With just two weeks to go before its first regatta of the season, the Hui Nalu Canoe Club received bad news this week.

Members of the club discovered Monday morning that lashings on more than 20 outrigger canoes used by the club had been cut, except for the double hulls that sit near the water’s edge at Maunalua Bay in Hawaii Kai.

But the necessary repair work didn’t deter paddlers, ranging in age from 8 to 70, who needed to get out and practice.

The club’s head coach, Denise Darval-Chang, sent word to all the coaches, and “400 amazing members came out (Monday) and redid it (the lashings).”

It took four spools of cord, worth about $500, and all the manpower they could muster to get it done in a day.

They re-lashed all the iako (crossbeams) to the hulls. The outside lashings (from the iako to the ama — outrigger float) had not been damaged.

“We had re-rigged every boat at the beginning of the season … about seven weeks ago,” Darval-Chang said.

“Culturally, it’s an inappropriate act,” she said. “You just don’t mess with Hawaiian culture like that. It’s like part of us. The canoes are very special pieces of equipment to the Hawaiian culture and Hawaiians in general. You want to cry when you see stuff like that.”

The damage was discovered Monday when a Hui Nalu crew took one of the canoes out for morning practice and it wasn’t riding right, said Jana Fraser, athletic director of Honolulu Waldorf School, which owns two of the damaged canoes.

When they got back to shore, they discovered several more canoes with the lashings cut, she said. Canoes locked in Hui Nalu’s hale were not damaged.

“Because the cut was so clean, it was clear that someone had used a razor blade or a knife,” Fraser said.

The school owns two canoes used by its students during the school year and Hui Nalu during its season.

Hui Nalu members filed a police report.

Darval-Chang said she suspects it may have been misguided youth or homeless people who have not been educated on respect, she said. “I don’t think it’s a prank thing or ill intention toward one club.”

Darval-Chang said the Waikiki Surf Club got hit about a month ago by someone who defaced its canoes with a permanent marker.