It started with a fun SUP foiling session at a spot I surfed for the first time. And the reason for that is that it's not really a surfing wave. Shifty, soft and without a proper channel, it would be a pretty bad spot for regular surfing, but it's ideal for foiling instead. The fact that the conditions don't need to be particularly good to enjoy a foil session is one of the greatest advantages of foiling.
The photo below by Jason Hall shows Dave Kalama at the end of an extremely long ride at another spot. He's the man I have to thank for getting me into foiling. He didn't have to convince me with words, the stoke in his eyes after a foiling session was enough.
In the afternoon the windsurfers hit Hookipa and there were some bombs. Photo by Jimmie Hepp from this gallery.
Instead, I went to Kanaha and I taught my windfoiling lesson n.3. Here's a couple of clips of my excellent student that show some common beginner mistakes. The first one shows the tendency that windsurfers have to put pressure on the rail. Windfoiling is like the Tao. It teaches you that the balance is in the middle.
This other one shows the success he was able to achieve towards the end of the lesson. I'm a bit jealous of my students, because they're learning with the super slow foiling Maliko foil, while I learned with more difficulty with the Kai and I didn't do as good on my first day.
After the lesson I had two windfoiling sessions. I first went out with the Kai foil and caught same waves on the reef. For the first time, I was able to ride a left going upwind and gliding across the face. The Kai foils at higher speed than the Maliko, but it handles the high speed better, so I was able to zip across the face without overfoiling and that was an awesome feeling. But I struggled catching the waves, since I was not foiling in the troughs. Let's say the timing was quite critical and part of the fun.
Session two was at sunset and I don't know if an upwind squall was doing something, but it was just way too much wind even for the Kai and a 2.7, so I called it short. I was pretty tired too, as you can imagine.
4am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
1.7ft @ 17s from 191° (SSW)
SW
1.7ft @ 17s from 123° (ESE)
SE
1.3ft @ 17s from 136° (SE)
Long period low readings at the outer buoys (as usual, we'll disregard the unreliable direction indications): Pat Caldwell was right again. The angular spreading did the miracle, so there should be inconsistent sets on the south shore.
North shore
NW001
7.4ft @ 9s from 346° (NNW)
NW001
8.1ft @ 8s from 1° (N)
Waimea
3.9ft @ 11s from 350° (N)
3.5ft @ 9s from 350° (N)
Pauwela
5.7ft @ 8s from 68° (ENE)
3.5ft @ 11s from 348° (NNW)
Plenty energy at the NW buoys, quite a bit less locally, but you saw in the picture above what 3.5f 11s can turn into at Hookipa.
Tomorrow a new stronger pulse is predicted and Surfline is calling for 5f 15s from 341 at 2pm and once again that seems a bit optimistic to me.
Tomorrow a new stronger pulse is predicted and Surfline is calling for 5f 15s from 341 at 2pm and once again that seems a bit optimistic to me.
The nightmare of the wind models continues. Yesterday's model was spot on, but this morning it doesn't seem to be updated, so here's this other one again. Today it's easy: the trades are going to be strong, easterly and gusty .
North Pacific shows:
1) a distant weak NW fetch
2) a weak remnant of the current swell fetch now to the north of us
3) the windswell fetch
I did a full Windity run and this map on Wednesday 11th caught my attention. That's a strong and relative close northerly fetch. I love north swells.
South Pacific shows a small fetch SE of New Zealand.
Morning sky shows some clouds.
2 comments:
GP, It seems like the boom was very low for that student. Do you recommend learning to foil with the boom that low?
Nope, the height of the boom is very personal.
I recommend to learn windfoil with the smallest possible sail. In this case it was a kid's 3.0 and that's as high as we could set the boom.
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