PWA Maui day 7

The wind got back and we were able to run the whole event, men and women.

Actually, the head judge said that if tomorrow it's windy enough, we will run the losers bracket of the men's board. But at the same time tonight they announced the winners, so that's a little confusing... because usually the winner of the losers brackets gets another chance to challange the winner of the winners... oh jesus, too complicated.

Let's get to what happened today.
We started quite early with the first heat in the water by 9.45am.
The wind called for sails around 5.0 and the waves were not the best that Hookipa can offer, but still...

Not many surprises during the event. Here's the only two.
Kauli got eliminated in his second heat by Kai Katchadorian and his good friend Ricardo Campello. And he had to give up his ambitions for the wave world cup title.
Daida Moreno sailed a heat like I have never seen her sailing (that bad, I mean) and got kicked out too. Her sister Iballa won the women, Karin Jaggi second and Junko Nagoshi third.

The final of the men was between the four sailors that had impressed me most: Polakow, Siver, Angulo and K. Pritchard. A classic. Unfortunately the conditions weren't classic at all and I think that Polakow was the one that was most penalized by them. He just loves big waves. He's good at spotting and ripping the best wave of a big, long period swell. Today's swell period was 10 seconds...
So, he got fourth. And he was the only one that everybody agreed on.
The other three were pretty damn close. Not all the judges agreed and after the tabulation of the marks Josh Angulo was first, Pritchard second and Levi third.
As you can see from my sheet below, I had Pritchard winning. I gave him a 7.5 for a one foot aerial off the lip. It was the only move he did on that wave and I've been pondering if I judged it too high, seen the final result. I had to go see the guidelines again. Even though it says that waves with more turns should be judged better than waves with only one big move, it also says that quality should score more than quantity. And that was a quality move for me, so I still think it deserved that mark.
More results one the PWA site.


By the way, those are Robby Swift's fingers, not mine.
And this is the hand of one of the judges. But I took the photo because of that huge ring!


Here's the winner, probably thanking Jesus...


I could only take a few videos during pee breaks. Here's a nice goiter by the frenchman Thomas Traversa.


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Here's one of Angulo's one hand aerials during the semi-final. The voice of the announcer belongs to Jace Panebianco that today told me that he likes my blog... thanks Jace!


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Remember all those 1s in the sheet? That's when a sailor kicks out of a wave, like Angulo does in the following video. But also check what Levi can do on a poor looking wave like that. Two clean and tweaked aerials. Quite impressive.


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Last, but not least, a short interview with one of the nicest guys around: Francisco Goya.


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That's all folks! No wait. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!!!
My friends didn't do the longboard sailing test today.... thank god. Eventually they'll do it tomorrow. I'm still supposed to be judging, but... if the wind is too light for the contest, maybe I can ask for a half day off...