Friday's Hookipa video

I shot this prior to the webcast on Friday. Of note - Josh Stone on the red Goya sail. Seriously, Josh rips. I've had a few sesh's with Josh on the Cali coast and one things for certain - no matter where Josh is - he rips. Period. And even if the day totally sucks, he's smiling. After all, even when you think things suck, its still an amazing life we lead.

Today (Saturday) was kinda funny. I was late to the webcast due to the fact that I didn't wanna come in as I was having way too much fun sailing with Jake and Pascal.... Anyway, I did go in, and get the webcast set up - and the wind backed off (as you all saw on the webcast) but while I was dealing with technical issues with the webcast, I noticed GP on the webcast chat. "Damn," I thought ... "Why the hell isn't he here?" 10 minutes later GP shows up and says, "I wasn't sure about going to Hookipa, then I saw the webcast and so-and-so was ripping and I bailed and drove here ASAP" ... or something like that. Anyway - it was cool that the webcast got GP to come out and rip it up. ;-)

Enjoy Friday's video. The next few days are gonna be amazing.

Friday's webcast archive is here.

Friday recap

Yup. Friday rocked. The weather was perfect, and the crew was on fire. The forecast is looking interesting, very interesting. GP had some nice shots - check 'em out!

The pros were out 'en force as their all on the island for their respective team photo shoots, and the action on the webcast was awesome. We'll be webcasting again today and I'll also put some GoPro's on some riders to get some extra action for everyone.

I'll be posting HD video and also the archived webcast video from Friday later today.... I'm off to Hookipa now to get some sailing in before the webcast. Catch ya'll online around 2pm HST!

Click here to watch the webcast at 2pm HST.

Perfect score

Since my first Maui trip in 1987, I've been scoring amazing conditions on the island without fail. At the risk of jinxing my current trip, here's the current forecast.

FRIDAY
East winds 20 kt. Wind waves 8 ft. Mixed swell northwest 3 ft and east 4 ft. Scattered showers.

SATURDAY
East winds 20 kt. Wind waves 8 ft. Swell east 4 ft. Scattered showers.

SUNDAY
East winds to 25 kt. Wind waves 8 ft. Mixed swell north 3 ft and east 4 ft. Scattered showers.

MONDAY
East winds 20 kt. Wind waves 7 to 8 ft. Northwest swell 5 to 6 ft and north 5 ft. Scattered showers.

TUESDAY
East winds 20 kt. Wind waves 6 to 7 ft. Northwest swell 7 ft and north 5 ft. Scattered showers.

I'm supposed to head home Sunday, but I have to admit that the swell for Monday/Tuesday is really making those plans difficult.

Really...

Anyway, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. We have our webcast tomorrow (Friday) and I know the crew is stoked to tear it up at Hookipa. Hopefully I'll get someone to run the cam while I take in a sesh or two in front of the lens.

I'm back, and gone!

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been busting ass at work, and traveling (for work) is ramping back up again. I did manage to get a quick afternoon sesh at Chrissy Field with Catapult and Kevin (who has a new blog - check it out!) one day while I was in San Francisco last week. It wasn't anything spectacular, but I'd never sailed Chrissy and it was cool.

Nothing going on around here - though the ice is FINALLY breaking up and I awoke this morning to open water past the 100m or so of ice still locked into our shoreline. Spring is winning! ;-) I hope to be sailing in a week or two, but first...

...I'm off to Maui tomorrow! Late notice, and its a quick trip. I'll be webcasting again this trip, so stay tuned for more details. Webcast days will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The wind forecast looks good, waves - eh, so-so, and I just hope we get more sun than the forecast predicts.

So, the next post will be from Maui.

Aloha!

Wasted resource

You know its funny how sailors look at the weather, even though its impossible to sail. You'd think we would know better and just ignore it, but there's something in my mind that can't leave well enough alone.

I awoke to the little voice in the back of my head saying, "Hey, its gonna be windy today. REALLY windy..." Checking the weather and whoa! We do have wind today ... 25-35 with gusts to 50.

Now I just need to find some water thats not frozen over!

Asymetrical fins

I had a good conversation with Keith Teboul and Jake Miller about twin fins, and both Keith and Jake pointed out that they're not only fond of twins (Fins! We're talking about fins!), but they're running different sized fins on each side to maximize turning or grip performance for wavesailing. For more turns (at Hookipa), they are running a smaller fin on the starboard side.

This stemmed out of a conversation about Keith's latest board that he was sailing at Hookipa, and if you watch the Hookipa video down the page on this blog, you'll notice its short length and how super snappy it is when Keith gets in (and out) of tight wave situations. The board for its length has a fair amount of rocker, but Keith feels that because its short he can ease the rocker a bit without sacrificing turning ability and still amplify planing,top end speed and control during bottom turns. Of course, the board still needs a capable driver, and Keith rips. Being a shaper with sailing skills such as his, its no wonder his boards rock. ;-)

At any rate, I'm looking forward to trying out some asym fin configurations on my boards this sailing season. My boards are plenty loose, but I'm interested to see just how further they can be pushed.