Cook Islands top Vaka Paddler Reuben Dearlove trained hard every day determined to better his performance  in last years Te Aito Cook Islands event. He was successful and for the 3rd time in as many years of the event, Reuben beat all challengers and once again claimed the title of Te Aito Tane 2012.

After delays due to extremely rough ocean conditions the original race of 24 kms was shortened to 16kms and Reuben clocked in the winning time of 1 hour and 17 minutes. Second place went to a young Tahitian paddler who finished just over 5 minutes behind Reuben in a time of 1 hour and 22 minutes.

As a champion of the Te Aito Challenge, Reuben has clocked many ocean miles in the many scheduled global Vaka Regattas that he has competed in. He is an expert paddler of the single man Vaka and is just at home with his team mates in a 4 man or 6 man Vaka.

Cook Islands News and Pacific Resort Hotel Group have partnered to sponsor Reuben in exchange for the promotional benefits of sponsorship and the simple satisfaction of seeing a champion doing better than better!

In addition, Reuben’s dedication to the sport and his self disciplines in maintaining his regime of family, business and sport, was recognised by Cook Islands News and Pacific Resort Hotel Group with financial support to custom build a new V1 Canoe which will put him on a level competition with other top competing paddlers in the sport.

Reuben’s ultimate goal is to place in the top 100 at the Te Aito Tahiti in order to qualify for Super Aito a race reserved for the worlds most elite paddlers, and having you own customised V1 Vaka will be a huge advantage.

We invite you to join the Pacific Resort Hotel Group and Cook Islands News in supporting Reuben in his determination and success to qualify and join the World’s most Elite paddlers for Super Aito 2012.