Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole was an early aficionado and commissioned the first canoe specifically built for racing, the ʻAʻa in 1902.

[2] The original Hawaiian name Mālie refers to the relatively calm waters of the Kona Coast on the leeward side of the Big Island, the site where the canoe was made.

According to Tommy Holmes: An interesting sidelight of the first Catalina-to-Newport race in 1959 was the alleged pirating of a fiberglass plug of the Malia.

By 1981, models of the Mālia had begun spreading to Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, Samoa, and to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf Coast, and Great Lakes across the United States.

Every serious outrigger canoe club, however, aims to acquire at least one Mālia made of koa wood and other traditional materials.