Wednesday 7 11 18 morning call

A longboard and a SUP foiling session for me yesterday. First one was excellent, as I found a spot that was much better than everywhere else.

I finally found some kind of info about the Maui to Molokai race that was held last Saturday. I actually didn't find the full results, but I learned from a Facebook post that Zane Schweitzer won the foiling category with the time of 2h 24m. All of which, but the two last miles, were on the foil. That's an incredible feature from the fitness point of view, imo. He said:

It was a tough paddle when landing in those last roughly 2 miles of flats, leaving me to drag the foil on only a 6’9” SUP after pumping hard for 23 miles, but man, was it a fun session and run filled with countless epic full-speed drops and rides I couldn’t even time they were so long!!



More details in this very interesting article from brother Zane here. And this is a short video that shows him in action. Might not seem like much work, but imagine doing that for more than 2h. I foil and I know that's a lot harder than it looks.


Also Dave Kalama just posted an article on his facebook page. In case you don't have facebook, I reported it at the very end of this post... "top three days ever on the water" for a legend like him means a lot! This is his son Austin during the race.


But my favorite shot is this one of Alan Cadiz in the midst of a rain squall.


There's another Maui to Molokai race coming up this Saturday July 14th. Entering it, would be the only good reason not to come to the Hi-Tech annual sale.

2am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2.7ft @ 12s from 134° (SE)

SW
2.4ft @ 12s from 136° (SE)

1.1ft @ 17s from 45° (NE)

 

SE
1.7ft @ 12s from 126° (ESE)

 

Barbers

1.2ft @ 12s from 182° (S)

1ft @ 18s from 181° (S)

 

The Surfline open ocean swell forecast calls for 1f 18s in the early morning and that's exactly what Barbers shows. Sometimes, the WW3 can be shockingly accurate. I believe also the 17s reading at the SW buoy is the southerly swell (that's how little I trust those directions at the outer buoys). Nothing to be particularly excited about it though, as the long period waves would be extremely inconsistent. Look how distant and semi blocked by New Zealand the fetch was in the map of July 3rd below. I actually count more on the remaining background energy of 12s for my sessions.

As a matter of fact, Ala Moana looks pretty grim in the first light.


Link n.12 is my favorite source for tides for two reasons:
1) somewhere in there I once found a comparison between the prediction and the measured tide and it was 100% accurate
2) it gives you the tide for different places on the island. Below is the tides for Lahaina. A new moon is approaching, we're gonna have some extreme tides in the next few days.


North shore
Pauwela

3.2ft @ 9s from 74° (ENE)

2.8ft @ 7s from 48° (NE)

2.5ft @ 5s from 63° (ENE)

 

The windswell went down and Hookipa looked pretty small at sunset yesterday. It should be less than head high today, I won't check it as I plan on leaving pretty early to go Lahaina side. My SUP foiling board tests continue, I will eventually report one day on my findings.
 

Wind map at noon.


North Pacific only has the windswell fetch.



South Pacific has:
- a fetch SE of New Zealand, part of which (red) is oriented towards us and part (blue) towards central America, but we should get some angular spreading
- a very long and distant fetch hugging the ice sheet. I'm still developing the knowledge of these ones, let's what we'll get in 8-9 days. The Surfline forecast (hence the WW3 model) does indicate a fairly remarkable 3.7f 18s for Sunday 7/21 (but it could be caused by a different fetch that will appear in the next few days). That would be the biggest swell of the season so far. As a reference, I remember a swell a few years ago that read 4f 20s at the buoys and made for some triple overhead waves on the Wailea side. Way too early to get excited, plus my rule with the south swells is to never get excited. I actually like the background knee to waist high stuff better, as it's half as crowded as a "conclamated" swell.


Morning sky.



Here's Dave's article:
Sour grapes never tasted so good! Let me explain, this past weekend I competed in the Molokai Holokai. A race from Maui to Molokai’s Kaunakakai harbor ( 26 miles), consisting of mainly SUP and OC 1 & 2, but this year they added foiling, the discipline I competed in. I believe it was the first official channel crossing race for foiling and it was a doozy. Monster open ocean swells, rain storms that prevented any type of visual reference, and very strong winds, most of the way. ( that’s where the sour grapes come in to play). In any case, the race provided some all time career high lights for me, I had the fastest glides I’d ever had because of the extreme efficiency of the Go Foil Maliko 200 I was using. I rode the biggest swells I’ve ever ridden in the open ocean. Because of the limitations of SUP and Outrigger canoes, you simply cannot go fast enough to ride those behemoth swells to completion, but with the foils you can, and they do, if you have the weight and gumption to track one down, talk about having a tiger by the tail. I also had another personal best, in that I stayed up on foil for approximately 23 to 24 miles, more than double my previous personal record. This wasn’t a solo endeavor by any means though, my fellow competitors( although we felt more like team mates, because we were all jumping off this channel crossing cliff together) were Mark Raaphorst and Alan Cadiz, Zane Schweitzer, and my son Austin Kalama ( his first channel crossing of any kind) .
Off the start I fumbled a bit, was plagued by the confusion of the boat wakes ahead of me, and just general anxiety and stress. I did eventually come down off my foil about a mile into the race. Frustrated, I recognized that I had better hit the reset button and calm down, if I wanted to have any chance of enjoying this experience. To give you some reference of how much I enjoy being out in these channels throughout Hawaii, let me just say, I’ve paddled every major channel in Hawaii at least twice, some as many as 38 times( Kaiwi), Pailolo at least 20, and I’ve even paddled Maliko to Ala Moana (115 mi.) so I know my way around out there, and I also know that the key to success in any crossing is channeling all that nervous energy in to a focused point of calmness, and then finding your rhythm. Once a rhythm is established that’s when the magic starts to happen, and that’s just what happened for me. I took off like a rocket, I realized that the giant swells I’ve always daydreamed about catching were now rideable on a foil, it was literally a channel junky’s wet dream. I not only caught back up to the leaders, but then proceeded to put the hammer down and roll right on by. The internal joy and happiness of this experience put it right up there in my top three days ever on the water. Two of my top three days are in this channel, the other being a 6 man canoe race, and my best day as you might assume is a big wave day at Peahi. Now that I had established a lead I could relax even a little more and truly absorb the pureness of this experience, which in turn creates a freeness to flow and be in the zone even more. At about the half way point I remember passing a unlimited SUP racer, I think maybe Cody but wasn’t sure, we were about a 100 yds. apart, but it gave me an understanding of how fast we were all going. (SUP had started approximately 40 minutes ahead of us). Things continued to be amazing, surfing from swell to swell with a flow that felt more like a epic surf session than a downwind race. At about 7 or 8 miles to go my boat told me I had somewhere between a half mile to a mile lead. I thought to myself don’t get ahead yourself and start thinking about winning, just stay in the moment and keep flowing, so I did, and at about 2 miles to go I noticed the wind beginning to lighten quite a bit but still enough. It wasn’t time to panic yet, but very quickly after that thought, BAM! It went completely still, no wind. I was in trouble, there was still a little a little bump in the water, enough to barely fly but at a much higher energy out put than I could muster. Plop! I went down and I didn’t have the energy to get back up or the bumps necessary to give me a chance. The attribute , that helped me establish the lead ( my size and strength) were now working against me( it certainly didn’t help that I hadn’t done any formal training in the past 8 months because I’ve been so busy building Kalama performance foilboards for everyone. What a shameless plug😂). I had become a monster truck in a 250 cc motocross race and that 250 was coming up my back end. A few minutes later the inevitable happened, Zane went flying by me like a dandelion in the wind and there was nothing I could do about it, other than sit down and have a big gulp of my sour grapes and slice of humble pie. The cherry on top of my humble pie was that not even Zane made it to the finish up on foil, but he sure made it a lot further than I did, so you have to hand it to the kid, he won. And while I was floundering in my pity, I was glad for him, he’s such a good kid and a real testament to how great his parents are. And speaking of kids, one of the days most special aspects was the sharing of this crossing with my son. I’m so proud that he did it, and hopefully someday this channel will bring him some of the joy it has given to me.
I purposely waited a few days to write this so that my sour grapes had a chance to sweet’n a little bit. Am I disappointed that I didn’t win? You better believe it! I have to keep reminding myself though that my time at the throne has come and gone, like the generations before me. It’s time for the next generation to have their turn at the helm. I do take some solace in acknowledging I’m almost 54, am not able to train every day like I used to, and was still able to mix it up with the best of them. Mahalo to my crew on the boat, my coach Bruddah Chris, Brent Deal for making happen, Quickblade paddles for the best you can get, Matty Schweitzer for some insane drone flying, Clare for putting on an incredible race, and my fellow Flyers Alan, Mark, Zane and Austin. Enjoy the wins, enjoy the losses and enjoy a glass of sour grapes now and then. Aloha