Wednesday, April 18, 2012

maui ass report

Got to love girls with a sense of humor...



Photo taken from here.

Check the rest of her blog too. She got some amazing shots... so good that I had to steal another one.
This is like nature's revenge against the human unnatural constructions.

best day of my life

Yesterday my foot hurt, my hip hurt, I didn't even get close to hit any lip... how is it possible that is was the best day of my life?
Did I meet the girl of my dreams?
Did I win the lottery?
You guys keep guessing, I'll tell you at the end.

Another horribly windy day. Some sailors don't mind. One of them is for sure Mark Angulo, who was all over the place. Photo of the day goes to him.



Chronological.

Ricardo

no discrimination of nationality, race, religion or... size on this blog

Mark

Mark

Victor sailed really well

things you can write on a Superfreak

Kauli. He let me try his board, but I didn't do that

Mark

Kauli

Mark. Come on, stop being so freaking radical for a minute!

Morgan

Kai K.

Timo, by looking at this photo I might have a little tip for your 360s, but I'm definitely not entitled so I'll wisely shut up

Cookie

Session report.
Not much to report. I waited till very late when the wind finally got lighter. I was going out on my trusty Starboard, when I met Kauli and I asked him if I could try his board.
"Sure, go for it".
"How big is it?"
"55, you think you can do it?"
"Yeah, I got a 52 in my car..."

I like that. Just like SUP boards, the main windsurf board measurement should be the width. Then the volume... which in this case was 72.

Well, I do have a 52 in my car, but sure I don't use it when the wind is so marginal!
I definitely struggled a bit to pass the waves, but the main issue was to adapt to a board that rode in a way radically different than mine. I didn't manage to do anything good at all, but in a couple of sections I felt the potential of that board. Very surfy and loose, for sure.
"You have to keep it constantly on the rail", he said. "It needs a really good wave, like Cabo Verde, to give its best".

Forecast.
Been slacking on the job here. Today there will still be some waves. Then a couple of day of flattish conditions and after that there will be a NNW to N bump. This morning's weather map shows the related fetch and that to me looks like good stuff. Not particularly long period, but fun.
I'm guessing 10 seconds, head high at Hookipa. More hoping than guessing, actually.



This morning's weather map looks good for the south pacific too. Unfortunately that beautiful south to norht fetch east of NZ is not going to last long, but we'll have at least one good day of surf in a week. GP said so.


Philosophy.
Here's what I posted yesterday on facebook.

Tonight a guy at Mana Food was asked how was his day.
He answered:”best day of my life!”
We were in the cereal section and I went like:”wow, tell us about it!”
But he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and didn’t say anything.


I think it wasn’t a “special day” for him, like I assumed.
I think it was just another day and just because it was another day and he looked pretty healthy, it was the best day of his life.

When I walked inside the store I was limping and bitching about the pain under my foot that I injured yesterday.
But when the cashier asked me how was my day, I answered:”best day of my life”.

Things that happen at Mana Foods...


So yesterday was the best day of my life. Until today...

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

jumping shoot

I got 15 minutes to do this post, so it's gonna be short.

It was another cracking day at Hookipa. Not for me though, since it was very windy and you guys know how much I dislike that, but I'll talk about my session at the end (time permitting.

Neil Pryde was having a shoot at Lanes, you'll see the photos below.
Chronological order.

Timo preparing to face a most likely rejection

Nico

Victor

Josh went back to throwing goiters. He's having a blast windsurfing, also motivated my the fact that his 13 yo son Hurley is stoked on it

Timo

Mark. Beautiful.

in the warmup for the photoshoot, Browsinho joined his buddies and showed who was the best jumper... by far. Dry landing double forwards, pushloop forwards, you name it. He just killed it.

this is the photoshoot. it was Kauli, Ricardo and Polakow on green sails and Swift on the purple one





Polakow sailed visibly better today

at sunset conditions started to improve greatly. Ricardo


Last shot goes to Casey in the beautiful low sun light

Session report.
I hated it. I went out at 11.30 and I was already overpowered on a 4.2.
I was on a quad (I don't like them, but I bought one because it was too cheap to pass) that was clearly underfinned in strong wind and spinning out all over the place.
I also had pain in the area where I hit the rocks yesterday, but mostly it was the brutal wind and related chop.
So after 20 minutes I wisely decided to stop.

I think that the big waves of the day before moved a lot of sand and when I got off the board in the shore break, I put my foot on a rock where usually there's sand. I didn't get cut, but now I have a second pain right under the foot that is quite annoying.
About sunset time, the waves seemed to pick up again (that was the forecast) and with the wind finally easing a bit, it started to look pretty epic to me.
I wanted to try again, but while limping my way to my car I said:"man, where the fuck are you going?" and decided to pass.
Strong wind apart, today the waves should be really good again (and from a more northerly direction). I'll borrow a seat harness and see how I do. What my body is really telling me though, is to rest.
Oh well, you need these days to appreciate the good ones...

Sunday, April 15, 2012

a fairly big day

I hate good days like yesterday, because I end up with too many photos to post... :)

But despite the abundance of good windsurfing shots, I must start this post with this photo of my friend Ulli doing his famous "the flying mangina" dive.
Ulli, you outdid yourself. That shot is phenomenal. Congrats to the photographer too.




Another great shot. Jimmie Hepp caught Colin and a whale... just in time! The whales are about to leave, in fact...



Before we start the photo report, here's a little video that was requested by an Italian blog reader who wanted to know how you sail out at Hookipa.

By pure luck, it came out very interesting and events filled. I didn't even notice a bunch of things while I was shooting, because of the sunshine on the camera screen.
So here's a couple of additional info that I would recommend to read first:
- for those who have never been at Hookipa, the beach is about 20 meters upwind of those rocks. The shore break can be pretty gnarly too. Provided you pass that, in a big day like this, you're supposed to immediately bear off the wind and cover those 20 meters downwind. Till then, you're safe. But once you pass the first upwind rock (the one that appears at sec. 7 of the video... I call it "the hippo"), you've rolled the dices and you can't go back to safety anymore because the current takes you downwind right in front of the rest of the rocks
- the bigger the waves, the stronger the current. That might seem obvious to most, but maybe it's not for everyone.
- at the very beginning of it, you can already see Shawna in the water swimming for her gear. That is the worse place where to lose your gear: in line or just upwind of the most upwind rock. If you have bad luck (and she sure did) and there's a big set, your gear is veeery likely to end up on the rocks.
- at sec 29 Levi does a sick taka on a the wave!
- around 1.20 you'll see another sailor who lost his gear. But he's luckier and there's no more waves in that set, so the current will just push his gear in the channel and after a bit of a swim he'll be back to the gear






Here's my shots in chronological order.

Ricardo

Andres

Kauli, Keith and Levi went out at the same time, immediately followed by Kevin P., Bernd and Kai K. You can imagine that the level in the water went a notch higher...

KP

Browz

Levi

Patrick

Dunno this guy, but he was charging

that's how KP deals with people downwind... yes, it was crowded

Kauli

slightly overdressed, I'd say, considering the beautiful day

the setup for this aerial was very bumpy. Drew did a good job at pulling it off

Kai K.

Timo's new move: wave 360 with windsurfing legend on the wave behind

Graham

Luke

Browz

Kauli. Check where he attacked the lip. He pretty much did the whole top turn in the air

Kauli

very impressed by Pascal Hardy sailing. The guy charges

the goiter machine

Levi

Graham making good use of his helmet

Pascal

the Dunno guy doing forwards off the lip

Levi aerial top turn (like Kauli's one a few shots above)

Kauli

JP changed the font of their logo. Unfortunately those stickers clearly had the glue on the wrong side. You can't even see the sticker on the other side of the sail, so I believe I'm right. Still, better than nothing if you have an helicopter coming in half an hour, I guess...

Ricardo shows the graphics of the new JP boards. Too noisy for my taste. I liked them the first year that Kauli joined them, the ones with the brazilian colors. After that, I didn't like any of the following years. Not easy to make a good, original graphic design every year...

When the waves are big, Polakow is for sure number one. But yesterday he sailed, I hate to say, very, very uninspired. My guess is that he was somewhat sick.


Now a few shots from Jimmie Hepp taken from yesterday's gallery. Next three is me.





This is the comment I put on FB on this last one:

I was focused on going around Keith (you can see his foot while he's duck diving) and I didn't see him taking off. But he made sure I would know (big yell) and I kicked out immediately. I don't think I bothered his line (or at least I hope ...so), but for sure he had to go over my wake which is not a good thing. I saw him kicking out in the channel, so he made the whole wave. He looks like Zack Howard, he's a really good surfer. Zack, if you read this comment, I'd like to apologize. There was no intention of dropping in. I'm very respectful of surfers when I'm sailing and always give them priority. Aloha.

And these are my two favorite shots of that gallery: Mark and Pascal. Thanks Jimmie for being on those rocks every day!!!


Session report.
All these photos are from yesterday, Sunday.
I had quite a lot of fun in the early session. For about 40 minutes it was Kauli, Ricardo, Klaas and me (and 8 surfers). The wind was very light, but that's how I like it.

After that it got windier and more crowded, so I took a lunch/photoshoot break, and went out again around 5.30. Was having fun, but did a little mistake and my board got very close to the rocks. Got there in time to grab it by the tip of the mast, but a last wave slammed me against a rock and I had to let go. It was either the gear or a kidney...
As I say in the video I shot earlier, it's part of the game. If you never go on the rocks, it means you're not pushing it. If you're not pushing it, you're not getting better. Or at least, not as fast as you could.
This winter I went on the rocks something like 8 times. In fact, I improved a lot.

But my favorite session (since the last post) was the one I had on Saturday evening. The forerunners of the new swell started to roll in and, I don't really know how to explain it, but being on a wave that has so much room in front of it (18 seconds period), it's just a magic feeling. I gave that session a 9.
Sunday's sessions were both a 8, so no complains in the 808.

Napoli' America's cup.
In my beautiful home town of Naples the America's cup sailing races took place.
I found watching their youtube channel very interesting and I recommend it strongly. The speed races are amazing, but I also liked the regattas. Saw my parents house many times... that's where I grew up you guys. Again, a stunningly beautiful town (surroundings are just as beautiful). I don't miss it at all though, because the inhabitants suck ... oh, and there's no ground swells!

Studio in Kuau for rent.
Also this year I'm going to Indo. I'm looking for a single person who is interested in sub renting my studio in Kuau. Info:
- dates: May 29 to July 11
- rent is $750/month. If you rent it for the whole period, the prorated rent will be $1,000. If you need it for less than a month, it will be $750, no matter how short the period is.
- if needed, I can rent out also my station wagon.
- house rules: no parties. no noise after 9pm. only one car parked over night. The occasional overnight guest can park the car at the ex Kuau Mart parking, which is extremely close
- the studio has a mini fridge, a two hot plates burner, an electric grill, electric oven, rice cooker, toaster, blender, fruit squeezer. I can cook some seriously delicious food with what's in there.
- shower is open air outside
- bathroom is outside, but not open air! :)

Here are some photos.
front door is on the left. bathroom door is in front, board rack in on the right. the subrenter can use the bicycle, but not my boards!

my studio is on the left. the wooden thing on the left is the open air shower. the garden table is mine. the palms separate the lawn from the one belonging to the other studio you see in the back

this one is taken from the lawn belonging to the other studio

inside



Lastly, I'm selling an SUP Kazuma 9.3x27.5 for $350. Here's the craigslist ad.