Aloha Classic day 4

Uh, what another tough day at the beach!

Conditions: light wind (best three waves, no jumps) and shoulder to sometimes a little overhead high waves.
The first in the water were the Juniors (under 18). Kai Lanny won the final against the Brazilian phenomen Brausino, who is known for his crazy double forward loops. Not enough wind for those and Kai just killed it with an extremely good wave selection. And he's only 14!
Here's what he has to say.

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Was I shooting right into the sun or what? Hey, you learn by mistakes right? Tomorrow I'll try to remember that...
It was than time for the final of the Open Men division: Jesse Brown and Josh Stone. Here are all the 9 waves ridden in the 12 minutes heat.

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And here's what the winner has to say.

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Here's Pietro explaining Jesse why they call him "downtown" Brown.

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The menehune division (under 13) was won by Connor Baxter and Paulina Pease won the Junior women.
The day was closed by a supersession with all sailors (even the pros) in the water trying to boost the best air manouvres in twenty minutes. Josh Angulo, evidently arrived in Maui, did one of his sick one hand aerials and won a coupon for an interisland ticket.

That was the end of the Aloha Classic, a great "family oriented" event keeping up with its name and history. Good job to the organizers, competitors and especially the judges... and especially me!

Tomorrow the PWA pro event will start and it's going to be a different music (I'll be judging again, by the way). Less about the fun, more about winning. Which I don't necessarily like as a vibe, but the level of the sailors is going to be the highest available on this planet.

I would love to make my own weather forecast, but my main mid term forecast tool is not working and I have to stick to what Pat Caldwell says (please, let's not even mention sites like Windguru on this blog...). And what he says is not so good. There might be still some light wind tomorrow, but then it should become really light and from the south over the weekend. A decent north swell should arrive on Tuesday when the wind is forecasted to be from SW. I wonder if there will be good conditions at Lanes with the Kona. That would be interesting to watch if they will compete there...
I think they got time till Nov 17, which is next Friday, so everything can happen.

I have no clue who is going to win it. I can only throw there the usual names: Kauli, Polakow, Levi, the Pritchards, Angulo. I really hope that there will be some good conditions at the end of next week, because these guys rip. Watch out some of the young brazilians, the light wind conditions could favor their ability to throw freestyle tricks in the waves.

Whatever it will happen, I'll make sure you guys will know...
Damn, I don't even go out anymore to do this blog!