Economic Stimulus Sale!

I'm selling my entire quiver of KA Kult sails. Its a great quiver of powerful sails that's been used very little - some of the sails used hardly at all!

7.0, 6.4, 5.8, 5.3, 4.7

All are orange and black, all with original bags, etc. $200 each, or you can take the whole quiver - yes, all five sails for $900 and I'll pay for ground shipping anywhere in the U.S.!

Want to sweeten the deal? How about a matching RRD FreestyleWave 86 with straps and fin for $650??!

OMG - can it get better? Heck yeah! How about a Nolimitz 430 mast for $100 and V10 carbon boom for $150 in on the package?

Lets review -

Full quiver - $900. 86liter RRD - $650. Toss in the mast for an additional $100 and add a carbon boom for $150 (heck, it even has harness lines on it!) ... That's $1800 for a complete setup.

Buy the whole thing and I'll throw in a chinook mast base and universal for FREE and drop the package price to $1650. DUUUDDEEEE!

Hurry up before I change my mind!! ;-)

Kanaha lost footage

Its amazing what goodies you can find on missing SD cards in the bottom of my bag.

Note - look for the background action and the surprise I had way out on the outside at Kanaha. ;-)

Just the guys skiing

Hookipa Sunday, Feb 15

Color commentary

Today we're gonna up the webcast experience with color commentary from Giampaolo. This should be interesting to say the least. We're gonna get things started around 2:30pm HST - after all, GP and I need to get some sailing in before we camp out on the bluff. ;-)

So, if you have time, pop on over to EpicSessions.tv and check out the action at Hookipa.

Damn good day

Nothing like it. First, sailed uppers/lowers lit on a 5.0 and an 82 liter JP Real World Wave from the great crew at Neil Pryde Maui. (Kevin, you ROCK!)

Then I packed up, and headed to Hookipa to do what GP thinks is the first ever webcast from Hookipa (yesterday's test doesn't count). Seriously, it was a Goyafest with Lalo, Pascale, etc. out on their Guru and Wave3D sails tearing it up. I camped out in GP's Maui Cruiser because of the rain squalls, but in the end, did over 2 hours of webcasting from the bluff with a pretty satisfied audience - sans Josh, who must have upset the streaming video gods somewhere along his path and was unable to participate.

My only regret is spending too much time behind the camera and not enough time in the surf. Yeah, rough life, eh? ;-)

Anyho - here's a quick video from my booms from my morning sesh.

Mahalo!

Hookipa/Maui Webcasting!

Ok - streaming tests from Hookipa were ironed out today. Tomorrow we're gonna do a morning surfing webcast, and then an afternoon windsurfing livecast. Each video webcast will be for about two hours. We'll probably sneak in a kite stream on Sunday, but we'll see.

Everyone can join in on the live chat during the webcast, and anyone can message the camera operator (me!) and ask me to follow a particular rider, or inquire as to who's out there, etc. (hell, ask me to zoom in on some bikini hottie on the beach - I'm game!)

You can watch the streams at www.EpicSessions.TV

This is all still very beta - and we're working on the stream quality on the fly, so have some patience.

SATURDAY WEBCAST : 2:30PM HST from Hookipa. Forecast is for 25-30 knot NE winds, 11 foot windswell and 3 foot NW swell.

Gone in a flash

I arrived home to low clouds, impending rain, and no hope for a sunset. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some pink in the clouds. Grabbing the camera, I dashed out onto the ice and snagged this shot. By the time I walked back inside, it was gone.

Roll the dice

After 20+ years of travel for sports that are almost 100% environmentally dependent on the outcome, the past 10 or so years I've adopted a new approach to taking these trips.

I decide "go/no go" at the last minute.

Really, I do. Sure it (can) cost more, but the reward is worth the added expense. Here's the rationale and how it works.

First, fix on a destination. Preferably multiple destinations. In this case, we'll go with Maui. Then, pick a "window" for travel. Typically this will be 2-3 weeks. Now, I'm not going for the entire time, but its a window of travel that I keep open and available. If you have accumulated any frequent flier miles, but are short on needed miles to get a full fare, check for "cash+miles" promotions - you'll be amazed at what you find. You can also set alerts for fare reductions on most travel websites - very handy.

Then start working ticket prices to find the "sweet spots" in the travel times. On the airline websites, select the "flexible date" options - typically +/- 3 days around a departure/arrival date. Map out the 2-3 week window and get a feel for when flights are cheap(est), from there, its all about watching the weather to catch epic conditions.

A few things you need to be flexible on. 1) crappy flight times. Cheap flights have bad departure/arrival times, sometime long layovers and weird routing. 2) sketchy lodging. 3) limited gear rental/availability depending on season and 4) crap airline seats next to an overweight, annoying tourist. Sure I usually get upgrades, but I've spent a ton of time on flights is crappy seats - who cares! I'm just happy to be there headed towards funville. ;-)

Oh, but the reward! Winter trips with days of powder, sailing trips with killer swell and more wind than you need. Sweet opportunities to get somewhere off the beaten path with a crew that makes the whole journey worthwhile.

The last time you were on a trip and got skunked - what if I said you could score epic conditions for an additional $200 for the entire trip?

Cheaper than a lift ticket and oh, so much better.

Go ahead, roll the dice and take your chances next time you schedule your trip months in advance. You might score, you might not. Use my method and score every time. ;-)

Here's the forecast for my trip tomorrow. It works for me!


...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM HST SUNDAY...

HIGH PRESSURE WILL STRENGTHEN AS IT MOVES NORTHEAST OF THE MAIN
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. THIS WILL CAUSE TRADE WINDS TO INCREASE ABOVE
ADVISORY THRESHOLD.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY MEANS THAT WIND SPEEDS OF 25 TO 33 KNOTS
AND/OR SEAS 10 FEET OR GREATER ARE EXPECTED TO PRODUCE CONDITIONS
HAZARDOUS TO SMALL CRAFT. INEXPERIENCED MARINERS...ESPECIALLY
THOSE OPERATING SMALLER VESSELS...SHOULD AVOID NAVIGATING IN
THESE CONDITIONS.

FRIDAY
East winds to 25 kt. Wind waves 14 ft. Northwest swell 4 ft. Scattered showers.

SATURDAY
East winds to 25 kt. Wind waves 15 ft. Northwest swell 3 ft. Isolated showers.

SUNDAY
East winds to 25 kt. Wind waves 13 to 14 ft. Northwest swell 4 to 5 ft. Isolated showers.

MONDAY
East winds to 25 kt. Wind waves 12 to 13 ft. Northwest swell 4 to 5 ft. Scattered showers.

Seasonal milestone and Maui bound

At sunset tonight, I observed a seasonal milestone as the sun has finally broken free of land and is now setting beyond the point. The cherry on top of tonight's sunset sundae was the high temp of 54 degrees that has all but eliminated our snow cover. Anything left should melt away tomorrow with continued mild temps and rain forecasted.

The rain tomorrow won't damper my day as I'll finish packing for my trip to Maui on Thursday morning. An evening arrival will see me jumping into one of GP's car's that is graciously being dropped off at the Kahului airport by a departing sailor as he heads to points elsewhere. As usual, I'll be staying at Spreckshouse (thanks Cindy and Troy!), but that won't be my first stop once I'm on the island. Nope, I'm gonna head straight to see Henry at Jacques and get some Ahi Poke. A nice little treat after 17 hours of flying and airports. ;-)

The forecast is for epic 30+ knot winds, awesome 13-15 foot east windswell and a light 3-5 foot NW swell on top of that.

Keep a very CLOSE eye on this blog for some special events and announcements that will be sure to keep you tuned in this weekend. (wink)

Aloha!

Anticipation

This weekend brought near record temps (on the warm side for once!) and tons of sunshine. In addition to the spring fever that's on everyone's mind, the bay has all but lost its snow cover exposing darker ice that will absorb sunshine radiation and really get a move on in terms of melting.

To cap off the weekend, we were treated to a really nice looking sunset, which in a few days will escape the confines of land and begin to set over open water on the point to the south of our house.

Wide angle looping

Per Bill's comment on the previous post, I though I'd resurrect this video of Jake rocking at uppers with one of the GoPro Wide's that we had for the board tests that was pre-production. We were all kinda taking it easy with the cam since 1) we didn't own it and 2) it was the only one we had and we didn't want to trash it and end the fun.

Turn up the volume and enjoy! (and make sure to wish Jake best recovery from his injury this week that has him sidelined for 3-5 weeks! Total bummer)

Boom mount

With all the GoPro wide videos, I thought I'd post this quick video of me at uppers last October to illustrate the view from the back of the boom at 170 degrees. I had the cam angled downward to give more rider perspective, and you'll note that after the gybe, I reach back and angle the cam more upright. If you've got one of these, make sure you use a philips head driver to tighten the adjustments to keep it from "slouching" in chop and after jumps.

Mast tip mount

GP has been showcasing some of his mounts for the new GoPro WIDE cameras, and someone asked about mounting on the mast head tip. Here's some unedited video from the Windsurfing Magazine board test last October on Maui. The field of view is 170 degrees, which enables you to get the horizon in on the shots ... very cool.

Frenzy HIRES

As promised, here's the hires version of the Frenzy video.

Grom stoke

John had his two boys out on this ice this past weekend, and it was their first time ice kiting. Jack, the younger of the two was on skis, and his older brother ripped it on a snowboard.

Gotta love it!