Saturday 9 16 17 morning call

A bit of a historical day for me yesterday, as I taught my first ever windfoiling lesson. Here's my student who did extremely well, thanks mostly to the fact that I have the right gear for a beginner foiler.


Here's a little clip that shows what I can already call "the most common mistake": flying the foil too high. As a first timer, as soon as the foil starts foiling, you should increase the weight on the front of the board (both with the front foot and some pressure on the mast) to keep it leveled. Nonetheless, I couldn't believe how well he did. That is thanks to:
1) the GoFoil Maliko foil who foils as slow as 6 knots speed (a proper windsurfing foil will need twice as much, and you can imagine how much more difficult/dangerous the whole thing would be)
2) the forward position of the box allow the foil to start foiling much earlier than a backward position
3) thanks to the two above points, with my setup I can use a very small and light rig (the sail in the photo is a 3.4) and that is a massive advantage not to get tired too soon. As you can see, I didn't even give him a harness, because they are dangerous and counterproductive when learning to windfoil.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2ft @ 15s from 173° (S)

SW
1.6ft @ 15s from 176° (S)

SE
1.4ft @ 17s from 114° (ESE)

Lovely low long period energy at the outer buoys. That's what Pat Caldwell has to say about it: "High seas filled the Tasman Sea from the mid latitudes to the subtropics aiming in the general direction of Hawaii 9/7-10. New Zealand and islands of the SW Pacific block most of the swell. "
Lahaina town was knee to waist high yesterday and it might be a little bigger today. I'll probably post a beach update later. Stay tuned, because without the webcam it might be an important one.

North shore
Pauwela
3.4ft @ 6s from 78° (ENE)

2.5ft @ 8s from 29° (NNE)

 

Slivers of energy leftover from the northerly swell with a windswell slowly mounting. Overall, a pretty tiny day on the north shore.

Wind map at noon shows the usual 20+ knots, bit stronger than yesterday. Yesterday's map was spot on.

 

North Pacific shows that NW fetch I pointed out yesterday and the start of a building windswell fetch. Nothing reported on the official forecasts, but, depending on how it looks tomorrow, I think we might receive a bit of energy from it.

 

South Pacific shows a Tasman Sea fetch.