Quite tricky too, as the foil feels the extra lift provided by the wave and wants to come out of the water. By moving the mast foot all the way forward, I managed to successfully ride a few and, even though the waves weren't even remotely as big as the image below, I sure was more on the face then those guys. Two hours of continuous windfoiling action with very little use of the harness beat me up. Last time I sailed for two hours at Uppers must have been spring of 2001. That's how exciting this new sport is.
3am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2.9ft @ 12s from 117° (ESE)
SE
3.1ft @ 11s from 126° (ESE)
Pat Caldwell affirms that southern shores have short-period breakers from southern hemisphere trade winds as the dominant background surf, but he puts 9 seconds as the period in his table. So, I wasn't too sure those reported readings were just that (I trust the direction indication of those buoys very little). But then I noticed that also the Hilo buoy reports 2ft @ 11s from 118° (ESE), so it's likely that that's what it is. Too bad that, as indicated in the post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines, the Big Island should completely block that energy (shadow line around 160, see picture below). Nonetheless, I heard there were waist high waves at some spots on the Lahaina side yesterday.
And by looking at those couple of fetches on the map of 7 days ago (Sept 14), I'm gonna guess that there will be something also today.
North shore
NW101
3.8ft @ 12s from 306° (WNW)
Waimea
1.7ft @ 12s from 327° (NW)
Pauwela
2ft @ 12s from 344° (NNW)
4.5ft @ 8s from 82° (E)
Couple of feet @ 12 seconds locally from the NW plus the windswell will make for some breakers at Hookipa... and hopefully Uppers again!
Wind map at noon.
North Pacific shows the NW fetch getting smaller and the windswell fetch.
I circled a couple of tiny fetches in the south Pacific, but they're too weak to send us anything.
Morning sky.
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