HILO, Hawaii — A Lake Havasu City paddling team grabbed a second place in a race in which they hadn’t planned participate.

Submitted photo courtesy of Kuba Cole. From left, Kuba Cole, Al Konishi, Lea Browning at the 18-mile Queen Liliuokalani Outrigger Canoe Race in Hilo, Hawaii, Sept. 4-5.

Lea Browning and Kuba Cole, members of the Lake Havasu Lake Havasu City Outrigger Canoe Club hoping to get in a little paddling work and some vacation. Arriving at the 18-mile Queen Liliuokalani Outrigger Canoe Race, Sept. 4-5, the largest outrigger canoe race in the world and the race in which Browning was hoping to compete, the duo found Al Konishi of the Keaukaha Canoe Club had entered a double hull crew for women over 40 years of age, using the Lake Havasu Team name, not knowing that there were actually two crew members from Lake Havasu on the Big Island.

Cole, a cancer survivior, borrowed a pink paddle honoring breast cancer survivors and the crew medaled taking second place in the Master Female Division with a time of 32:23, beating several younger crews.

“With your second place finish on Sunday, Lake Havasu is now in the record books of the Queen Liliuokalani Race, the world's largest canoe race and one of the most prestigious,” Konishi wrote in an email to Cole. “Not only that, the incredible way Sunday's race came together will be talked about here for a long time.”

Previous Havasu participants in Hawaiian paddling competitions included John Hendricks, raced in the Molokai to Oahu 42-mile long distance race in 2007 and in 2008, the Lake Havasu 40-year-old Master Womens crew raced 18-miles in the Queen Liliuokalani and the mixed Coed Double hull crew raced 5.5 miles.