Two of the state’s oldest and largest canoe clubs, the Outrigger Canoe Club and Hui Nalu Canoe Club, have decided not to compete in the State Championship Regatta to give Kauai’s north shore more time to recover from last year’s flooding and this year’s landslide.

Concerns about whether Kauai’s north shore is ready to receive large groups of visitors prompted both clubs to vote against sending any teams to the Aug. 3 event, which is expected to bring upward of 5,000 paddlers and spectators to Hanalei. It’s a significant sporting loss since the clubs, which both date back to 1908 and have ties to the state’s legendary waterman Duke Kahanamoku, might typically bring up to 500 paddlers between them.

The region is already dealing with all of the heightened emotion that came with Monday’s reopening of Kuhio Highway into Haena after it was closed for reconstruction for more than a year. While there was some praise for tourism management at Ha‘ena State Park, the new limits pushed visitors without permits to other parts of the community — leaving rubbish on the pristine shores and walking on the region’s delicate reefs. Speeding motorists, who killed two pet dogs in the community, helped spark a community protest Tuesday that saw residents climbing onto tourist cars to block them from entering the area. By Wednesday, officials had worked with the community to restore a fragile peace to the region.

Walter Guild, chairman of the canoe racing committee for Outrigger, which has about 370 registered paddlers, said Outrigger made an early decision to withdraw because if it had waited it could have run afoul of hard travel deadlines and faced significant forfeitures. But Guild said Outrigger’s more pressing concern was sensitivity ” to the environment, the town and the people of Hanalei.”

“Earlier this week, they struggled with the reopening of the road down to the end of Ke’e Beach. I’m sure in a month and a half that it might be better, but they are just getting themselves on their feet. We did not want to burden the community,” he said.

Denise Darbal-Chang, head coach for the 470- registered-member Hui Nalu Canoe Club, said withdrawing was an easy decision for the club’s board.

“It’s rude to go into someone’s home when they are still trying to get on their feet,” Darbal-Chang said. “I don’t know that most of the community is even aware that they could have thousands more people coming to trample on their precious land when it’s just starting to come back. We love racing, but not under these conditions. We won’t be a part of not allowing the land to heal.”

Walter Vierra, president of the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association, said the organization, which hosts the state event, decided some months ago to keep the event in Kauai at the urging of the Kauai Outrigger Association, which indicated that the island was prepared to host the event and wanted the economic stimulus that it brings.

Kauai has only one opportunity every six years to host the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association State Championships. Proponents say the event would be a boon for Kauai’s tourism economy, which has experienced significant losses over the last year. In April, visitor arrivals to Kauai fell almost 5% to 106,009 and spending decreased nearly 15% to just over $134 million. During the first four months of the year, Kauai experienced a more than 2% drop in arrivals, which fell to 439,971, and spending declined nearly 7% to almost $618 million.

“There’s a dichotomy on Kauai. On one side, there are people that don’t want more people there because they are still in recovery. On the other side, there are some businesses that have had a hard time economically and want people to know that Kauai’s north shore is open,” Vierra said. “We followed the recommendation of our hosts from Kauai.”

Mahina Laughlin, who owns Aloha Pearls Hanalei, said she hopes that the Oahu teams will reconsider and that more won’t follow suit.

“This event brings thousands of people to Hanalei and the businesses need it. After Tuesday’s protest, there’s been a lot of back and forth about Kauai’s north shore being unwelcoming. We are welcoming and we have aloha and I’m sure we can all work together to pull this off,” Laughlin said.

Despite the April 2018 flood, which decimated parts of Kauai’s north shore from Hanalei to Haena along with the rest of the island, the county worked hard to ready Hanalei for the regatta and by year’s end had the support of all 11 of the isle’s canoe clubs.

But this April brought a devastating landslide which delayed the reopening of Kuhio Highway to June 17 and brought new construction into Hanalei Bay. That prompted both of Hanalei’s canoe clubs, the Hanalei Canoe Club and Namolokama Outrigger Canoe Club, to ask event organizers to move this year’s event to Oahu and postpone Kauai’s hosting duties until next year.

They reasoned that Kauai’s north shore communities were still rebuilding, along with the Hanalei canoe clubs, which have had challenges keeping membership up this year. The 14-month closure of the 2-mile stretch of Kuhio Highway into Lumahai, Wainiha and Haena that left drivers at the mercy of convoy schedules made it difficult for some paddlers to get to practice. The closure of Weke Road and Black Pot Beach Park, which still haven’t reopened, also has cut off driving access to the Hanalei canoe club hales, which are about a half-mile walk from parking.

Adam Roversi, Hanalei Canoe Club men’s coach and steering committee member, said, “We thought it would be better to delay the event to allow everyone to recover, even more so after the landslide. But when they overruled us, our position is that we would make the best of it and participate as well. We didn’t want to undermine the stat e races.

The paddling community is generally respectful and cares for places that they go — as long as that’s the way this works, hopefully the community will embrace that,” Roversi said.

Officials have indicated that Weke Road and Black Pot Beach Park will have reopened by the time the regatta takes place, said Kauai County Council member Luke Evslin. The county, organizers and community members will work to coordinate traffic and parking, Evslin said. The state, which started working on Kuhio Highway into Hanalei Bay after the landslide, are planning to pause construction for the event, he said.

“Outside of Hanalei, there is probably unanimous consent to support the race on Kauai,” Evslin said. “Those inside of Hanalei, that have gone through a very traumatic year and a half, certainly some of them feel too much is going on given the limited infrastructure and given that Black Pot and Weke aren’t open. It might be hard for them to see how we would have the state race in six weeks. But improvements are expected to be completed well before the race.”