another sweet gopro surf session

That's the title of my last little video. Enjoy it.


The mount is a small flat plastic plate (it comes with the accessories you can buy on their website) with a superstrong 3M tape. On the plate, you can insert a quick release little arm on which the case is mounted. I put two plates on my 9.0 because I wanted to see the difference between the one all the way on the front and the one 10cm closer.
Result: the one of the very front does give a slightly bigger view of the surfing action, but turning the camera on and off requires me to slide those 10cm front and back on the board and that's something you don't want to do when you see a good wave coming your way...
So my suggestion is to put it in the farthest spot you can reach with your hand from the position you normally have when you paddle.


Well, since I now had two plates on my 9.0 I thought about using the front one to secure a safety line that would keep the camera attached in case the main plate would detach in the wipeouts. So far so good, that tape seems to be incredibly strong.
As usual, the video doesn't really show the height of the waves. Some of the waves I caught were well overhead (at least at the peak).
The thing is that (at least in that particular spot) I like to be in the upper third of the wave (where the wave is steeper and there's the most energy), so the camera will only show two-three feet of wave, even if there's plenty more under the board...
This to say that the mount survived big overhead sets on the head beautifully.
Now that I know how reliable they are, I grabbed a couple of more plates and put them on my other two main boards: an 8.6 and a 7.2 (stay tuned for clips of those ones). The cool thing is that if you don't feel like filming your session, the little plate on your board will not bother you at all.

In the meantime, here's another one from Thursday that I kept separate because it's a really long right. Not many places in Maui offer 38 seconds rides...
By the way, on the top right of this blog I added a link to my page on youtube with all my latest videos. Check it out, you might have missed some...
One of my favorites (and in my opinion quite underseen) is the tandem sailing one.


After two amazing days of surfing (that'll be Thursday and Friday), the trades kicked back on Saturday and Hookipa was really fun with sets up to head high.
I shot some clips with a new mount on the clew, stay tuned for those.
Sunday the wind was light and onshore and I gave my abused back a break.

The modelled weather maps show an unusual pattern for spring time. The high pressure is not as strong as it usually is in this time of the year and that will keep the trades on the light side. But that in Maui may well mean 5.2 instead of 4.7... Also, there's low pressures modelled to form north of us that could send some small swells out of NNW, but unfortunately nothing like last week's awesome one.

Beautiful clear skies here in Maui, perfect temperatures and ideal conditions for a full moon beach barbeque last night. Big thanks to (brazilian) Mario for cooking a delicious ahi in banana leaves and to Oly and Renata for the call.

Oh, almost forgot... I just got the last issue of Windsurfing mag. There's a nice article on longboard sailing by Josh Sampiero where they run again that magic helicopter shot that was published on double page a couple of years ago... this time a tad smaller :-)... stoked again! Get a copy at your book store or windsurf shop. In the meantime, here's that shot again. Thanks again to photographer David Blyth for taking it.

Here's a small quote from the article:
At the same time, Jeff Henderson’s longboard sailing on Maui had attracted some new followers – like the Italian Maui transplant Giampaolo Cammarota, whose voluminous blogging proclaimed to the world the pleasures of light-air wave sailing – even when he was living in high-wind heaven...


Last but not least, a few words of widsom from a fellow called Lee.

Save the Kuau Mart

The Kuau Mart is a little shop on the Hana Highway that is an institution for Maui's north shore surfing/windsurfing community.


Its location makes it perfect for a quick lunch break between Hookipa sessions. Lasagna, meat balls, fried fish and the legendary teriyaki chicken... everything at the Kuau Mart costs $4.17... and the leftovers are free when they close at 7pm!
Everybody loves the family that has operated it for years. The legendary Liona (one of the funniest ladies I have ever met) and her daughters have always made all the north shore residents feel at home when walking in the shop.
Quite easy to end up in line behind legends like Laird Hamilton or Robby Naish in there.

Unfortunately, the galloping Lahaina-ization process of Paia is about to hit it too.
The owner of the building, in fact, just asked for a rent increase of $5,000.
Here's the letter (click on it to read it).


Here's a few info on the number of tourists that every year visit Maui (2.5 million in 2006... and it's not going down!) that will help understand why the rents of shops in Paia are skyrocketing.
Most of the tourists that come to Maui will include a trip to Hana in their stay and Paia is on the way. It actually is the last town before getting into 52 miles of narrow and winding (and beautiful) road. Most of the tourists that go to Hana, hence decide to stop in Paia and... what do most tourists do in vacation? But of course, they shop!
Did you read that list of shops in the letter? None of them is, im my opinion, aimed to serve the local community (even though I confess I do splurge on a cup of gelato once in a while). They are all making business with the roaming tourists.

Can you blame them?
Can you blame the Kuau Mart building's owner for wanting to make more money, knowing that he can (a fashion shop will make enough money to afford that rent)?
But who is going to take care of the needs of the local community?

Exactly the same thing happened a few years ago with the Paia General Store, another piece of history that had to leave room to a new complex of tourist shops. Thank god Mana food is still there, otherwise Paia residents would have to go to Kahului for grocery shopping!

I don't know what to say. We live in a world that is ruled by money and there's not much we can do to change this on a global scale.
If you don't like this particular case though, you can stop by the shop and sign the petition below... will it help? I don't think so... but at least you will express your solidarity to the Nomura family!


-----------------------------------------------------------------

On a more positive note, the forecasted epic surfing conditions did happen and I am incredibly surfed out. My cut is fully healed, but two weeks out of the water didn't help keeping the muscles' tone up. Looks like even my skin got softer, since I have rashes on every single point of contact between body and board... time for a standup session, I guess. Been taking a bunch of little videos, stay tuned for that.

In the meantime here's a few photos I took from the lookout this morning, before heading towards my session.


Beautiful and glassy and with the usual drop ins.


Lastly, because of the very light (or complete lack of) wind, the Freak meeting scheduled for tomorrow at upper Kanaha has been postponed to Saturday June 7th.
Aloha.

Saturday 17th: first annual Freak and Meat at Kanaha!

Got a Super Freak, or want to try one?

Come to Kanaha Beach Park (Uppers) on Saturday the 17th of May and join the first annual Freak and Meat!
11:00am- 13:30pm Super Freak demos, and rigging clinics with designer Jeff Henderson.
2:00pm Freak helicopter shoot. Be one of dozens of Super Freaks on the water for beauty on the water! Images will be available to all participants!
3:00pm onwards- sailing, demos, Freestyle show with Diony and Friends.
6:00pm Freak Out party at Kanaha Kai shop.



Don't miss out!
In the meantime, enjoy the weather map of this morning (Tuesday May 13th). That is an unusual one for spring, as a matter of fact it looks a lot more like winter!
In fact starting today the trade winds will die till Friday (replaced by sea breeze or maybe even a puff of Konas) and Thursday it will be high surf advisory and epic surfing on the north shore...
The trade winds should be back just in time on Saturday. But bring you big sails... and your big wave board, since the swell will stick around till Sunday.

the GoPro camera on my longboard

Lately the folks at GoPro sent me a bunch of accessories and mounts for that magic little waterproof camera.

Among those, some little flat mounts with an incredibly adhesive 3M tape. I put it on the front of my 9.0 on a small day (the day before that epic one reported below) to check how tough it was. Unreal. The thing is stuck there and won't come off even if I try to pull it away as strong as I can. It can handle bigger surf for sure.

This day I sat on the shoulder for a few waves and then I took the camera off, put it in my pocket and went on the peak together with the pack of surfers... It was the first time I used the longboard after a while (and you can tell!).
In fact, after having started longboard surfing six years ago, I'm now trying to get into shortboarding (great idea at my age!) and I've been mostly riding a 7.2.

Almost ready for a 6.6. Almost... the lack of practice doesn't help. Fortunately, next week is lining up nicely. A typical winter situation is about to happen, with a front coming close enough to the islands to shut down the trade winds.
The model 8.5 days out shows a couple of winter caliber storms/fetches that should make next week an awesome one for surfing.
We'll see, because... as uncle Pat says, long term estimates are subject to a hell lot of things... low confidence is the latest one.

Ah, the video. Enjoy it... if you can. I promise next one I'll do better than that.

I hate being wise...

The cut is not sealed yet and it feels like if I bang it, it will open again and I will have to start the healing process all over again. So I'm wisely staying out of the water.

Fortunately, other than yesterday and today, the rest of the week won't offer much wave-wise, so that helps. Yes, believe it or not, even in Maui there will be a week without waves on either shores. It's spring time... summer is just around the corner and that's just the way it is.

Took some pics yesterday. None inspired me particularly for the main page, so I put them all in a slide. If the show stops, just click on the "x" on the top right and it'll start again.

Actually, now that I really think about it, there was one main page deserver...


PS. Very nice Laird photos in this article on Bill's e-mag Ke Nalu.

Surf and learn...

So that damn cut did keep me out of the water for four days... tomorrow there should be a nice bump from NNW and I hope I'll be able to wave sail.

Anyway, no complaints. It was totally worth it... because before it happened I caught four waves like these...


The toughest part was the drop: because of the offshore wind, you could only catch a wave when it was steep... really steep. But once caught, the same offshore wind kept the face pretty open.


This is a local guy that lives in my neighborhood. Great surfer and nice guy...


When I first saw this photo, I thought:"No way! This guy took off switched stance... no way! Who the hell is he, Jamie O'Brien?". Then I saw more photos of him, and he always has the leash on the front foot. So, my guess is that he had a bad cut or something on the back ankle and prefered to wear the leash on the front foot...
Smoked too much in the parking before getting in the water, is another guess... ;-)


And this is the last section where on some waves you could get barreled.


And that's how I got hurt. I saw that section walling up in front of me and I thought about going for it. But at the very last moment I figured that it would have not been big enough for me to squeeze in and I cut towards the beach (that'll be the rocks). Big mistake: I was caught by the heavy free falling lip (felt like a ton a water) and in the wipeout I cut my foot with a fin. Next time, I'll have to go for it, no matter if I make it or not. That's what all the more experienced surfers I asked told me. I can't wait to try next time on a wave like that again...

Surfing, simply the best thing on earth.

south shore firing

As a second update to this post, I insterted a slide show after the photos. Scroll down for it. ------end of second update-----

This is Diony in one of the two photos that made me go: oh my god... Look at that wave! How beautiful is that?!


OMG two: Francisco Goya.


This one shows how difficult the conditions were. A super strong offshore gust won't allow Diony to drop in this one and he's checking what's behind it... which is a very important thing to know every time you wave sail in such big waves.


Maybe this one wasn't an OMG, but sure was a WOW! Look at the amount of wind on the face of that wave... looks like snake skin. Francisco.


Diony aerial.


Heavy, mean looking lip.


All photos were shot at the best resolution that my camera allows: 2592x1944.

And here's the slide show.

----end of first update--------------------------------------------

As correctly forecasted on this blog 10 days ago (excuse me if I brag when I get it right), Maui's south shore went off today.

I caught four of the best waves of my life, before getting a cut on the heel in a major wipeout. Not too bad, could have been a lot worse. Maybe a couple of days out of the water... or maybe not!

Well, you guys lucked out 'cause that forced me to stay put and take plenty photos of the wave sailing action that happened in the afternoon somewhere else...
Tonight I'm too tired to sort them out, but I did find the time to edit a short video, though. Enjoy it and come back for the photos.



PS. The surfer in the video is a brazilian guy called Marcio. He's a super nice, non sponsored, absolutely stoked about surfing guy who has no shortage of guts.
At the end of this video he paddles into a major monster left at Jaws... hats off.

sweet week(s)

Last week was pretty sweet.

Let's see it backwards starting from the weekend that saw some killer wavesailing conditions. Saturday lowers was logo to mast high all day, with slightly onshore light winds.
My 5.0 superfreak ultralight is such a good sail in these conditions, that I now prefer it to my 5.5... no matter how light the wind is! I loved it and gave the day 5 stars.
Here's Chico enjoying the sunset session.


Between my sessions I sat and chilled out (i.e. took photos) on the beach.
I believe this kid was sent to the beach by his lazy dad (who was sitting in the shade under the trees) so that he could have an idea of the wind strength...


Mmm... strapped longboard...


Ops! We have a swimmer...


Mrs. Haselback proudly watches her son ripping. Nice reflection in her sunglasses.


Sunday was smaller and a tad windier. Still fun, but not even remotely as good as saturday. When it's up to riding a wave, the less wind I have the more I like it.
Talking about which, let's now move to the middle of the week that saw three days of fantastic glassy surf on the north shore.
I surfed so much that I didn't even have the time to take photos. These are from the past week somewhere on the south shore.




There's a high chance that this week will be sweet too. The south swell is on its way. With the Christmas island buoy out of service, there's no really way of telling how big it will be.
Well, actually judging from the first photos from Teahupoo it shouldn't be too small. How about that wipeout at number 13?
Here's more regular surfing action.

What can I say? Let's hope we won't get blocked too much, even though I'm afraid we will...

Life is good, despite Kahoolave.

-------------------------------------------------------------

PS. Just received this email that I'm happy to publish.

Giampaolo,

Victory!

San Francisco Intl Airport almost killed windsurfing
and kiting in south San Francisco Bay. We were
windsurfers at heart, but we spoke out as scientists,
lawyers, airline pilots, government regulators, real
estate developers, frequent flyers, and commuters to
fight SFO's colossal 10 billion dollar project.

Big news on SFO airport's attempt to construct
unnecessary new runways into SF Bay -- which would
have wiped out Coyote Point and most likely 3rd Avenue
too*.

A decade of blood, sweat, and tears.

http://forums.iwindsurf.com/viewtopic.php?t=14538

*The popular Third Avenue launch would most likely
have been wiped out as well due to massive silting of
the shoreline, and a likely 20 year ban on watersports
due to constantly moving construction barges
throughout the entire area and the massive dredging up
of toxic elements from deep in the Bay mud.

George
Board Member, SFBA

point of views

No wait... Maybe it should have been points of view, actually...

Anyway, this is some old footage that I finally found the time to edit. A little surprise appearance in the middle for the Hot Sails Maui fans. Enjoy.



Two words on the soundtrack.
My favorite band Porcupine Tree's leader/founder/soul Steve Wilson is one of the most prolific musicians alive. He has hundreds of parallel projects going on and has collaborated with literally thousands of other bands/musicians. Blackfield is just one of his side projects: a collaboration with israeli musician Aviv Geffen. So far they've published two cds, the first one (where the song of the video belongs) is imo the best and it's a masterpiece.
Lately, in fact, I had it in my car stereo and I was lazy enough to leave it there for like... a month! Every time I went surfing or sailing I had the last song that was playing in the car in my head and that felt really good.
Then one day I said: ok that's too much, I need to change.
I randomly picked two cds from the big collection at home.
First one was a Social Distortion one (how the hell did I get one?). Put it in... lasted three minutes.
Second one was a classic: U2's Joshua Tree. That one lasted 40 minutes (i.e. one complete listen) and then had to go.
I put Blackfield I back in and it's still happily spinning since...
It's one of those rare cds with not a single bad song.

No wind these days in Maui, but beautiful, glassy, epic waves out of 330 on the north shore. Epic surfing, loving it.
The wind is supposed to come back in the weekend. Then, next week, the forecasted solid south swell is totally confirmed: it's going to last all week with a peak on Wednesday.
Life is good.

Hana bike ride + uncle Pat + links

This is not a post, this is a whole magazine. If you watch/read all the stuff I posted it'll take you one hour, so take your time and maybe do it in several steps.

Hana bike ride
Couple of weeks ago I filmed a bike ride in Hana with the helmet mount that the guys at GoPro sent me.

The mount is extremely sturdy. Unfortunately the helmet was a couple of sizes too small and it just didn't fit good on my big head. In other words, the whole helmet was wobbly...




Here's the little movie.



Bored to death?
How about this one instead?


Cool, uh? You should check the motocross one on their website (didn't manage to embed it here...).

---------------------------------------------------------------

Uncle Pat
Here's a couple of questions I asked Pat Caldwell and his answers.

Q1. As long as I remember, last week's one was of the earliest big south swells of the last 7 years. And there's another big one just around the corner. Can this somehow mean that this is going to be a good summer for our south shores?

uncle Pat: We had a 4-5 Hawaii scale S swell in February this year, so this year started off goofy-foot (right foot forward). Not out of the ordinary to have a big S for mid/late April. 24/26/2004 we had a similar size from a similar direction (170-190 deg). Back to back big ones in 2002 4/25 and 4/29 also from straight south. So 3 out of 10 years we've had big ones in the last part of April.

Seasonal south swell forecasting is mega sketchy. On a positive note, after two years below average in counts of big days, seems reasonable to at least go back to average this year. And we're off to a good start!

Q2. Winter, on the other hand, wasn't particularly good wave wise because of those La Nina conditions. Is there any information already that can lead you to predict what kind of winter we can expect next? I know, long range estimates are subject to abrupt rebundling (and all those other pictoresque ways you say that... love them!), but still...

uncle Pat: Most climate models suggesting neutral or weak La Nina for next November-January. Such conditions should give average winter conditions, and average in Hawaii means an abundance of surf!

Read Pat Caldwell wave forecast for Oahu. Thanks Pat, we love you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Links.

Here's a few interesting links/videos.

This first one in particular really hits the spot. It's almost 20 minutes... come back if you don't have time now, but do a favor to yourself: watch it!
I really love this woman and what she says. Too bad that most humans instead let their left hemispheres rule/ruin their lives by things like money, power, being cool, looking good, etc...

My friend Nico's huge backloop

All these photos on surfline are really beautiful. But number 13 is unbelievable... that must have been a really cold gust!

This video is a little masterpiece. Can't believe it has been seen only 1,381 times... so far.

Interesting article on how the government uses the media to control the vast majority of population that watch tv news.

Last, but sure enough not least, this is a new technology that allows 360 degrees videos. Check the tow-in one at Teahupoo. Click on the screen and move the mouse around to change the point of view. Unreal.

AND, I just found the photos taked with the same camera on surfline.

PS. If you enjoy this blog, please show your appreciation by sharing its address with your friends. Thanks.

Hookipa 4 16 08

Here are the photos of a really good day at Hookipa.

Let's start with this beautiful bottom turn by Taka. The more I see the new Smack the more I want to try it. The yellow panel on the leech is dacron (hence, way lighter than monofilm or x-ply). The next dark one is a super light x-ply. The core is heavy duty x-ply. Having less weight on the outside of the sail makes it really light every time you move the sail around, especially in the jibe, but also in the bottom and top turns.


Diony's goiter (the two Hot Sails riders where shooting for Mistral).


John Skye rips.


I remember that Taka closed a sick move while I was taking a photo of him. Now, when I take a photo (at least with my cheap camera), I don't really see what happens next... so I'm not 100% sure this is the one I'm talking about. But, closed or not closed... what the hell of move is it?!? Forward off the lip? Graham, anyone... any guess?


Jason Diffin bails out in a very composed way.


Plenty more shots in this slide.

My sessions.
This day at Hoo was magic for me. I went out pretty early and for at least one hour we were like six. The wind was really light on the inside and the waves were glassy and smooth... not much power in the sail in the bottom turn, but... who cares when the water is so smooth and you can feel every single inch of the rail!
For the second time in my life, I felt the tip of my fin twist in a bottom turn.
Just to let you know what kind of feeling the absolute lack of chop allows you to experience.
It's official: glassy waves... I like them better than women!
Talking about which, sorry for this boring windsurfing post after the piggy one...

The day after, the first big south swell of the summer season hit. Everyone was on the south shore and I scored a really fun session at Hookipa instead, unusually uncrowded and head high (and glassy!).

And the day after (that'll be yesterday) I scored another beautiful sesh in one of my top 5 favorite surfing spots, this time on the south shore. Once again, glassy, shoulder high perfectly peeling waves. 12 people for an hour before unfortunately the crowd doubled.

Today, new N swell and Hookipa was a hell lot of fun with plenty logo high sets in the late afternoon. I went on the rocks, but no big deal... a few new holes in the board, already being repaired.
Tomorrow the waves should be slightly bigger... could be a Kanaha day.

AND, check this southern pacific weather map modeled for tuesday evening... geez, that fetch is huge and it's aimed straight towards Hawaii!
That means that, if this forecast will be confirmed we'll have another (bigger) south swell right in the middle of next week (can't wait to see the photos of the Teahupoo tow-in sesh).
Wednesday is going to be big. Really big. Epic Maalaea kind of big. I'm telling you with 10 days advance. Start planning calling in sick...


And now, time to go sip a well deserved beer at Jaques. What a life.
Rest of the world, excuse me if I'm loving it.

pig photoshoot

Well, there have been so many photoshoots these days (and more are still to come) that I felt like I should do one too (as a photographer, I mean).

So I hired argentinian top model Maggie and asked her to pose with a baby pig that randomly showed up at lowers.
This first one is one of the best and luckiest shots I have ever taken...


This one is not too shabby either...


No wonder he was all drooling!


Took a bunch of pics yesterday at Hoo... oh, what a sweet sesh that was... stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, check the photos of the first big south swell of the season hitting Teahupoo... unreal as usual.
The same swell is hitting Hawaii so guess what I'm gonna do right now...

Oh, thanks to Sam who did a post about me on his blog.

To kite or not to kite...

Well, despite the fact that it's windy as shit, I had a hell lot of fun the last few days.

Up the coast saturday afternoon, lowers sunday early morning and late afternoon and lowers again today from 6.15 to 7.15 (still fully powered on 4.5) are the sessions logged on my file. Btw, my 08 QUOLI up to date is 90 out of 98 for a "mere" 92%...

In the break between sessions on sunday I drove to Hookipa where there were all possible photoshoots going off. Lots of people on the bluff, parking in overflow, helicopters hovering over the sailors, all the gotha of the windsurfing world was there.
Unfortunately the light was pretty bad, I'm sure it was a lot better today (monday).
Here are some pics I took and a little story in between them.
This is Diony bottom turning on a bomb.


Here's the story. During my morning session, I admired a kitesurfer doing turns on a wave that I:
1) have never seen any kitesurfers do before
2) have never seen any windsurfers do before
3) will never see any windsurfers do in the future.

Here's Browsinho.


That guy was shredding the waves apart. He was riding down the line regular stance (front side). Every bottom turn he had his body almost parallel to the water with his right hand deep in the water and the left one on the bar.
Every top turn he destroyed the lip still with one hand in the wave and one on the bar.
He looked like Kelly Slater.

Tiffany training a dog to do table tops.


I was so impressed by that kitesurfer that I got out of the water determined to try to get back into kitesurfing (maybe on the first day of light steady wind...).

Levi.


IMO, kitesurfers have a couple of significant advantages compared to windsurfers:
1) the "engine" is way lighter
2) they are not as "tightly" connected to their sails.

Browsinho.


Advantage 1 allows them to ride smaller, thinner boards.
Advantage 2 allows them to move their bodies way more freely. Even though the really good windsurfers can sometimes pull out top turns with their front hand in the water, they can't take a hand off the boom during the bottom turn.
Having the possibility to put one hand in the water during a turn is a huge, huge factor.
Having a sail (with a longer boom) connected directly to their boards greatly limits the range of movements of windsurfers compared to kitesufers.

The life guards rescued a windsurfer with a broken mast.


An injured sailor. Mystery Bob took this photo. I donwloaded it from its collection that you can admire in its entirety on this Hot Sails Maui forum thread.
Don't know yet who the sailor is, but I'm sure someone will soon post a comment. Good luck to him!


These feelings (about kitesurfing) were reinforced by seeing Robert Theriteahu ripping on his kite during the evening sesh. He was all smiles until he dropped the kite in the wave zone in a lull... and that was the start of his kitemare... I saw him swimming for 15 minutes and then I lost track of him...

KP.


So in terms of pure wave riding, thanks to the new completely de-powerable kites, I believe kitesurfers can rip harder than windsurfers. If you guys don't believe it, come check that guy out...
But they still have some disadvantages. Here are the usual ones:
1) it is recommended to have somebody launch and land your kite
2) if the lines get tangled out there, that's the end of the session
3) even though way safer than a few years ago, it's still more dangerous than windsurfing
4) when in trouble, a windsurfers just lets go off everything and then eventually swims back to its gear and waterstarts again into his session. Instead for a kitesurfer it's harder to do so, because if he does so then it's really easy to get tangles in the lines... specially in the waves. That's why you see kitesurfers still hanging on their bars even in the gnarliest wipeouts...
5) they need more space. That means that it's harder to share waves with others.

Jesse Brown going for a no feet goiter...


Mmm... what to do? Give kitesurfing another try or not?

Hey, there were some sets! I told you... a significant bump from the north...


Let's see if somebody adds some constructive contribution here. Please don't send any "kitesurfing sucks" or "windsurfing has been canceled" kind of comment, because as I stated already, stupidity is not welcome on this blog.

The wind was more than 30... so clearly Laird was out standup surfing...


That's it for tonight. Sorry for the quality of the photos. Unfortunately I accidentally had the camera set on the poorest quality...

MFC K-One fin review

Testing a fin is no easy task.

For sure it's easier to test a sail or a board... so, I'm not even sure I'm good enough to write something about a fin, but... here we go.
First, a general consideration: in my opinion (and I know I'm not alone on this...) the main fin measure indicated by the manufacturer should be the area, not the length.
I mean, when you buy a sail do you ask for a sail that has a luff of 422cm or for a 5.0 squared meters?
Same should be for a fin: gimme the area, not the length!
Well, remember when the main measure for the boards was the length? Now it's the volume... things can change... let's see if we'll get someone in the industry to start introducing this little important detail...

This introduction will explain why I first struggled a bit to find the right setup for K-One 23cm that I was given.
Check this photo that compares it to another more traditional shape MFC 23cm fin.


See how smaller the area of the K-One is? In other words, if you get one, buy at least 1cm bigger then you think you need. Is that a bad thing? No, it's a great thing, because that 23cm I tested gave me the control and upwind sailing ability of a traditional 23 and the looseness of a traditional 21 or 22...


Fast planing and really loose in the turns, it was a perfect fin for the Goya 90l and 5.0 combo that I loved so much. It's the fin that I have in the video of the board's review post.

Forecast: ugly strong wind in the weekend with a significant bump from the north on sunday.
Small south swells starting this weekend lasting all next week with a peak around thursday (should be a decent one).
The last couple of days, seen the absolute lack of waves, I've been slalom sailing at sunset time (when the ugly strong wind finally gives up a little)... I can't believe it's slalom time again already!
This winter passed by in a nano second. It won't be remembered as a good one, seen the very few big NW swells. It didn't even feel like winter to me. Oh well, could be worse...

AZZ!

I guess the bike ride video will have to wait...

JUST received from photographer Benjamin Thouard four water shots of my beautiful self taken on March 30th... stoked!
Here's the first one. Click on it and appreciate the sky and the crispness of the colors.


Second one: I love the way the wave behind me looks... mean!


The third one was shot just after the second one.


This last one is on a different wave and was my least favorite one at first. But looking better at it, I could find some intensity in it...


Great thanks to Ben for achieving the impossible mission of making me look good while wave sailing.

PS. Never mind the title if you're not from Napoli...

east side surfing

Went to Hana for the weekend and scored some really good waves on the way.

The friday afternoon session was a bit crowded and the level in the water was extremely high... a bit too high for me. In fact, I caught only a few waves on the shoulder and then decided to go in and take some photos... activity in which I did much better. I had a hard time selecting the main page and the slide deservers: so many good ones!

Even though not as spectacular as the other younger surfers, I'm going to start with a sequence of this big hawaiian guy, because he had a great energy, always smiling in and out of the water.
Here he drops in a bomb...


...he makes the section...


...and he smiles his way to a final cut back! After that wave he came out of the water and still had the same smile on his face... the power of a good ride!


And now the young guns. Nice top turn leaning back with the hand in the water.


Just as above.


The highlight of my session was to get stuck on the inside behind this girl...


And now a couple of powerful top turns. First a front side one...


..and then a back side one. Check how in both cases the board is facing the opposite side of where the surfers were going. That's the revolution that Kauli brought into windsurfing with his super short boards and the twin fins: finishing the top turns like surfers do. Hats off to him for having introduced a significantly different way of wave sailing.


I swear: I was only interested in what she was reading...


The last two photos are of a young surfer that was technically very talented, but didn't have much respect for the lineup turns. He paddled on every wave that came to him (catching most of them)... I hate that. Sure, I guess that's what made him so good too...
Here's a nice cut back. Focused on where he wants the board to go next, wide spread arms, leaning into the turn, but still with the body perpendicular to and well centered on the board. Very good indeed.


And an aerial grab.


Here's the slide show.

The sunday session at the same spot was way better for me. Smaller (still shoulder highish), but only three of us out. What a difference!
In Hana, I surfed Koki beach and that was a huge amount of paddling for something like three waves. But I had a great bike ride that I filmed with the helmet cam, so stay tuned for that.

Aloha.

photoshoot-sneak-in master

First of all, BIG thanks to Griffin who drew my attention to this thing semi-hiding all the way downwind on the bluff... I would have not seen it otherwise.


Here's a funny story. I'll put photos of today's session at Hookipa here and there so that it hopefully won't be too boring.
Yesterday morning at around 11.30 I pulled in the parking at Hookipa. Only two sailors were out, both on Superfreaks: Andres and Ray. On the beach a photographer with a huge lens and two other people helping him.
I went straight to the photographers (who I had never seen before) and without even saying hi, I go like:"a Superfreak photoshoot and I'm not involved?"
They looked at me with an expression like:"who the hell are you?"

Ok, first break. This is Andres.


I asked:"do you guys mind if I jump in?"
What looked like the boss said:"thanks, but I think we're ok for now"
What?!?! I need to talk to Jeff... I tried to call him a few times, but there was bad reception and I just couldn't hear him.
So I sent him a text message:"sf photoshoot at hoo. Should I jump in? 4.7 with dolphin or 5.0 UL?"
He replied:"five".
Oh, now we're talking!
So I rigged the 5.0 and went back to the photographers saying:"I just talked to Jeff." - come on, that's just half a lie - "He needs photos of my sail too".
"Oh, well... alright."
"Any particular instruction?"
"No, no... just cruise..."
They seemed not particularly excited...

Here's Glenn. Love the water coming off the rail.


So I got in the water and did the best I could until the wind got just too strong.
I went back to the photographers:"I think I'm done, I can't hang on the 5.0 anymore"
One of them replied:"Now, what does 5.0 exactly stand for? Is that a measurement of the sail or what?"
... wait a moment, there's something wrong here...
"Do you guys know anything about windsurfing at all?", I dared asking.
"Well, honestly not much...".
"I'm just curious... how come Jeff called you guys then?"
"He didn't! We called him. This is a photoshoot for the advertising campaign of this new lens from Canon. We contacted Hot Sails Maui because we found out they have the most colorful sails in the market and we also asked for a couple of sailors to hire..."
"Ops... now I understand! Well, sorry about that, it was clearly a misunderstanding..."
"No worries. By the way we got some pictures of you too!"

Here's the huge lens.


In other words, I brought the art of sneaking in somebody else's photoshoot to the extreme.
Out of something like 3500 photos that those guys took in two days (6 hours sailing each day... Andres and Ray are absolutely wrecked!) they will keep only two for the ad and delete all the others of them... mine ones instead, will be kindly sent to Jeff!

The most colorful sails on the market... you don't need to be a windsurfing expert to figure that out... check this one out!!!


Ok, end of the story. By the way, I actually have a spare 5.0 superfreak in my car so if somebody would like to give it a try, email me and I'll be happy to lend it. In case you want to try other sizes, Kanaha Kai has plenty demos too.

Today, as forecasted, there were some fun waves out of NW. Even though they weren't the cleanest ever, I really, really liked the wind that, for a change, was a few degrees onshore and, as such, not gusty! What a difference!
This is Fabrice Beaux.


Andres again with his backloop n. 216 in two days.


Tomorrow is another day.

fireman for a day

Sunday I decided to take a day off and went for a bike ride.

When I stopped by Hookipa around 4 though, Andres' gear was there ready on the beach and I couldn't resist the temptation.


Underpowered (thank god) on a 4.2 with only crappy windswell... who cares when somebody else rigged for you...


and there's still whales around...



and you can uphaul on a 75l board...


Yeah right, nearly!


Thanks to Andres for rigging, taking photos and derigging. Feels good to have a caddy for once in your life...

Forecast looks good with some small NW swells starting tomorrow (2 feet, 15 sec from 315 at the waimea buoy tonight) till friday. Probably too west for Kanaha, allright for Hookipa. But then in the weekend a big (messy, full of energy, strong current, easy to break stuff) NNE one will hit.

We shall wave sail.