Wednesday 3 22 17 morning call

A horrible early morning surf session at Hookipa was my only water action yesterday. After that I did a longer than usual work shift and when I got to Hookipa at 5.30pm, the windsurfing conditions were excellent (a 9). Very light sideoff wind and clean waves, but too late for me to rig. Not bummed at all to have missed out, I worked longer to help a friend fix a car situation and I was happy to enable the solution of it.


A foil kiter was out also and he was catching waves, but not really riding them. He was way in front and not using the wave power at all. I definitely don't want to criticize the rider (I assume it takes some skills to just be able to be out at Hookipa on a kite foil), but it made me wonder how Kai Lenny would have looked doing the same thing. Obviously, he would have been much more on the wave, but probably any of the Hookipa windsurfers (or regular kiters) would have been still closer to hitting lips and being in the pocket. I might be wrong, but to me foiling still seems something to be done in small, rolling waves that you couldn't utilize otherwise.


Earlier in the afternoon, the wind was cranking and this is a photo by Jimmie Hepp from this gallery.


This instead is Italo Ferreira, whose amazing aerial I admired yesterday while watching round 2 of the Gold Coast contest. Three days after the end of it, you would think I was safe from finding out the winner, but a friend still managed to blow it. What can you do, it's the life of an on-demand contest watcher. The great news is that I can still enjoy watching it. If you think about it, each single heat is a mini contest of its own  and as long as the winner is not in it, I don't know who's gonna win it! Some of the round 2 heats were ferocious battles in great conditions with many buzzer beaters. Very enjoyable.


That aerial deserves a video.



4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
2.3ft @ 13s from 263° (W)

1.4ft @ 9s from 202° (SSW)

Still wrap at the buoy, with that the direction Kihei will still have waves. Check the webcams.

North shore
NW101 3am

6.2ft @ 14s from 304° (WNW)

3ft @ 10s from 328° (NW)

NW001

7.2ft @ 15s from 308° (WNW)

1.7ft @ 10s from 327° (NW)

Hanalei

4.6ft @ 14s from 306° (WNW)           

2.6ft @ 11s from 323° (NW)

 

Waimea
4.5ft @ 14s from 310° (WNW)

2.3ft @ 9s from 347° (NNW)

 

Pauwela

4.3ft @ 6s from 72° (ENE)           

2.3ft @ 9s from 2° (N)

2ft @ 15s from 326° (NW)

1.8ft @ 11s from 340° (NNW)

 

Pretty healthy numbers at the NW buoys, this swell is not going down any time soon. Pauwela only reads 2f 15s and that's because the original direction is pretty west and we get shadowed by the upstream islands. Below is the graph of NW001, Hanalei, Pauwela and Waimea starting from the top left corner and moving clockwise. I circled the rise of the WNW swell on each of them. In Maui the windswell is the higher one and gets the blue line (but in the water the story is different), while the WNW long period swell is a light green color.

 

All this to say that the WNW swell will increase all day and Surfline is calling for a very optimistic 5f 15s from 308 after 2pm. I'd be surprised if we get more than 4.

The trades are already blowing 12mph (7-17) at 5.10am at Hookipa, check the MC2km maps when they become updated for the wind later in the day.

Should be a nice day.


Current wind maps shows:
1) a strong WNW fetch packing water molecules on top of each other for our future (weekend) enjoyment
2) a much closer but not well oriented NW ffetch
3) a tiny windswell fetch


I saw southerly energy in the forecast and I wondered why I haven't seen fetches in the wind map yet. So I did a little analysis. Below's collage shows (from left to right):
1) a map of the great circle rays for Hawaii (source: this article)
2) the weather map of the south pacific (link n.3 of GP's list). I drew a black H to indicate where Hawaii is (way up top, off the map)
3) the windity graphical representation of the winds

Up until windity came out, the map n.2 was my only source to look at the fetches down under and the fetch to the SE of New Zealand would have definitely caught my attention. Instead, if you look at the same thing in the windity map, it looks like it's only aiming towards central and south America. The reason is that map 2 is a bit tilted. I drew red lines connecting the tip of New Zealand to the same spot in Australia on all three maps to show that. Now the question is. Which one should I look? Is that fetch really going to produce a swell that will hit us or will it miss us to the east? We'll find out in 7-8 days. In the meantime, Surfline predicts 2.5f 16s from 193 for Thursday March 30th, so it looks like we are going to get something.


That would be great for the upcoming HASA States competition, about which I received an email from John Willard that I'm happy to share below.

Aloha e HSA Maui members who have qualified for the regional championships at Ala Moana Bowls AKA "HASA States!" HSA States deadline 4/7/17. The "Junior Challenge" is open to all ages (Girls and boys 17 and under) I had originally been told it was only for 16-17 year old boys and girls, but was misinformed and told many people that. So top 6 Maui Open Women are eligible to enter this separate division with 4 man priority heats. Summer Macedo Savannah Stone Aloha Lopez Tatiana Ebro Sophia Johnston Haylee Boverman The following top 6 Maui Boys 16-17 are also eligible to compete in the Junior Challenge at States: Logan Bediamol Dante Silva Spike Shannon Zack Newton Cody Young Conan Gentil if These 6 do not sign up, the following 6 boys 14-15 will be eligable: Eli Hanneman Ocean Macedo Cole Alves TyTy Kirby Axel Rosenblad Toney Nunez Im guessing that will fill it (Only 6 boys from Maui) but we will move to these Maui Boys 12-13 next: Jackson Bunch Kai Paula Chase Anderson Keanu Taylor Levi Young Ty Simpson-Kane There may still be room if other islands Hawai'i & Kaua'i do not have 6 sign up, so you never know! Sorry about the misinformation, e-mail me if you have any questions. Papa John -John Willard