The many faces of Dave...

Just got some of the shots back from Erik...

That Dave guy sure likes to show off!

One happy sailor... and the longest swim..

The solid NW swell is still hitting Maui's North Shore, and this morning we awoke to more waves, but very light winds. Passing on the SUP sesh to get some cleaning done around the house, before heading over to Kanaha for Chris' last sesh of the trip - with winds hover around 5 knots at shore and 10 outside the reef, we headed out on longboards with 5-meter sails.


The waves were still huge - as big as the whopper I caught SUPping yesterday. I grabbed a couple then headed in to check on Chris. We headed out Upper Kanaha's 2nd (or 3rd?) reef, where two more shortboard sailors had slogged out. One guy was on an older starboard, and what looked like a 5.8 or 6.0 meter sail. This guy was STOKED. I caught a good look at him coming down the line as I was going out, and he was hootin' and hollerin. We even ended up once on the same wave, and he gave me plenty of room, and was smilin' all the time.

After catching a few more rides, we ended up on the same wave again - we had both gone for what looked to be the set wave. Not wanting to ruin his ride, I jibed over the shoulder - and found myself staring into a wall of blue. I threw the mast down, tried to the sink tip down as far as I could - but there was no chance. The gear ripped out of my hands, I felt my back hit reef - not to hard - just enough to know it was there - and it felt like an eternity before I made it back up for air.

When I did come up, my gear was - amazingly - about five feet away - but I could already tell the mast was broken, about halfway down. Now, if the sail had been torn, I would have just tried to sail it in. But the sail had miraculously survived with no damage, and sailing it in would have almost guaranteed tearing the sleeve, so I de-rigged, figuring my buddy on the longboard would soon be out to lend a hand.

This turned out to be a decision I would (slightly) regret. With the swell, Chris was searching for me with his binoculars, but didn't see me broken down. The wind had picked up, blowing me downwind, through Lowers, all the way to Kite Beach. A big shout-out to Juan from Hot Sails who was the only sailor or kiter to offer me a tow in. His 69-liter board wasn't too hot for it though, so after we accidentally separated I told him to go back in and play with the waves. I was pretty beat by the time I made it back to shore - just in time to get Chris, Heather, and their 7-month-old daughter Myla off to the airport to catch their flight to LA layover, before they carry on to London, then Newcastle.

I wanted to find that other sailor that was sailing Uppers with us... he sure got me stoked.

Scared Sh!tless

I caught the biggest wave of my life today SUPing. It was, wholly and completely, unintentional.

We headed to Kanaha hoping to sail in the fairly decent sized NW swell - it was easily mast-high on Sunday afternoon when Chris caught his first *real* windsurfing wave - we shared a mast-high macker, me just downwind of him, getting a few turns...

Anyhoo, paddled out - there were a few surfers at lowers, nobody at uppers. Being fairly novice SUP'ers, we headed for the edge of the channel where there some really nasty waves breaking - steep and pitchy. Most of the other SUP'ers knew enough to stay out of there - but we knew enough to know that we weren't good enough to get everyone else's way ;-).

So after getting working and worked and missing waves and falling off, we were pretty beat, and were thinking of going in. Chris caught a wave, and happened to lose his paddle - I could see it, so I started paddling towards it to grab it and bring it to him.... as i paddled toward it, I saw a wave coming.

I kept paddling for the paddle.

I got closer.

The wave was getting bigger.

I was twenty feet away from the paddle.

The wave was head-high.

I was ten feet away from the paddle.

"F*$K THE PADDLE" I screamed to Chris.

The wave was probably now head and a half, and not breaking. I paddled like my life depended on it. Somehow, I managed to switch my feet from parallel to perpendicular. I dug one more time. The wave welled up under the board, and took me all the way up the peak - I could feel it getting ready to break - then I pushed the nose straight down the face - kind of like dipping my toes in the water. Chris was right in the way (I have corroboration!) - and confirmed the look I felt on my face - I was scared shitless. He swears to god that 12 foot board was nearly completely vertical when I went screaming down the face, well out into the flats, as the wave caught up behind me and I rode the white water gasping for air and screaming my head off. It wasn't a ride, just a drop, but, holy crap, it was easily the scariest drop-in of my life.

Windsurfing, surfing, paddling, kiting...

waves make it all the better.

Oh and go check Dave's Blog!

While I was running around the boat setting up shots for the magazine, Troup was getting more shots for his blog - go and look at them!

Epic Sessions

The Boat Photoshoot Day and back to testing

This morning, we woke up to head to the Red Rhino for a lil' photoshoot - sorry, you don't get to see pictures yet - but Dave will probably post some video outtakes soon. Let's just say we're stoked with the outcome, and you'll see it in the mag ;-)

After that, it was back to Kanaha for - MORE board testing! The last few boards of the fleet arrived today, and, fortunately, they were big'uns... it was a little on the lighter side. However - it was still Maui - which means, even at my 'heavyweight' size (OK, I'm probably even bigger than the average heavyweight) I was planing on ~90 liters boards and a 5.5 with wind averaging about 20 mph. At home in Florida, I'd probably be on 5.7 or probably 6.2, and a 115 liter board. Even so, the wind lightened up, and I hung on the beach while the flyweights planed away. Most impressive was Brit guester Chris "Spider-monkey" Peacock - who blasted by 5 slogging sailors, planed through a nice inside duck jibe, and kept blasting back out to the reef.

Sorry for the lack of posts!

Fortunately, David has been posting double-time.

The board test is going well - we had a few good days of wind, now it's dropped off for a couple days, giving us some time to rest up, measure boards, do some photo shoots, and maybe today get a hike in - we're thinking bamboo forest, or maybe swinging bridges. Anybody have any suggestions?

Keep an eye on Dave's blog for some epic footage from our new GoPro Hero Wide-Angle.

Now, I'm going to help catapulting Aaron measure some boards... I'll try and get the spreadsheet up soon.

Maui, Two Days In!

After two days of running around the island getting nearly twenty boards, a dozen sails of varying brands and sizes, and chatting with all the locals, the WindSurfing test team had its first full day of testing yesterday at Kanaha. Winds were a steady 20-25. I was comfortably overpowered on a 5.7 - the rest of the test team used sails from 4.5 to 5.5. Big sail award of the day goes Carl Spiess from Canada, who held down a 6.2 until it got really windy.

Joining us for a longish weekend is Florida Technical Editor Alex Stankie - (his pop's an airline pilot, so he was able to hitch a ride out for free - although not in the board bag he's pictured in here - he actually came First Class!)


Now we're sitting at the test house, having some breakfast, and getting ready for another day of testing - sweet! Aaron, Alex and Jenny H. from Hood River.

Mecca

If you've been windsurfing for any length of time, you know that Maui is, well, pretty much the center of the windsurfing universe. While it wasn't here that the sport was invented, it was here that the sport grew, flourished, and progressed into the short board era that enthralled people across the world. It's where Robby Naish, Josh Stone, Mark Angulo, Mike Waltze, and many other world-famous sailors cut their teeth on sharp coral reefs and jagged shoreline rocks.

Flying over the North Shore yesterday was invigorating - really getting me excited for sailing here.

Today, I'm running around to different shops and distributors, rounding up the gear for the High Wind board test -and hopefully, getting on the water this afternoon. Fingers crossed!!