The wind is whipping as Manaiakalani, Kai Bartlett's power catamaran, idles beyond the surf break at DT Fleming Beach on Maui. The crew clambers between the roof and gunwale to unmount three OC1s—one-man canoes—and Bartlett's wife, Kealani, jokes that this is a nerve-wracking form of cardio training. These are brand-new Velas, Bartlett's latest model, ready to be tested on their inaugural channel crossing. Each carbon hull is twenty-one feet long, weighs fifteen pounds and costs $5,000. One misstep and they're gone with the wind or smashed against the boat—not how anyone wants to start this expedition.
Thirty minutes of nimble teamwork later, the Velas are rigged and ready. Molokai, their destination, beckons from across the white-capped swells of the Pailolo Channel. This is the kind of adventure Bartlett lives for: him and his friends, wind at their backs, troughs at their bows, trading all their worries for twenty-six miles of adrenaline-fueled glory.
Bartlett fell in love with the ocean as a kid growing up in Kailua, Oahu—fishing, diving, sailing, surfing. It wasn't until he blew out his knee snowboarding that he gave solo paddling a shot. The freedom of being able to draw his own lines on a wide-open canvas of blue water satisfied both his inner athlete and artist, and he was hooked. At the time, the 20-year-old was pouring fiberglass for OC1 builder John Martin, so his understanding of how to paddle a canoe developed hand in hand with how to manufacture one. He went on to hone his skills with Karel Tresnak at Outrigger Connection and canoe designer Brent Bixler before launching his own operation, Kai Waa Hawaiian Ocean Canoes, in 2001.
Bartlett became adept at navigating the east side surf runs on his OC1, learning from roughwater cowboys like Wayne German and Pat Erwin. It was at Lanikai Canoe Club, home to a dynasty of paddling champions, that he embraced six-man (OC6) paddling and the mindset to be the best. "When I first showed up, Gale Berengue was our coach, and you couldn't slack. You almost had to exceed expectations every time," Bartlett recalls.
Kai Bartlett, in his workshop at Kai Waa on Maui, enjoys designing canoes as much as paddling them. "I love the process of designing, especially hand-shaping," he says, describing the satisfaction of carving a square block of foam into a sleek vessel.
"Kai was an instant star not just because of his talent but because of the miles he put in on his OC1, long before he got in his six-man with the other novice paddlers. They built a crew around him and rocked the house," says Lanikai paddling legend John Foti, recalling how Bartlett's novice crew became state champions in 1999. "Kai rolled up the ranks a lot faster than anybody because of his tenacity, his talent and his willingness to put in the time—and enjoy all the pain and suffering that comes with that."
Nurture or nature, Bartlett has both. For three decades he has been a relentless competitor and a regular on the podium. He has won the Molokai Solo—the race across the Kaiwi Channel from Molokai to Oahu that's considered the world championship for OC1s—five times. He's also won ten times with a relay partner and three times in an OC6. In 2001, Bartlett's Lanikai crew won the third leg of Hawaiki Nui, the only time a Hawaii team has ever won any part of the three-stage, interisland marathon in French Polynesia. "My dad has eighty-nine medals," boasts Bartlett's 5-year-old daughter, Keliana. That number might be missing a zero.
One of Bartlett's most memorable victories was the 2005 Molokai Relay with Patrick Dolan, who was a high school junior at the time. Dolan first caught Bartlett's attention as a determined 14-year-old—he'd paddled two miles offshore on a ramshackle converted surfski to join the Lanikai men for training. "I was blown away to see him out there. So I offered up one of our boats just to know he was on a safer product," says Bartlett, who took Dolan under his wing. "Pat showed his grit early on—he was hungry. When he sticks his mind to something, he accomplishes it." Dolan won the 2024 Molokai Solo, setting a new course record that broke his former one. He dedicated every stroke of his race to Bartlett, who was also the best man at his wedding. "I could ask Kai anything about paddling. A lot of the mistakes people make I was able to bypass because he gave me the answers," Dolan says. "Kai's never asked me for anything. He's only given."
Perhaps Bartlett's most definitive win was the grueling 2007 Molokai Solo. With stiff headwinds and a new course that added six miles to the usual thirty-two, a third of the field quit mid-channel. "Kai passed us in Hawaii Kai smiling. Winning that long solo on a bad day—that's a cut above," recalls former Lanikai coach Pat Erwin. "With his mental ability and physical talent, he could have done anything. I'm glad he chose canoes. This sport would be different if he hadn't."
"When he's making boats, the guy is burning the midnight oil all the time," says Bartlett's teammate Kekoa Cramer, seen above paddling Kai Waa's latest one-man model, the Vela. "He never had a schedule. The schedule was now until it was done." Bartlett's watercraft, now sold in seventeen countries, are prized for their performance in open-ocean conditions.
Bartlett moved Kai Waa to Haiku, Maui, in 2003. He was dating waterwoman Lauren Spalding, who was preparing for the 2004 Olympics in flatwater kayaking. Both were maniacal competitors. (Spalding has won more Molokai races than any paddler, male or female.) In 2005 they had a daughter, Lea, who got a double dose of the "extreme" gene—she's now 19 and excels at running horses around barrels at terrifying speeds.
The fringe benefit of headquartering Kai Waa in Haiku was its proximity to one of the most exhilarating downwind runs in the state, from Maliko Gulch to Kahului. Some days Bartlett would paddle the nine-mile run three times—he knew it so intimately, he dissected it into five distinct sections. "Kai has a different inner tick, a level of pushing that most people don't have. One time, he did Keanae to Lahaina, one crack. That's over forty miles," says Spalding, noting that he's not motivated by beating or impressing others. "It's just his inner thoroughbred that wants to run. He wants to catch the next wave and go as fast as he can."
Bartlett's mother, Mary, a competitive runner, modeled his discipline. "Bottom line, he trained harder. If his friends trained five days, he'd do six," says his dad, Tom. "He'd do morning sprints and afternoon distance, all the while building canoes."
"When you train like that, you get on a high. It's like you want more. I wanted more," Bartlett says. His attitude keeps him from getting burned out: "Main thing is keeping it adventurous and keeping it fresh. It's nothing to get too stressed out over—it should be fun."
"Kai was vicious in the Kaiwi channel," says former Team Primo teammate Will Reichenstein. "The way he would chase bumps was unlike anybody I've ever had as a stroker," the person in the first seat, who controls the pace. "He would take a huge wave in the face, we'd drop in, he'd take another huge one in the face and he'd still keep going for the next one and the next one and the next one."
Reichenstein started working for Bartlett in 2013. This was pre-mass production, when there were only a handful of canoe makers, and each boat was painstakingly hand-built. It was a labor of love that Bartlett was willing to teach, and Reichenstein wanted to learn. "There wasn't a lot of hand-holding. It was 'Hang on tight,'" recalls Reichenstein, who now makes his own canoes in California. "The way he taught was very cut and dried, very specific. Eventually, if you did it that way, you'd be able to do it yourself."
For Bartlett, a favorite adventure is paddling interisland. Bartlett and friends cross the Pailolo Channel between Maui and Molokai.
In 2017, Kai Waa turned all his manufacturing over to Ozone, which transformed the industry by manufacturing canoes in China and distributing them across the world. Today, Bartlett's OC6, OC2, OC1 and surfski models are distributed in seventeen countries, from Brazil to Singapore to Russia, and Kai Waa is one of the sport's three principal brands, along with Puakea Designs and Kamanu Composites (which still manufactures its canoes in Hawaii). Bartlett's Ares OC1 model, known for its ability to surf waves in the open ocean, is still considered one of the best, even after ten years on the market.
Bartlett's passion and rigor applies as much in the canoe as in the shop. He turned the small club at Wailea, Maui, into a powerhouse. Wailea (formerly Team Primo) was the first Hawaii crew across the line in the 2024 Molokai Hoe. "A lot of my best experiences have been in the six-man. I've had some fun, great experiences in the one-man, but it's like the title says—'one man'—so you get to share it with yourself," says Bartlett, whose teammates at Wailea are like brothers. "When one of us wants to barbecue, we're all barbecuing. We've had a lot of priceless runs together, where we're not just doing a run but camping on another island."
In 2012, Bartlett met Kealani Kimball, a Division I volleyball player at Loyola Marymount and successful sports marketer in Los Angeles who had been planning a move back to Hawaii. "I wanted to slow down and be back in the ocean and enjoy where I was from, and Kai represented all of that," she says. Kealani now manages Kai Waa, freeing Kai to design. They married in 2015 and had a son, Kaiakea, and a daughter, Keliana. "Kai's very salt-of-the-earth core. His decisions are driven by lifestyle and community, and he wants it to be about his family," says Kealani. "I think you fall in love with someone because of who they are. Kai's all about the ocean and getting out and doing things, so I can't help but enjoy those moments with him because I see him at his happiest."
In November 2023, Bartlett was inducted into the Hawaii Waterman Hall of Fame, and Reichenstein flew to Oahu to celebrate. "I'm not aware of anyone else who designed, built and manufactured his own boat and won a lot of races with that boat," he says. "He's always taking it to the next level of 'How can I make it better?'" says Reichenstein. "Now he's designing boats with double amas [outriggers], opening up the sport to the whole para [people with disabilities] world. I remember calling Kai to say 'Hey, I just shaped my first ama. I haven't been this addicted to something in I don't know how long.' And he goes, 'Yeah, man, I get it.'"
"It's been humbling to witness the amount of people in the world who love Kai," says Bartlett's wife Kealani, pictured here with Kai and their daughter Keliana. Since Kai's battle with cancer began in 2022, Kealani says, "So many people are checking in. That's a testament to the life he's lived."
On January 7, 2022, Bartlett woke up with a nosebleed after months of feeling fatigued. He checked into the emergency room and was life-flighted to Oahu. COVID protocol at the time didn't allow for visitors, so he was alone when doctors informed him he had cancer. "For five days I was stuck in there by myself. I felt lost and definitely scared of what the future had to hold," he says. In staring down the unanswerable question of why, he considered the chemicals he'd been exposed to from decades of building boats. "I wasn't angry but I was sad. I just had to dive into it headfirst and fight it."
Biopsies confirmed an advanced stage of multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer that develops in plasma cells, and a week later Bartlett began chemotherapy. For the past three years, he has been constantly fighting, undergoing treatment after treatment, from a stem cell transplant to different types of immunotherapy. In the summer of 2023, he suffered neurotoxicity as a side effect, which resulted in severe shoulder pain and muscle soreness, plus a loss of ability to express emotion, which muted his hearty laugh. Today he's on a new antibody treatment that has put the cancer in remission for now, and his neurological state is improving.
"A good day for me now is getting in the water, getting a workout in even though it's difficult, getting some stuff done around the house, spending time with the kids," says Bartlett, who focuses on designing boats when he can't paddle them. "That to me is a good day. It means I was productive."
The best days are when he gets to be in his element—like surfing his canoe across Pailolo. "With everything he is going through, he went twenty-six miles and didn't blink, all smiles the whole time," says Wailea teammate Tyson Kubo. It's phenomenal, considering his workouts typically last an hour and he'd had treatment just the day before. "There were moments I thought I had to throw in the towel, but I knew I had to finish it. I felt compelled to do it," Bartlett says, his will as indomitable as ever.
The family that paddles together: Both Kai and Kealani's parents live on the south shore of Molokai, where they paddle regularly. Naturally, when the grandkids visit, the ocean is their playground. Keliana (left rear) and her friend Kauaihi (front) get ready to race against older brother Kaiakea (right), with Lanai in the distance.
Kai is at the wheel as Manaiakalani whisks the gang back across the channel from Molokai to Maui. Kealani's mom, Camie, waves a flag from their yard as the boat passes, and Kealani waves a pink towel in response. Whales slap and breach all the way back, and everyone stares at the sea in silent appreciation.
"When he gets in his one-man or the six-man, he's Kai Bartlett. We always say he has a shield ready for battle," says longtime Wailea steersman Kekoa Cramer. "My favorite times are afterward, being able to drive the boat back with him. We're out there for five or six hours. Maybe we're dragging lines or having a beer, and he's smiling and light and able to be the same as the ocean. That's the Kai that is in his comfort zone, just flowing with everything."
