Hookipa aerial fest

Another day of strong offshore winds. I tried to sail, but no way I could enjoy it. So I happily derigged and went to Hookipa where the pros were having good time (when not falling in the jibes or catapulting in the gusts or having the sail ripped off their hands when water starting...).

Sailor of the day: Kevin Pritchard.
When I took this picture I thought:"I better use less zoom with Kevin... he's starting to go out of the screen!"


On the next wave I used less zoom and he did another big aerial, this time one footed, perfectly landed on the wave face. He may not know how to spell poll ;-), but sure enough he knows how to rip in offshore conditions. Remember that crazy aerial at Cabo Verde?
10 from the italian judge.


I took tons of photos, it was hard to select a few more main page deservers.
Levi destroying a lip.


Keith got confused. He thought he was surfing and he got barreled.


Mark Angulo (the photographer survived).


Florian Jung.


John Skye had a session at Sprecks earlier. Looks like he didn't get too tired...
Hey, he has a blog too!


In this slide all the other worthy photos.
Unfortunately there's an annoying song as a soundtrack (you can mute it on the top left), that's why I didn't embed it.
That's the end of slide.com for me. Anyone feels like recommending a good slideshow site?

Big waves on the horizon. Next swell is going to pretty damn big, but pretty damn west too... 300-315 uncle Pat says. God bless the West Maui Mountain...

Goya demo day

Well, you should have been there... too late now!

Anyway, these are (part of) the boards that you could have tested this afternoon at Kanaha. Francisco, Lalo, Keith Taboul, Jason Diffin all there to help you with your setup.


Problem was: too much wind!
Check the Iwindsurf.com graph: 20 to 35... my kind of conditions!


I tried the 2009 72 and 66 custom wave series and liked them both a lot. The 66 in particular was my favorite, seen the nuclear wind.
Anyway, thanks guys that was fun.

Not much to brag about this (supposingly) great wavesailing week. A new swell filled in today, but with the wind like this, so strong, offshore and gusty, it was really hard to enjoy the wave riding... at least for me!

Is there anybody in Maui that still gets excited about strong wind forecasts?
Strong wind in Maui sucks, because it's gusty. Unless it's onshore or side-on, in which case it's not gusty, but it sucks anyway, because it creates tons of chop. So, there's no escape: as I said, strong wind in Maui sucks.
That's why I get excited instead when the forecast is for light or no wind (as long as there's waves).
Like the one coming up: Wednesday light wind and starting Thursday no wind (or light Kona) for quite a few days. With a large WNW swell arriving at the same time (the two things being extremely related, since the captured fetch will get close enough to the islands to bring BIG waves and shut down the wind), that means epic surfing.
Yu and Hu!

I hung out with the boys (and the girls!) at Kanaha the whole day, so another day with no photos. But I'm going to start using a rich reservoir of great photos taken by Chico. There's some real gems. I'm going to publish them one at the time whenever I need to. Windsurfing mag showed some interest in a couple of them and there's a possibility that they will publish them. So I'll leave those out.

BUT, all of a sudden the pasta with artichokes I'm cooking while posting is coming together, so I don't have time to select the photo.
In other words, come back later to this post for that...

And all of a sudden after dinner it got late and my wind-abused body needs to rest. The photo will have to wait... 'Night.

a great wavesailing week: day 1

Best shot of the day, once again, Mr. Levi Siver.
He landed this goiter at full speed, perfectly planing and very smoothly on the wave face. 10 from the italian judge.


A classic Mark Angulo moment.


Looks like Laurent.


Camille.


As you probably figured by now, the forecasted NW swell hit. Here's the Surfline NW buoy readings:

It should be tad smaller tomorrow (due to the shorter period), but at the same time also a bit more consistent and from a slightly more northerly direction (today it was barely over 300 degrees).

Now a few shots to show how crowded and intense Hookipa was.
Mark Angulo bottom turning, Keith Taboul emergency water starting, a guy just barely making over the wave on the right and a photographer... and that's only what you can see in this very zoomed photo!


In this one instead (looks like somewhere else, doesn't it?), I counted 30 sailors. Why are all outside? Because they're waiting for a set! And when the set will come, all 30 of them will be on it!!!


I don't particularly enjoy watching someone's butt (unless it's Anne Marie or Nori of course) when wave riding, so I sailed somewhere else at sunset and scored some of the smoothest waves ever... the trick is to pick the last one of a big set!
Like snowboarding on powder... just a little better! (I think it's more fun to ride something that moves and changes constantly...)


Jace Panebianco was in the water filming for the Windsurfing movie 2 (stay tuned for an interview) and that didn't help. In fact, that's when even the nicest guys drop in.
Take Levi, for example. Usually super respectful of the priorities, today I saw him dropping in a couple of times...


Keith.


KP.


Another classic Mark Angulo moment.


Francisco Goya is very busy testing twin fin prototypes. He told me:
"There's a lot of people that trust me. I can't make twin fin boards with my name just because the market wants so. I really need to like them... and now I'm starting to!"


Might be Lalo.


Laurent.


Finally, after all these boring windsurfing photo, what you guys really come on this blog for...
Oh what a lovely couple of siamese twins! Any spare room in that sweater?


Last, but not least, I'd like to thank Summer of Kuau Mart who gave me a huge portion of noodles and meat balls.
Summer, you made my dinner...

how Kazuma shaped my custom surfboard part 4

Part 4 of the Kazuma series. Mostly about how the shaping machine works.



PS. This is a really good wave sailing forecast... it's gonna be pretty damn good for a whole week starting tomorrow. I'm gonna hit some lips...
Also because Jeff gave me a mast to test. He wants to know how tough it is and I'm the man for that kind of job... one the best wipeouters of the island!

Aaaargh!

So many photos to post and I have to get out ot the door in 15 minutes! This post is going to be a bit disorganized...

The following two beautiful photos (thanks Alex!) show Francisco Goya testing a twin fin prototype. Looks like the only one not to jump on board the crazy twin fins train is going to be Naish... wise marketing choice?
Considering how trend-followers windsurfers are, I don't think so...




The last couple of days saw the return of the gusty offshore conditions. Sure, cleaner waves, but boy... I sure didn't mind the steadiness of the onshore wind...
This is Cookie in a nice aerial yesterday.


These photos, instead, are from Sunday and were taken with my camera by Andres (thanks!).
Offshore and gusty... Glenn doesn't care.


You can tell how bad the wind was... thank god for my Superfreak! Unbeatable in these conditions...


Emblematic photo. No wind on the inside, a bunch of sailors taking waves on the head waiting for the next (30 knots) gust to finally water start... welcome to Hookipa!


Florian Jung.


Fredrick experiencing a very common thing these days in Maui: riding a wave with somebody on his way.


Francisco Porcella.


Me gasping for air (didn't go on the rocks that time!).


Got to go.
PS. It's election day, don't be a slacker.

hallowkipa

The big monkey face on little human body rigging a sail on Halloween at Hookipa gets the honor of the first photo. Good job!


It was a day that for the Hookipa standard was defined shitty from most sailors. Small, messy waves (still big enough to send me and a few others on the rocks) and light onshorish wind.
Well, check the sequence that Alex sent me (thanks!!!). No matter how bad the conditions were, I had at least one good wave.
And even if I didn't, it was still a beautiful sunny day in Maui. I am so stoked to live here and not in Goma (for example). So, no complaints whatsoever.
Here's the sequence, excuse me if I'm proud of it (and of the fact that I put that board back together).








I particularly like the third one, because I'm floating on a little barrel...
Any other Hookipa sailor would have thrown a big aerial, but it's all relative. At my level, I'm happy that I went for the lip at the right time and for once in a while I didn't suck! And I have photos of it!!

Well, I sucked the day before though, when I did a kook move and managed to stick the top of the mast in the reef and have it at a perfect 45 degrees angle towards the next incoming big wave... I dove under it and heard:"SNAP!".
I thought I set a new world record with four pieces, but the official judge (Jeff) said that it's not the number of pieces that counts, it's the number of breaks. In my case, I broke both the top and the bottom, but it's only two breaks, so no new world record...


And now, the good guys.
Levi, would you please stop ripping so consistently and do something bad once in a while?


Here he is in the middle of that air upwind 360 (or whatever it's called) that he does on the face of the wave...


Nice body. I like this shot a lot.


Who-ho, I like this one even better!


Philippe.


Pascal mid 360.


19 yo from Germany. What was that word...? Oh yes: YIKES!
YIKES, how can I like her? YIKES, I'm such a pervert! YIKES, I need a doctor that can cure my disease! YIKES, something is wrong with my genes: they're telling me that I should be attracted by a healthy, good looking, young and lovely female human being... YIKES, YIKES, YIKES!


I'm going to use the next two photos for a little analysis. This is Nico on a single fin, digging a crevasse on his nice top turn. His board will not end up facing upwind at the end of it.


This is 'i Manna' on a twin fin, sliding through his top turn that he will finish with the board facing upwind.


As Keith Taboul always says:"twin fin are not better, they're just different!"
So what do you like, digging crevasses or sliding all the way to end the top turn with the board facing upwind?
Levi can do both... now, that IS better!


Don't know her age, don't know where she's from, but I like her too. YIKES!


YIKES! YIKES! YIKES! YIKES! YIKES! YIKES!


Camille.


Light onshorish wind... Glenn doesn't care.


Last, but not least, let's celebrate the lost of the virginity of a young (YIKES!) Irish sailor...
Blog readers, please a big applause for Katie's first time on the rocks at Hookipa... yeee!!!


BTW, she got one of the most incredible pair of eyes I've ever seen and I promise you guys to take a close up photo of them... whatever it takes! YIKES!

Today (Saturday) the waves are on a sligth NE increase. I already had a fun surfing sesh and I'm getting ready for the sailing session. Oh yes, and I don't live in Goma.
Can my life be any better? Of course it can (you know what you guys thinking... YIKES!), but it could be so much more easily waaaay worse...
That is my philosophy. I always look at the bright side, and I always remind myself of all the possible ways it could be worse. That makes me the happiest man of the world. Of my world, at least.

PS. Went to Hoo, too many surfers to sail. So many windsurfers whining... Get a frigging surfboard and learn how to surf! Or go sail Lanes or somewhere else! There's a new secret spot called Goma...
I can't stand whiners in general. But the Maui whiners are truly an offense to all the people in the world that don't have the luck to live in such a beautiful place...

PPS. For the first time since the good old Maradona days (late 80's), the Napoli soccer team is leading the rankings of Serie A. Sunday morning at 9.30am hawaiian time on Fox soccer channel there's Milan-Napoli. My cell phone will be off for that.

PPPS. Just downloaded a few pics I took at sunset.
You guys lucky that I'm not a believer, otherwise I would name this photo "God's pussy".


One last sailor at the downwind spot... I bet it's Art.


Pussy-kite.