Big Hookipa

Second and last post update: at the end of the post I added a short clip of Robby's first wave and the links to a couple of other videos on the net. Enjoy.

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First post update: at the end of the post, I added a short gopro video of four waves at Kanaha. I'm not done yet, since I have more Hookipa clips to upload. Make sure to come back...

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As predicted, the waves were big at Hookipa yesterday, Friday September 25.

Photo of the day goes to Philippe, with a beautiful bottom turn right in front of a wall of water. Look how forward he's leaning. That way he's putting weight on the whole inside rail of his board and hence he's using it through its whole length. Well done.
I noticed that when the waves get big, I kind of like bottom turns shots more than top turns. Two reasons for that:
1) you see the big wave behind
2) most sailors, understandably, don't hit the lip just as hard when it's mast high or more...


And now the rest of the photos in strict chronological order.
Levi when the sun was still shining.


It's great to see old glories like Sierra Emory back in action. That board is AT LEAST eight years old.


Luke Siver, always stylish. This aerial was way bigger, but I caught it on the way down.


Michi Schweiger elegantly squeezed between the rocks without ending up on them. Sorry, no points for the Hookipa Rockstar Contest.


Keith Teboul.


Jason Diffin bottom turning on a monster.
Unfortunately from now on it got cloudy and the light is quite poor. That was a bummer for Jace Panebianco too, with whom I had the pleasure to share the spot on the bluff. He was filming for The Windsurfing Movie 2. On the movie website there's a lottery for some interesting prizes, like a trip to Maui. Check it out!


Interesting wipeout by Julien.


Another sweet lay down bottom turn by Jason Diffin.


Rush Randle. His board is probably even more than eight years old. Doesn't matter. Once you know how to rip, you rip no matter what you ride. Even though I have to admit that the new shorter multi-finned boards seemed to go more vertical.


Rush again.


And Rush again.


Robby.


This sailor escapes me in this moment.


The shorebreak bodyboard girls.




Robby.


Tormod sent me this shot. It might be the same aerial, but shot from a different angle and with a way better timing.


Levi.


And this is a short clip to show a bis set. I shot a few more of those, and I will add them whenever I got time together with some gopro footage of my Kanaha session. So come back to this post to check them out.


Quick forecast.
After this big swell that will stick around for the whole weekend, unfortunately the weather maps show a humongous high pressure dominating the north pacific for the next 8 days or more!
For Hawaii that means, strong trade winds, plenty windswell, but no ground swells whatsoever. Those are my least favorite conditions, but I am not going to complain at all because, no matter how shitty it will be for the Maui standards, it will still be a thousand times better than where I used to live in my previous life...
Plus the windswell at Hookipa or Uppers can be fun. Maybe I'll even score some points for the Rockstar Contest!

And here's the gopro video I shot the same day at Kanaha. Not exactly over mast high, but still fun. Check the sky in the background. Later on those clouds would turn red for quite a dramatic sunset.



PS. Mick Fanning won the ASP contest in France (in quite poor conditions). He's now very close to Parko in the rankings. Thanks to the $105,000 of the Trestles contest, he's actually leading the year earnings with a total up to date of $188,700... and that's from the contests only!

Here's Robby's first wave.


And here's the links to Jeff's and Bernd's (age 12) videos.