Here are some more photos by Jimmie Hepp of those days.
First one is local ripper Joao Marco Maffini in a very peculiar position/situation. His board is under the JP logo and the leash has been photoshopped out by one of Jimmie's friends (under my suggestion).
On the following three photos I left the comment "I hope the guy sees this photo!", so I'm trying to help identifying the protagonists. Not many kneeboarders out there, so this one should be easy.
Not a fan of aerial maneuvers, but when they're nice they're nice.
In particular, we need to find this guy. Beautiful wave with Tatiana Weston-Webb duck diving right in front of him... that is a keeper!
If it was me, I would totally buy that shot, print it out as big as the resolution allows and put it on my wall.
Buoys 5 am
NW
5.7ft @ 8s from 9° (N)
5.4ft @ 10s from 16° (NNE)
2.7ft @ 5s from 11° (NNE)
2ft @ 17s from 344° (NNW)
Pauwela
3.3ft @ 6s from 19° (NNE)
2.9ft @ 9s from 21° (NNE)
2.6ft @ 11s from 333° (NNW)
Barbers
2.4ft @ 10s from 296° (WNW)
1.4ft @ 15s from 199° (SSW)
1.1ft @ 6s from 297° (WNW)
2f 17s from 344 at the NW buoy at 5am means that that same energy (minus a bit of decay for the extra travelling) will hit Maui roughly 12h later around sundown. But if you look at the graph (link n.11), similar levels were recorded already around midnight, so we should start seeing sets as early as noon.
2f 17s from 344 at the NW buoy at 5am means that that same energy (minus a bit of decay for the extra travelling) will hit Maui roughly 12h later around sundown. But if you look at the graph (link n.11), similar levels were recorded already around midnight, so we should start seeing sets as early as noon.
This is a good example on how to use that table I made recently in a post labeled NW buoy to Maui travel time. Labels make post retrieving easier. Together with the archive, one of my favorite features of blogs.
Today it's not particularly critical to identify the swell arrival time, because the wind is going to be sideon and the conditions poor, but other days it can be a crucial information for scoring.
Below is the classic GFS based windguru table that everybody checks. It's a brilliant, condensed, very easy to read way of presenting a hell lot of information.
As long as you know that it only shows one swell, the biggest in size. So if there is a 5f 5s windswell from the east and at the same time there's also a 4f 20s swell from the NW, the one that makes the table is the windswell even though when they hit the shore the first one will be barely waist high, the second one more like double over head.
That is why windguru should NOT be checked for wave forecasts. Unless you move down to the second table that tries to separate the first two swells plus the windswell, but it's really hard to read.
The surfline one is by far my favorite graphical way of presenting a forecast of overlapping swells.
Today it's not particularly critical to identify the swell arrival time, because the wind is going to be sideon and the conditions poor, but other days it can be a crucial information for scoring.
Below is the classic GFS based windguru table that everybody checks. It's a brilliant, condensed, very easy to read way of presenting a hell lot of information.
As long as you know that it only shows one swell, the biggest in size. So if there is a 5f 5s windswell from the east and at the same time there's also a 4f 20s swell from the NW, the one that makes the table is the windswell even though when they hit the shore the first one will be barely waist high, the second one more like double over head.
That is why windguru should NOT be checked for wave forecasts. Unless you move down to the second table that tries to separate the first two swells plus the windswell, but it's really hard to read.
The surfline one is by far my favorite graphical way of presenting a forecast of overlapping swells.
Wind map shows:
- a big strong NW fetch. That's the one that is generating the weekend's swell. Remember that yesterday it was more west than today and not doing much for Maui. Today it looks like it passed the 300 degrees line, so those waves won't get blocked much and Hookipa will be pretty big.
Big enough also to sooner or later get to Honolua, no doubt, also considering that it will keep moving east
- a narrow but still decent N fetch (remaining of what generated the swell that will arrive today)
- a high pressure cell between the two
- the local sideon wind direction
The whole picture is moving east and one storm after the other will come into play from mainland Russia like a convey belt for the next couple of weeks.
That means plenty waves.
The latitude at which they will travel will be north enough for the trade winds to keep blowing, so fun times for wind propelled wave riders, choppy times for the surfers.
As I said many times, the local wind it's even more important than the actual swell size in terms of the effect on the local conditions.
Couple of more words about the Honolua contest. Today the wind will create too much chop and the waves will be too small. I don't think they'll run it, also seen the promising forecast.
Tomorrow (or Friday... better direction) could be the day for round 1, but I really hope it's still gonna be too small and they'll wait for the much bigger swell in the weekend.
There's also the second contest of the Triple Crown at Sunset Beach in Oahu. Not sure how bad the wind will be there, so I'm not gonna call that one, even though it seems that the waves might be too small for it. Way more heats to run in that one though, so different situation for the head judge.
If I remember right, they don't have the permit to run it on Thanksgiving and that seems confirmed by the fact that they already put "next call Friday" on the contest banner on the WSL home page.
And let's not forget the annual Paia Bay Invitational contest on Thanksgiving that is run by some friends of mine with peculiar judging criteria. It looks good for Thursday you guys!
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