no. 24. April 2007
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Photoshoot Month for Kevin. Photoshoots, photoshoots, and more photoshoots could describe my month. April is always a tough month for me, as it is right before the season is starting, and is also when all the companies want to do their photoshooting. When you should be training the most, you end up sailing in front of the camera and doing all sorts of things other than my normal training regimen. This is why I get my training in before April, and hope that my preparation for the season pays off. In April there were amazing conditions on Maui. The wind was up, the waves were up, and it was just incredible. It’s about time that we got some good sailing in, since the winter months were producing good conditions. For the Starboard photoshoot the conditions were unreal. Wind and waves, and sunny skies. They couldn’t have asked for better conditions. Then we went on to the other shoots, that were done in equally good conditions. I also did some filming for a Japanese movie about Natsuki Iijima, a pro windsurfer who died very young. That had some amazing conditions. They must have gotten some amazing footage. The wind was gusting up to 35 knots and we were on 5.9’s just blasting around. It got me on my slalom kit for five days straight from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., sailing with Micah and Robby Swift around the marks and really lighting it up. Afterwards I felt like I had been at a race because the skin on the bottom of my toes had been eaten up from the nonskid, and just being out in the water all that time in the rough conditions really took a toll on the body. From the time the Starboard photoshoot started until the 1st I had one day off of the water the entire month. Pretty crazy just how good Maui is for windsurfing. To top all this good windsurfing, I managed to move houses, and moving is not that much fun. It’s a good time to clean everything out, but with the season and photoshoots, it was not the best time for cleaning and moving. I also managed to set up a nice little apartment for people looking for a place to stay on Maui. I was too busy to get a website up on it, but it’s coming. In the next month I’ll get it up there for you to check out. I’m off to Korea for the first racing event of the season. The forecast looks good, and so I hope there’ll be a good battle over there. Wish me luck! Until next time, Aloha. Kevin.
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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 24. April 2007
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Month on Maui for Taty. Aloha everyone, I had a good time in Maui for all the days I have been here. I didn’t miss even one day of sailing so what would you say about that? Being in Maui, spending whole day windsurfing, photoshoot, testing and just having fun. The first two weeks we had the starboard photoshoot, the wind wasn’t that good so we didn’t shoot for the first two days, but Kiri and I went out on freestyle gear, pumping to do some freestyle just to be on the water. The third day the wind started blowing like crazy, photoshoot was on and ready for action:) Photoshoot went good and I saw some sick photo’s from all the Starboard riders so it’s wrap with good shots. After the photoshoot was done and all that, Kevin and I were pimping in his big Van, listening to Rap songs as we drive to the beach, get there, look how the conditions are, and just go out and sail till we get tired. Did some sail testing as well, and everything is looking good. The sails are awesome.
Well my time here on Maui is over, I feel sad to leave but at the same time happy to fly back to Bonaire. I was looking at the windforecast in Bonaireand it seems like the wind will be good when i arrive, so it will be more sailing for me when I get back home:) Now if you are planning a vacation to the #1place to learn to windsurf, which is Bonaire’s crystal clear, shallow, warm water, do it now and make sure to visit Bonaire Windsurf Place for all your best beginner to advance windsurf gear on the island. This shop has the latest gear on Bonaire. There’s also a bar for food and beverages and if you feel for a massage that’s also possible. Come to Bonaire and experience it for yourself, you will also see me on the water doing my freestyle moves.. I want to thank the whole Mauisails team for doing a great job on the sails and supporting me one more year, and Artur, you are very helpful too. Thank you. Barry, you always know what I want on the sail. No wonder why you are the best. Kevin, woof woof yeah, I had a good time. Thank you. Well I have to go. Taty frans NB-9
I had a good time, training my double loops, did a lot of wave sailing with Kevin as he always push me to go out on the wave, no matter how bad I wanted to do freestyle, I always ended up sailing a wave board. I did some pretty nice double loops. I am so happy my port tack wave riding is getting better each day, so said Kevin, so it I think it’s true.
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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 24. April 2007
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Busy month for Martin. The TR-3 sails are in Holland for one month now. The last thirty days have been pretty hectic. We did lots of tuning and testing with the new sails. The first impressions are very positive. The centre of effort sits very low in the sail and there’s a lot of forward oriented drive. I’m still finding out about the settings as it seems a lot of alterations can be made to make things easier. I found out the harness lines can be shortened to create a more upright sailing stance which suits the sail a little better and makes things less tiring on top of it. Also the mast foot position can be set back compared to all other race sails I’ve tested so far, an indication for the built in control of the sail. In Leucate the second Naish Speed Party was being held which our organisation: www.gps-speedsurfing.com supported. We were unlucky with the wind. It had been howling for weeks in a row but all machines shut down just before the event started, making it impossible to get races in. The spot is perfect for speed and it would have been a great opportunity to introduce gps-speedsurfing to France. We will have to wait for yet another year. The Mondial du Vent event with race director and former speed world champion Pascal Maka is keen to bring gps closer to the general public and Robby Naish was present himself to promote the Naish Speed Party.
In Holland the third USM series starts at the first windy weekend. Herman van den Berg, the Dutch Maui Sails importer sponsors the F2 Ultimate Speed Series. Over one hundred windsurfers pre registered for the event, making it the biggest GPS event anywhere in the world. All in all we expect around one hundred fifty entries from Holland, Belgium and Germany. The series is run over a total of four races with two discards and is based on our main ranking: the average of the five fastest ten second runs. Currently I’m on stand by for the next big wind session in West Kirby. We need to be a little lucky since spring has hit Europe in full force, but still it’s possible some delayed gales hit the shore of this beautiful town in the West of England. My 4,3 TR-3 has been flown in and will arrive this week. Looking at such a baby size you start wondering when you can ever use it, but last time I carried a similar size with me I thought about cutting it down to a 2,5. Let’s wait and see how the small sizes handle things. Cheers, Martin van Meurs.
In Leucate I had a couple of discussions on the future of GPS vs video timing. It turns out a lot of windsurfers still don’t know much about the accuracy of the best devices currently available. We are installing a tech group with the most important software programmers: Yann Mathet http://gpsactionreplay.free.fr Mal Wright http://www.intellimass.com and Manfred Fuchs http://www.gps-speed.com. Mathew Robertson, Tom Chalko, Chris Lockwood and Boogie are also part of this tech group. Furthermore a test group with Andrew Daff and Graig Berg has been set up. Andrew will contact volunteers to test GPS devices on a world wide level to gather as much info as possible. Both groups will work towards an upgrading of GPS devices and related firmware.
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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 24. April 2007
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Another whirlwind month for Phil. Another whirlwind month for me. Lets see - Ok I went to Australia for the first few weeks of April to visit my family. It’s always nice to catch up with relatives and friends and have a good laugh with my Brothers. I hang out with my Mum and did some tourist things which I haven’t done before. Australia is such a huge country and 20 years ago I left to start competing on the World Cup and it seems I have so much to see down there. One day this will happen. Back to Maui and it was back into the routine of business and sailing. I’m planning to do the US Open again in Texas and then it’s onto France for the Defi Wind long distance race. I’ve been slalom sailing a lot lately and getting ready by putting out the bouys and doing some serious rounds. The wind has been blowing most of April and we have had some little swells at Hookipa which has enabled us to get the proto wave sails out there and continue to refine them. Short and Sweet, now back to it. Aloha, Phil.
Barry’s April. What an interesting month April has been. We have had Bogo, our marketing and web guy, here for several months now and it’s been great to get to know him more on a day to day basis, as well as to have him be able to work directly with the photos and setups for our program. I think the experience of Maui has really helped him to understand why we do what we do and how we do it. I expect our whole image and character in the ads and website will move into a new realm. This month was a time for shifting gears and taking time to get a lot of practice with packing and shipping. The flow of products is getting better and more predictable, so we have been busy making sure the things are making their way forward into the world. I am really enjoying being part of the whole process and delivering the goods is a prime motivator. I’m getting to be buddies with the packing tape dispenser. We are excited about the changes we are making to the wave and freestyle sails, and having Taty Frans here to work on those has been good for all of us. He can get out and feel for what he is after, we can adjust shaping or luff curve, and then he gets to try again and offer feedback. For some reason, this year has been filled with perfect opportunities to continue to improve and perfect all the smaller wave sails, since the wind has been blowing here non-stop for weeks, and there has been regular North swells when normally it is all done by now. This bodes well for 2008. Aloha Barry
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