NNW swell

The highly hyped NNW swell arrived and Hookipa went off. Choppy conditions due to a very high tide and a mix of windswell. A hundred people out, way too crowded.

Despite the fact that the session was clearly (IMO) dominated by Levi Siver, the best photo of the day goes to guy on a Smack (is it english Phil?).
As Ray suggested (check his photo reportage from the north shore of Oahu), I changed spot and took this one from the beach. Nice angle, but way too many good photos ruined by the other sailors in the way. I went back to my usual spot on the cliff...


Here's a start of a Kai Lenny mini sequence: a push loop.


Unfortunately he breaks the tip of his mast in the process and heads back to shore. He is a bit too downwind, so he tacks and heads out again. He gets a gust, sees a set and...

Throws a big "broken-mast-ditch-mid-air backloop". Click on the photo to appreciate it better.

Here's how his gear looked after that. Forget about sailing back upwind like that, he heads towards that little bay just downwind of the rocks...


Not before having caught another one. If you click on the photo, you can see that he's totally laughing...









A huge backloop by Andres Martinez. I always sit on the same spot on the cliff, so when a sailor reaches the horizon line it means it's a really high jump.


Jason Prior always has peculiar outfits.


Levi.


Pato.


Yoshi hits the water to dominate (and create) the over 60 category... good job!


Francisco Goya mid wave 360.


Patrick Bergeron in a way too busy photo.


What was I stalking about?


Keith.


Levi.


Unkown sailor on a new Goya sail. Interesting talk by designer Jason Diffin about sail stretch control on the Windsurfing mag main page.



My sessions report.

I went out at Hookipa around 1 when the crowd was still acceptable, but soon it became clear that there wasn't enough room for everybody.
Then I moved to Lanes, but it was as choppy as it gets. So decided to save my energy for the evening sesh. I love when I do the right thing...

I caught my last wave at 6.50, after having sailed the last 20 minutes completely alone in the light of a beautiful full moon.
Wave sailing in the dark is a trip. Here in Maui the moon rises upwind (east), so when you go down the line (west) you don't really see the wave. You got to go by feel.
It's a bit scary, since you don't even know exactly how big is the wave you're on and what kind of section you have in front of you.

Nonetheless, I was so lucky to even stick an aerial. I felt the wave becoming steep under my rail, I pictured that there was a lip right downwind of me and I went for it. And I can't even do aerials with the sun light!!! Maybe I should close my eyes every time I'm on a wave... nah, the other sailors wouldn't like that.

Guess, what... that wasn't even the highlight of my session!
In fact, I managed to do a manouvre that I always dreamed of when I first saw Robby Naish and Sean Ordonez doing it years ago. I don't know if there's a name for it.
You're heading out, you see a wave, you jibe on it but don't flip the sail and ride it like that going upwind, backwinded and with the feet still in the footstraps of the old side.
I did it on the first wave of my second session and it felt terrifically good. And then I did it again.

I'm overly stoked.

Forecast.

As you can see, the swell peaked already, but now there's another component of 10 seconds period.


That'll make it more consistent, but less clean/organized and with occasional big sets (when the two components will overlap on the reef).
Windwise, the weather map doesn't look as bad as forecasted. Considering the variety and richness of my light wind quiver (a couple of sailing SUPs, The Experiment and a few over 80 wave boards), I may end up rigging a sail today too... but right now is glassy, I'm going surfing!

PS. I predict a period of prolific blogging. If you enjoy this blog, please do me a little favor to reward me for the huge amount of time and passion that I put into it: forward its address to all your friends that may like it. Thanks!