Tuesday 1 29 18 morning call

A shortboard session and SUP foiling downwind attempt number 16 for me yesterday. Here's a bottom to top turn combo of one of Maui's top groms Jackson Bunch. He caresses the water at each bottom turn very much like Tom Curren.


And got plenty flare off the top. I always enjoy watching him surfing.


Downwind attempt n.16 was in Kihei with excellent conditions and was shaping up to be the best yet, as for the first time I was using the Maliko 280 together with the short mast and a tuttle to tuttle extension (which I greatly prefer to the long mast, at least for surfing). The foil was coming up about 30% of the times that I was trying to take off (which is great, as the previous times it was more like 5%). Then the flight wasn't lasting more than a minute as I'm not used to the very slow foiling speed of the 280 (which I never surf with), but I was definitely improving along the way when a technical issue occurred and I had to stop my attempts half way. Very encouraging though, might try again soon with the 200, so that I don't suffer too much from not being used to foil at such slow speed.

5am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
2.1ft @ 15s from 275° (W)

Westerly energy stubbornly still present at Lanai, there might still be small waves in Kihei.

North shore
NW101
4.3ft @ 14s from 324° (NW)

N
9.5ft @ 10s from 20° (NNE)

Hanalei
4ft @ 15s from 305° (WNW)

Waimea
8.1ft @ 13s from 325° (NW)

Pauwela
8.7ft @ 13s from 335° (NNW)

6.7ft @ 11s from 24° (NNE)

5.8ft @ 10s from 33° (NE)

5.7ft @ 8s from 27° (NNE)

Let's celebrate the first post of Pat Caldwell since the beginning of the year (no details about the short hiatus) with his effective summary of the conditions:
Mid Monday on northern shores has rough breakers from combined remotely-generated long-period WNW to NW swell and nearby- produced shorter- period N to NNE waves. Similar rough conditions are predicted for Tuesday.

Below are the graphs of NW, Hanalei, Waimea and Pauwela (different scales, I reported the top of the scale value in red) and the Surfline forecast. I put an arrow on the peaks of this NW pulse at all the buoys, from which we can see how the swell is peaking in Maui right now. That energy is expected to start declining soon after dawn, but 8.7ft 13s from 335 (assuming this direction is reliable, might be more west than that) is still a solid number to start the day with. The problem, as uncle Pat underlined, is the roughness of the sea due to the local winds and to the interaction with the still significant NNE energy. Tough call, you might want to pick a spot that filters one of the two energies and most importantly is protected by the wind. My guess in fact, is that the waves at Hookipa will be big (easily double overhead and for sure bigger than yesterday), but rough and almost unsurfable. Happy hunting.


Wind map at noon.


North Pacific has a newly formed small westerly fetch off Japan, the strong NW fetch we've observed the last couple of days (7.5ft 15s from 312 predicted by Surfline on Friday) and the NNE nearby one associated with the local northerly flow.


Nothing from the south.


Morning sky shows a low just east of the islands that will keep the northerly flow (and the cold air) going until Friday morning. After that, back to straight east and getting pretty strong next week.