Kai Bartlett’s Illness – The Cancer Battle That the Paddling World Watched With Heavy Hearts

Like a lot of paddling news, the announcement was made via Ocean Paddler TV and quickly and effectively reached the water community through social media posts. “Today, Kai Bartlett has left us after a long and heavy battle with cancer,” it said. A giant has left the paddling community.81,000 people had seen it in a matter of hours. Short sentences, broken ones, people reaching for words, and mostly just writing his name were all part of the comments, which were full of the kind of grief that doesn’t perform itself. Kai, I hope you rest in love.

Kai Bartlett had a protracted battle with cancer. The word “long” has significance in that announcement because it indicates that the death wasn’t unexpected or shocking, like some deaths are. Those closest to him were aware. The community probably had some idea that something significant was going on behind the scenes, in the way that close-knit communities always eventually sense these things. However, Bartlett did not make his struggles the most prominent aspect of who he was. Throughout the years he was competing, designing, and coaching, his public writing reads as though he was completely focused on the race, the water, the boat, and the people standing next to him. All of it is filled with a great deal of gratitude and very little self-pity.

You can get a true sense of his personality away from the spotlight by reading his blog, My Kaiwa’a Life. He wrote about the Chattajack, a grueling 32-mile paddle race on the Tennessee River, with the unclouded love of someone who takes on challenging tasks because they are illuminating. He wrote about his tenth Molokai Relay victory with the warmth of someone who recognized that the years of friendship and hard work that made it possible were far more important than the victory itself.

With the accuracy of someone who had given his craft serious thought for decades, he wrote about rudder installations, ama design, and the distinction between flat water and rough water paddling. Knowing that he is no longer with us, reading it now gives me the impression that every entry was subtly creating a record of a life lived intentionally, both on and off the ocean.

Kai Bartlett established Kai Wa’a, an outrigger canoe company that rose to prominence in the paddling equipment industry. Establishing a brand in a niche sport is really challenging because the market is small, the consumers are informed and picky, and trust is gradually gained through the caliber of the products you put in the water. Bartlett deserved it.

His canoes, such as the Ares, Vega, and Lele OC6 Ama, were created by a racer who understood not only the engineering but also the feel of a hull moving through chop, the way a longer waterline alters your glide, and the unique satisfaction of a boat that performs precisely what you need it to do in challenging conditions. He described the Lele Ama design as a project he wanted to “have fun with”—exactly the mindset that results in gear that people can trust with their bodies on open waters.

Bartlett was truly unique in the paddling world because he was a writer, designer, and competitor all in one. The majority of athletes don’t record their sport with the same attention to detail that he did. The majority of business owners don’t continue to compete at the level they did while establishing a business. He called himself an “adventurpreneur,” which might sound like a marketing term, but in his case, it simply described how he structured his life around movement, water, and creating worthwhile projects. His racing-related quote now reads, “Racing is racing, but being out there on the ocean and enjoying it with your friends is the priceless thing about paddling.” When he wrote it, he meant it. It reads as though the author has already determined what was important.

His fight with cancer was described as “long and heavy,” which together implies that it required a different kind of endurance than any race he had participated in. You develop a particular relationship with suffering when you paddle across open water in choppy conditions. You learn to remain in the moment, control discomfort without giving in to it, and maintain a steady stroke rate even when everything inside of you wants to stop. He might have benefited in some way from the same disposition that made him stand out on the water during his illness. It’s also possible that cancer is just something that doesn’t respond to the mental models that support other types of struggles. In any case, he had to face it, and his loved ones had to face it with him.

The Bartlett Ohana — his family, the Hawaiian word for the extended circle of people bound to someone by love rather than just blood — now carries the grief of his loss while also holding the full weight of what he built. Kai Wa’a goes on. The races he shaped still exist today. The group of paddlers who followed in his footsteps by learning from him, competing against him, or just finding their way to the water is still going strong. Although it’s not exactly comforting, that is something genuine. He still loves the ocean. It’s still being traversed by the boats he designed. And there’s a record of someone who kept a very close eye on those hulls for a very long time, somewhere in the way they sit in the water.