A friend of mine used to be an extremely good windsurfer but he hasn't sailed anymore for many years (a very common occurrence in Maui...). He lately got excited about the idea of doing downwinders on a SUP with the foil and his lovely wife timely got him a Maliko foil for father's day.
He did one training session behind the boat, performed very well and decided to jump straight into the downwinders. He didn't even want to catch a wave on the south shore, he just wasn't interested. Unfortunately he underestimated how difficult the task at hand was and started a frustrating stretch of downwind runs made of struggle and wipeouts (some, I'm sure, must have been sketchy), with a few seconds of successful foiling here and there.
I had a similar experience trying to learn how to foil on the small waves on the south shore and decided to try windfoiling for the following two reasons:
1) it's easier (if you know how to windsurf, of course)
2) the wipeouts are much less frequent and much less dangerous (but can still be).
I had (and still have) no idea of how much of the skill I'll be able to transfer back to SUP wave foiling, but at this point I don't even care anymore, because in the meantime I discovered how much fun windfoiling is by itself!
I tried to convince my friend to do the same, but he stubbornly kept trying the downwinders. A total of 13 runs were needed to convince him to give windfoiling a try. Which instead he picked up remarkably fast and started having fun right away. I don't think he's done a downwind attempt since (he will at the right time).
After his first windfoiling session he shared with me a memory of when he was a very young kid (like 5 or 6), that had just come back to him. He described a tv commercial with people that seemed to be flying. Every time he watched that commercial, he then ran into the kitchen and told l his grandma:"I want to do that!"
"what? what do you want to do?"
"I want to fly like the people on the tv!"
"what are you talking about?"
"grandma, come see!", but every time the commercial was gone...
Not only windfoiling brought back to him a memory that must have been buried very deep in his brain and would have most likely never come out again until the end of his days.
But also, something like 50 years later, made his dream of walking like the people on the tv came finally true.
That story touched me already, but not having seen the commercial I was missing a piece of information.
Yesterday he sent me a message with the link to the ad that he was able to find on youtube, which is embedded hereafter.
No wonder that ancient memory came back to him. Windfoiling feels just like that.
Or at least that's what Zane Schweitzer does! Photo from Matty Schweitzer.
4am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2.4ft @ 12s from 151° (SSE)
SW
2.2ft @ 12s from 151° (SSE)
SE
2.3ft @ 12s from 171° (S)
South swell winding down, I haven't surfed it much at all because I was busy. Can't post a report either this morning, so you guys will have to leave with the webcams for size and conditions.
North shore
Pauwela
2.7ft @ 6s from 81° (E)
1.9ft @ 5s from 81° (E)
1.8ft @ 9s from 67° (ENE)
Nothing to talk about on the north shore.
Wind map at noon.
North Pacific only has offering windswell to us.
South Pacific shows a couple of decently positioned and oriented but weak fetches. N.1 s a little stronger, but from all the way down there we won't get much.
Morning sky and another stunning day is on its way.
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