Back in the water! Plus the usual Hookipa fix...

As forecasted, Hookipa saw a couple of days of fun waves.
Here's today's photos, stay tuned for yesterday's ones (whenever I find the time).

Photo of the day goes to Browsinho, who went out late when the wind got a tad lighter (it blew like stink all day, with gusts over 40) and very offshore and the waves got smoother and the light was perfect. Well, the fact that he's one of the best sailors in the world helped too.
Love the way this shot turned out to be framed. The focus ended up on the white water in front, and I kinda like that too.


Chronological order from now on.

Patrick gets the crash of the day.


Mark.


Frederick.


Phil makes the blog.


The great thing about Elena is that she designs and sells her bikinis. She's happy to promote her business, I'm happy to shoot and post, you guys are happy to watch... we're all happy!


Mark.


Alex makes the blog (thanks for the boot, brah).


Jake sailed sharp, clearly comfortable in the strong wind (must be a Gorge thing).


Browsinho got worked by the shore break like a common mortal.
He immediately looked back to see if Cammarota (that's how he calls me) noticed it... he did, he did... eheheh.


Francisco instead used a different approach. He dropped the board on the sand, waited for the water to reach it and then jumped on it. Quite effective. Love the colors.


Rudy, rudy, rudy, rudy!


Browsinho.


Browsinho.


Federico makes the blog.


Francisco wave 360 on a small one.


Browsinho stuck 90% of his off the lip rotation. Impressive.


It was a good day for the brazilian.


It was a very good day for the blog author too, who is now finally back in the water, nine long weeks after his foot injury, catching little waves with the standup.
Love this shot.


The waves were small, but at one point there was one freak triple overhead one.
Blog author showed no fear and got a deep barrel. A GoPro barrel. :)


PS. I believe that the photos I take are as good as they can get for a point and shoot camera (modesty has always been one of my many virtues).
Nonetheless I'm in one of those phases in which I think that MAYBE I should get a decent SLR. Drop me an email if you got a used one for sale.

Custom sail discussion with Jeff Henderson part 2

Part 2 of the custom sail discussion with Jeff.

Lil update on the battens part of the discussion. I stopped by again and convinced Jeff to let me experiment with the batten length, because I would really like to feel the difference between long and short battens on the same sail. He wasn't too hot (joke!) on that since he knows that difference very well, but then he thought that it might be interesting for the blog readers to read my report. So, thanks guys for reading this blog...

So here's the plan.
He's going to make those pockets for long battens all the way to the mast. I'll test it for a couple of weeks. Then I'll bring it in and have the pockets shortened with a quick fix (I'm thinking to test only one first and then two).
If in the end I will prefer the long battens, it will be easy to remove the quick fix. If I will prefer the short battens instead, he will have to do some sail surgery to do a proper shortening job and avoid that lost of sensitivity on the luff he mentions in the interview.
Can't wait.



Lil forecast.
As Thursday's weather map clearly shows, there has been a respectable fetch oriented towards Hawaii that will send overhead waves to Hookipa over the weekend (Sunday being the best day).


South shore might get some action too, probably the usual Maui waist to belly high stuff at most spots. It's actually a bit of a difficult forecast, because the low on the right of the southern pacific weather map of May 25th shown below is more east than usual, so we'll get some angular spreading of a bigger swell headed east of us and that's always difficult to predict.
What's easy to predict instead is that the internet will soon be flooded with photos of huge Teahupoo (Tahiti is around 18S, 150W you can barely see it on the map).


Part three of the custom sail discussion with Jeff sometimes next week... stay tuned.

Post update. As soon as I published this post, I received a press release from Watermanleague.com announcing that Dave Muir won the third event of the Standup World Tour.
They attached two photos... good timing, uh?

This is the winner.


This is Duane Desoto.

how Levi puts it in (and turns her around)

More Goya photoshoot, this time with the presence of Francisco himself.

But the photo of the day goes to Francky. The infaticable Hookipa water photographer used to be a pretty good sailor, but he kinda quit because of back pain.
After the photoshoot, he grabbed Francisco's board and went out. On his second jump, a beautiful shove it, a screw of the back strap came loose and this shot caught that moment.
You don't think it's worth the photo of the day? Hey, I'm building my photo credit for when I'll be able to sail again... ;)


Rest of the photos in chronological order.
This is Skyler (who was not in the photoshoot).


Levi was being filmed while rigging. The videos at the end of the post will clarify the title.


Francisco beautiful table top.


Argentinian Goya importer and ex Maui resident Mariano Pecora knows how to loop.


Mauisurfreport team rider Nico.


Mariano table top. Francky is in perfect position and must have taken a great shot with the beach on the background.
You won't find these shots on his website, but eventually they'll be on a catalog/magazine ad in a few months.


Laurent not sure doing what... probably going for a crash shot.


Goya is going for color coordination.


Three jumps from Francisco.





And now let's finally check how Levi puts it in.


And puts it in again.


And turns her around (and leaves...).


Ok, the windswell is about to subside and it's going to be flat until the weekend when a small NW bump should arrive.

Next post will be the part 2 of the custom sail discussion with Jeff Henderson, I promise.

a perfect double

Yesterday I took photos till 1.30 and Browsinho had just hit the water. Nonetheless, the only shot I took of him gets the photo of the day award, since he landed this perfect double forward.

Unfortunately, doubles are jumps that require a sequence, but you get what you get. This is after the first rotation. You can see from the little leftover water coming off the nose of his board how fast he's rotating.


Chronological order for the other shots.
Some Goya riders were having a photoshoot.
Jake backloop.


Laurent push loop.


As soon as I saw this girl at Middles I thought:"guaranteed she's gonna need help to come back!"
I taught enough surf lessons to identify a classic beginner position: ass off the center and open legs.


Jake keeps on looping.


Keith hits the water in green photoshoot attire.
In case you never sailed Hookipa, this photo shows how to time the shore break. Keith just dropped the board on the water of an incoming wave that is about to hit his legs. By the time he'll be able to put both hands on the boom and jump on the board (with both feet!), the water will just about to start flowing out and he will get enough speed to pass over the next incoming wave.
The summer shore break is more challenging that the winter one, because of the shorter period between incoming waves (especially the windswell, around 8 seconds).


And Jake keeps on looping.


Oh, looks who's there! The beach is to the left of this photo and in that place the current is strong and going right, away from the beach. That's why she couldn't make it and chose to come in through the rocks.
BTW, at the downwind end of the beach, the current goes left, still away from the beach. If you're surfing or swimming, your only chance to come back to the beach is in the middle of it.


Left foot up.


Right foot up. Seems like she's loving it!


Her friend was directed by the lifeguards and managed to come back through the middle of the beach.


Keith. The wave riding was marginal... it was all about the jumps. Good, I'm not missing much.


There we go. A little lesson on how the current works at Hookipa. Geez, those girls have some serious tatoos!


Doesn't do it for me!


Today I'll be at the beach at 2.30 and tomorrow I'll post the photos together with part 2 of the custom sail discussion with Jeff. Stay tuned.