Please help the Fremantle Outrigger Canoe Club

We are the Fremantle Outrigger Canoe Club (affectionately known by some as the FOCCers) and we have desperately needed a new canoe for some time. Outrigger canoeing is now a worldwide sport originally developed by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific. It typically involves a crew of six paddling a 14-m long OC6 canoe. It requires some strength and flexibility but togetherness in paddle-stroke timing is more crucial, making it an intrinsically social sport. It is a low-risk, low-impact alternative to many other water and land-based sports, offering people a way of staying healthy and active well into their senior years.

Our 24-year-old club is small, with fewer than 30 paddlers, most of whom are women (61%)

and most are over 50 (some over 70). We paddle on the Swan River and on the ocean at Coogee, but the ancient 1990s canoes we have are very old and very heavy (150kg+) and not in the best condition, making them slow, unwieldy, and increasingly unsafe. They require at least 4 strong people to launch them. A particular problem is that some older and/or mainly female crews can struggle to launch and, more importantly, retrieve a canoe by themselves.

We therefore set out in 2023 to buy a new ultralightweight outrigger canoe weighing just 65kg, despite our club’s small size and the hefty $35,000 price tag. These 65kg carbon fibre canoes are faster, safer, and easier to handle. We have had a lot of success in fund raising, winning $17,000 in grants from federal and local government. Coupled with fund raising (Bunning’s sausage sizzles and the like) in previous years (with more planned in the next few months) we are now getting agonisingly close to that price target. However, we are still around $7000 short of the canoe cost alone, and it is suddenly urgent to bridge that gap. The sudden urgency is because the government grants that we have won require that the canoe is bought and paid for in 2023, so we have ordered it expecting December delivery but surprisingly it is now arriving in Perth in September.

We would therefore very much appreciate your support in helping us help our older paddlers to remain in the sport for longer, to make it a little safer and much more enjoyable and exhilarating for all of our members. That will also help us retain more of the younger people that we regularly introduce to the sport. It will be like driving a Tesla rather than 1990s Holden Commodore with 500,000km on the clock!!!!

Of note, especially for local or sport-focussed businesses, we could consider granting naming rights for the new canoe in return for a major donation. We are also seeking ongoing sponsorship for the club in 2024 and beyond - contact us via our Facebook page for more information: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FremantleOutriggerCanoeClub.

Many thanks, in advance

Lorne , Club President.