM
V6 500m & 1000m with Sunset Bay Outriggers
V12 with Scarborough & Sunset Bay Senior Masters

Carmen Koller – SMW
V6 500m & 1000m with Sunshine Coast Dragon Boat & Outrigger Canoe Club

Bev Tener – PMW
V6 500m & 1000m with Hekili Outrigger Canoe Club
V12 with Mooloolaba Outrigger Canoe Club

Tamea Rice – GMW
V6 500m & 1000m with Sunshine Coast Dragon Boat & Outrigger Canoe Club
V12 with Noosa

And we have to give a special shout-out to Bev, who’ll be lining up on the world stage in her 70s. We absolutely love this. It says so much about the longevity of our sport — and about Bev. At Five Islands, we love that paddling can keep giving us something to train for, compete for and enjoy well into our 70s and beyond.

Behind every one of these entries has been a huge amount of training, camps, early starts and hours on the water.

And an equally huge thank you goes to our families, friends and fellow paddlers who have supported us through it all — and patiently put up with us being a little MIA while we disappeared off to camps and clocked up a fairly ridiculous number of training hours.

Your encouragement, understanding and support have meant a lot and have been a big part of getting everyone to Singapore.

Now it’s time to race, enjoy the experience and see what all those hours have built.

Follow the racing from home 👇
📺 LIVE – Paddle Life TV
https://www.youtube.com/

📅 Official IVF Race Schedule – latest updates
https://www.ivfiv.org/singapore--race-schedule.html

Good luck John, Martin, Kelvin, Carmen, Bev and Tamea.
Singapore awaits! 🇸🇬🌊

'a

24/07/2026

The first World Sprint Championships featuring the Hydra are now just weeks away. Across Australia, clubs have been working through the same challenge of how to turn these lightweight canoes well. Their speed is clear, but getting the best out of them around the turns has taken plenty of work and shared knowledge.

The way clubs have responded says a lot about our sport. Club colours and competition matter, but people have still been willing to share what they know and help paddlers from other clubs. That is ohana in practice, helping one another so we can all move the sport forward.

This spirit is not new, but learning to master the Hydra has brought it into clearer focus. It is a reminder that the strength of our sport comes from the formal and informal leaders within our clubs who make this culture possible.

Five Islands Outrigger Canoe Club would like to thank Pete Williams, Leia Sakaria, PJ Dorries and Leisha Antunovich for sharing their knowledge, challenging our thinking and helping develop our paddlers.

Thanks also to the Five Islands members who have filled seats at training and made it possible for our crews to get quality sessions on the water.

We also thank Port Hacking Outriggers Club, Hekili Outrigger Canoe Club, Mooloolaba Outrigger Canoe Club, Sunshine Outrigger Canoe Club and Noosa OCC for making their Hydra and training canoes available to us. The opportunity to train in these canoes has been invaluable in preparing our athletes for the IVF World Sprint Championships in Singapore.

Six Five Islands paddlers, together with a Hekili paddler who has trained with us for the past three months, will join athletes from outrigger clubs across Australia in Singapore. All seven are better prepared because of the cooperation and support shown by our wider paddling community.

On behalf of everyone at Five Islands Outrigger Canoe Club, thank you. We hope to honour your example by paying it forward.

John Leard
President, FIOCC

Hamilton Island Outrigger Cup 2026Five Islands was proudly represented at this year’s Hamilton Island Outrigger Cup, wit...
23/06/2026

Hamilton Island Outrigger Cup 2026

Five Islands was proudly represented at this year’s Hamilton Island Outrigger Cup, with paddlers competing across OC1, OC2 and OC6 events and achieving strong results across both the 16 km and 42 km races.

Five Islands crews had a fantastic weekend on the water, with strong results in the Open Men, Open Mixed and 42 km events. A special thank you to Jess Crowe, Will Lee and Anisha Huntley for joining our Five Islands Open Mixed crew and helping deliver an outstanding result.

Five Islands results:
1st Open Mixed, 16 km — 1st overall
1st Open Men, 16 km — 3rd overall
1st Open Men, 42 km Changes Race — 3rd overall
1st Golden Master Mixed OC2 — John Leard and Tamea Rice, 10th overall
7th Open Men OC1 — Reuben Thompson, 37th overall

Team Cronulla also welcomed Five Islands paddlers into their crews. John Leard raced with the Open Men, while Kim Walker raced with the women’s crew. After Jenny Madden and Lisa Brune were sidelined by injury only days before racing, Anna Muraoka and Tamea Rice stepped in at short notice. With paddlers from Cronulla Outrigger Canoe Club, Kurnell Outrigger Canoe Club, Port Hacking Outriggers Club and Five Islands coming together, the women’s crew adapted quickly, supported one another and gave everything they had under challenging circumstances.

Team Cronulla results:
3rd Open Men, 42 km Changes Race — including John Leard, 10th overall
3rd Open Women, 42 km Changes Race — including Kim Walker, Tamea Rice and Anna Muraoka, 45th overall
6th Open Women, 16 km — Margherita’s, including Anna Muraoka, 16th overall
7th Open Women, 16 km — Margaret’s, including Kim Walker and Tamea Rice, 18th overall

Thanks to Mark Bell, John Leard also joined Mission Beach Masters Men for the 16 km race, continuing the spirit of paddlers supporting crews across the event.

Mission Beach result:
8th Masters Men, 16 km — including John Leard, 33rd overall

A huge thank you to the Hamilton Island Cup 2026 organising team, especially AOCRA for hosting this event, the Event Coordinator Gena Kenny, for bringing this event together, and to Paddle Life TV and Ocean Paddler for their coverage and support of the paddling community.

A special mention to Stewart Woodger, whose contribution extends far beyond race day. From steering, coaching and organising the many logistics that come with getting crews to major events, to the countless hours spent training and developing young paddlers and fostering a strong competitive culture, Stewart continues to invest enormously in our club, which in turn strengthens the wider sport of outrigger canoeing.

Congratulations to all Five Islands paddlers who raced, stepped up, supported crews and represented the club so well throughout the weekend.

Tamea Rice & John Leard
Vice President & President

Hamilton Island Cup 2026 Congratulations to all our paddlers that went up!We got some amazing photos of our superstar pa...
22/06/2026

Hamilton Island Cup 2026
Congratulations to all our paddlers that went up!
We got some amazing photos of our superstar paddlers from Paddle Life TV 🙌🙌🙌

Well done team 👊
22/06/2026

Well done team 👊

National Marathons 2026 — Club PointsFive Islands OCC finished 7th overall on the National Marathons Club Points table.T...
27/05/2026

National Marathons 2026 — Club Points
Five Islands OCC finished 7th overall on the National Marathons Club Points table.
That is a strong result for our club and a reflection of the effort, commitment and team spirit our paddlers brought across the event.
To finish in the top 10 nationally is something to be proud of, especially alongside some very established clubs.
A big thank you to all our paddlers, steers, supporters, and everyone behind the scenes who helped make it happen.
Well done Five Islands.

John and Tamea

Tamea and myself want to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped make Nationals such a successful weekend for Five I...
23/05/2026

Tamea and myself want to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped make Nationals such a successful weekend for Five Islands.

A big thank you to AOCRA and Coffs Coast for hosting and delivering such a huge event.
Weekends like this take a massive amount of work behind the scenes, and we appreciate the effort that went into giving clubs the opportunity to come together and race.

To everyone in our club who raced, steered, organised crews, helped with canoes, sorted gear, set up, packed down, towed, loaded, tied down, cheered from the beach, supported from home, and quietly did the jobs that keep a weekend like this moving — thank you.

Nationals takes a full club effort. From the planning before we left, to the racing, the new Hydra arriving, the blessing, the rigging, the pack-up and the long trip home, there were a lot of moving parts. It was great to see people stepping in, helping each other and representing Five Islands so well.

We are incredibly proud of all our competitors who came away with medals across the weekend. Every podium result takes training, commitment and trust in your crew to go hard. Those results are something the whole club can be proud of.

We are just as proud of everyone who put themselves on the start line, whether they came home with a medal, a hard lesson, a race memory, or simply knowing they gave everything they had on the water.

For us, that is what made the weekend successful. Not just the results, but the way Five Islands showed up as a club.
Thank you again to everyone who played a part.
Proud of our club.

John and Tamea
President and Vice President
Five Islands Outrigger Canoe Club

A few shots of our members racing up at the AOCRA National Marathon Champs in Coffs Harbour 🌊 We had some epic condition...
18/05/2026

A few shots of our members racing up at the AOCRA National Marathon Champs in Coffs Harbour 🌊

We had some epic conditions and results.
Well done FIOCC 🙌

Day 1:
🥇 U12 girls OC1 - Alexis Herrald
🥉 U12 boys OC1 - Ned Herrald
4th SMMx OC2 short course - Carmen and Martin
🥈 OW OC1 short course - Nadine
🥉 OW OC1 short course - Anna
🥇 OW OC1 long course - Leah
🥉 OM OC1 long course - Luke
4th OM OC1 long course - Riley
5th OM OC1 long course - Reuben
🥇 OM V1 long course - Dylan
🥉 SMM OC1 long course - Stewart
11th SMM OC1 long course - Dean
🥈 SMM V1 long course - Kelvin
🥇 GMMx OC2 long course - John and Tamea
🥇 U12 mixed V3 - Alexis, Ned and Ben

Day 2:
🥉 OW unlimited OC6 long course
🥇 OM unlimited OC6 long course
4th OM unlimited OC6 long course
🥈 GMM OC6 long course

Special shoutout to our juniors - Payton, Alexis and Ned - which jumped in combined crews with other juniors.
🥇 for Alexis and Ned’s U12 crew and 🥉for Payton’s minnows crew

Day 3:
🥇 MMx unlimited OC6 long course
🥈 OMx unlimited OC6 long course
🥈 OW unlimited OC6 short course
5th SMW unlimited OC6 short course
🥈 SMM unlimited OC6 short course

Address

Belmore Basin, Cliff Road
Wollongong, NSW
2500

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Thursday 5:45am - 7am
4:15pm - 6pm
Saturday 5:45am - 7am
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