Well, the wind blew and it was an action packed day!
The sky was a bit gloomy at the 10am skipper's meeting.
The blog author gets ready for his heat. Six pack is gladly back. (thanks Nino for the photos)
The other guy didn't show up, so it was only Jeff, Colin and me. Three Hot Sails on the water, we just launched. On the reef, the first waves of a fairly big set. Transition time was two minutes, we used it all to wait that out.
The big set is peaking. Jeff and I waited it out on the inside, while looks like Colin is going to try to poke through.
After the big set was gone, it was pretty flat and, despite the light wind on the inside, it was quite easy to sail out. Here I'm seeing that Jeff will be in position for a nice medium wave (you can't see it in the photo because the zoom flattens everything out), so I decide to quickly tack and grab the smaller one right in front of it.
Still checkin on Jeff and probably thinking:"yeah, Jeff's wave is better, but this one is better than nothing..."
Still can't see my wave, can you?
And there it is. I caught a bunch of those little ones. It wasn't a planned strategy. It was just that I didn't see any big set looming on the horizon, so I chose to stay close to the reef to pick my waves.
Sometimes too close!!
Here's a major wipeout courtesy of Rick (this is his gallery). How the mast did not break is a mistery.
This is probably my best turn and, once again, was only caught by Rick. He might not have a great camera, but he had a good timing! Thanks!
This one is another small wave. I believe the photographer was Kevin Pritchard and I took it from the AWT gallery. Really good shots in there.
I know, it's an all about me post. But, for the non Hookipa sailors, I want to show one of the toughest spots for tacking in Maui. This is just upwind of the beach, right in front of the rock shelf. The current there goes upwind and that creates two unfavorable side effects:
- a hell lot of chop
- the wind feels always stronger (because the speed of the current adds up to the speed of the wind)
Here's Jeff and I sailing out. He smartly chose a 5.8 Superfreak. I was on a 4.7 Firelight...
...can you tell?
Jeff told me that with the 5.8 he could move all over the place and really took advantage of having Hookipa all for himself. This photo clearly confirms that.
After heat chat. Jeff, thanks for those great sails, but also for the most comfortable harness in the market.
Here I'm like:"really Colin? You think you sucked more than me?!?"
This is Russ smiling before his really tough heat against Francisco Goya, Laurent and I can't remember the fourth one.
I've judged 4 or 5 contests in the past and I know that very often people disagree with the judges.
Now, to express a on opinion on a sailor performance, one should only be focused on judging (instead of chatting with friends), write down the scores, know the judging guidelines, and do that all day to keep the scores consistent.
Nonetheless, when the amount of people that saw things differently from the judges is so high (pretty much 100% of the people I spoke to), then there is a possibility that a judgemtent was not fair.
It happens, it's part of the game, sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don't.
I think Russ was the clear winner of that heat. He caught the biggest waves, he hit the lip at each single turn and he even finished one with a (small) one hand aerial.
He wasn't as fast as Francisco on the waves. Laurent pulled off a nice (small) taka off the lip. So it was a tough one. But I really think he deserved to advance.
So I feel like saying to him:"good job brah!".
A few shots of the experts heats before my camera's battery died.
I believe this is Brian Metcalf-Peres (sorry, the last name is probably wrong).
The sky was a bit gloomy at the 10am skipper's meeting.
The blog author gets ready for his heat. Six pack is gladly back. (thanks Nino for the photos)
The other guy didn't show up, so it was only Jeff, Colin and me. Three Hot Sails on the water, we just launched. On the reef, the first waves of a fairly big set. Transition time was two minutes, we used it all to wait that out.
The big set is peaking. Jeff and I waited it out on the inside, while looks like Colin is going to try to poke through.
After the big set was gone, it was pretty flat and, despite the light wind on the inside, it was quite easy to sail out. Here I'm seeing that Jeff will be in position for a nice medium wave (you can't see it in the photo because the zoom flattens everything out), so I decide to quickly tack and grab the smaller one right in front of it.
Still checkin on Jeff and probably thinking:"yeah, Jeff's wave is better, but this one is better than nothing..."
Still can't see my wave, can you?
And there it is. I caught a bunch of those little ones. It wasn't a planned strategy. It was just that I didn't see any big set looming on the horizon, so I chose to stay close to the reef to pick my waves.
Sometimes too close!!
Here's a major wipeout courtesy of Rick (this is his gallery). How the mast did not break is a mistery.
This is probably my best turn and, once again, was only caught by Rick. He might not have a great camera, but he had a good timing! Thanks!
This one is another small wave. I believe the photographer was Kevin Pritchard and I took it from the AWT gallery. Really good shots in there.
I know, it's an all about me post. But, for the non Hookipa sailors, I want to show one of the toughest spots for tacking in Maui. This is just upwind of the beach, right in front of the rock shelf. The current there goes upwind and that creates two unfavorable side effects:
- a hell lot of chop
- the wind feels always stronger (because the speed of the current adds up to the speed of the wind)
Here's Jeff and I sailing out. He smartly chose a 5.8 Superfreak. I was on a 4.7 Firelight...
...can you tell?
Jeff told me that with the 5.8 he could move all over the place and really took advantage of having Hookipa all for himself. This photo clearly confirms that.
After heat chat. Jeff, thanks for those great sails, but also for the most comfortable harness in the market.
Here I'm like:"really Colin? You think you sucked more than me?!?"
This is Russ smiling before his really tough heat against Francisco Goya, Laurent and I can't remember the fourth one.
I've judged 4 or 5 contests in the past and I know that very often people disagree with the judges.
Now, to express a on opinion on a sailor performance, one should only be focused on judging (instead of chatting with friends), write down the scores, know the judging guidelines, and do that all day to keep the scores consistent.
Nonetheless, when the amount of people that saw things differently from the judges is so high (pretty much 100% of the people I spoke to), then there is a possibility that a judgemtent was not fair.
It happens, it's part of the game, sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don't.
I think Russ was the clear winner of that heat. He caught the biggest waves, he hit the lip at each single turn and he even finished one with a (small) one hand aerial.
He wasn't as fast as Francisco on the waves. Laurent pulled off a nice (small) taka off the lip. So it was a tough one. But I really think he deserved to advance.
So I feel like saying to him:"good job brah!".
A few shots of the experts heats before my camera's battery died.
I believe this is Brian Metcalf-Peres (sorry, the last name is probably wrong).
Josh Stone.
Brian.
Andrea Franchini.
Andrea smiles about his performance (he sailed good), but that unfortunately wasn't enough to beat Josh and Brian.
Browsinho.
Well, it's 9.30, skipper meeting is at 10. I better get going otherwise I'll end up parking at Pavillion again...
This is my heat. Check out the live webcast.
4 comments:
what boards were you and jeff on?
I was on a 80 starboard evil twin. I think Jeff was on a 80something starboard quad.
Hi Giampaolo,
any special reason for you to you prefer an evil twin instead of a quad?
Francesco
Very nice work!
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