no. 28. August 2007
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Š PWA / Carter
A bit Stressy month for Kev The month of August was a bit of a stressy month for me. I went to Turkey and came third which was pretty good in the challenging light air conditions. Other than that I have been waiting for my passport to go to Brazil. If you want the inside scoop on that nightmare check out my blog at http://kevinpritchardwindsurfing.blogspot.com/. Other than that I have been sailing lots trying to get ready for my upcoming events. I have been doing some photo shooting with the new MS 2 , Pursuit and Aloha sails and those are feeling really nice.
Now it is a month and a half on the road.. You gotta love that. Contests and traveling, except all of these are in the cold, breaking out all the cold weather gear. It is going to be a nice adventure. See you on the water! Kevin.
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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 28. August 2007
Holland Month for Taty. I went to Holland the 2nd of August to visit my mother for two days. and flew back to Bonaire the 4th of August. We got to Bonaire just in time to watch the Pro-Kids Freestyle Worlds. The wind was light but the action on the water was HOT, classic, freestyle and that is really making a name for itself. The event was bigger this year and also more local people came to support and watch the kids do their freestyle tricks.. I’ve been home for two weeks and only sailed for three days. The rest of that was NO wind... nothing. Huricane DEAN took all the wind and sent some nice waves for surfing. On the 20th, Tonky and I flew to Holland for the THE MISSION 2007 Festival event. This festival took place the 24th till the 26th.. with 300 competitors. It’s just great. I had fun and this event sure is great to be part of. I REALLY enjoyed each day.. looking at all these kids competing and asking me for my autograph, asking me questions I like, and in all that everybody was so friendly..
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
The Mission in numbers. 300 competitors (54 girls and 137 competitors age 19 or younger) and around 5000 spectators had a great time at The Mission, the 4th edition. Reasonable wind and 2 beautiful sunny days made the event a true pleasure for everyone. Downwind Slalom Races (including some pro’s), Speedboat powered freestyle on the Red Bull Ramp, brand new 2008 test equipment of Fanatic, F2, MauiSails and ION, the special Mission tombola with o.a. 4 boards / sails / booms / suits / bags / hundreds of small prices and the legendary party on Saturday Night (Sunday Morning). 54 Girls is unique in a windsurf event and 137 competitors under the age of 19 does tell that Windsurf is more alive again then ever before. On the 23rd and 24th of August 2008 we have the 5th Edition of The Mission. We’re investigating the possibilities for a Girls Camp before the event next year. Those who are interested or have ideas can contact us via www.windsurfers.nl or from November on www.The-Mission.eu
Even though the wind was light the Competition was still on. Riders on big boards with big sails were the ones who won the event in each catagory. I want to to thank Herman and all the sponsors who made The Mission event possible and hope to see you all next year.. Well, I have to catch the plane back to Bonaire now. In three weeks there’s Sylt PWA event, so I have to train for that as well. Bye, Taty Frans NB-9
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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 28. August 2007
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
I would come back to the island with one of the GPSspeedsurfing crew members to give a presentation later this year. GPS is taking a big step right now, the ISAF is opening up to the possibilities of the devices and the potential to use GPS for false start detection and live coverage on the beach and through Internet. Some tests have been made in sailing races and we are expecting to give our first limited demonstration on the Internet during the European Speed Meeting in Holland, immediately after the World Cup in Sylt. Early next year we expect to be able to go live for large audiences.
Tons of Work in August for Martin. Tons of work apart from windsurfing for me this month, but also time to relax and enjoy a holiday with my girlfriend Annemarie. We went to Karpathos to enjoy the local food, beaches, night life and obviously some speed sailing. I never went to this island before and was surprised with the consistency of the wind. The bay in which the speed world cup is being held is a pretty gusty with the wind falling from the hills, but the wind clock is being set every day. It gave me a fair chance to test some settings for the planned record attempts this fall. It looked like an ideal venue to me for organizing a GPS race over there. We got in contact with the mayor of the island and talked with him about the possibilities to organize live Internet GPS races. He was totally open to it and agreed
The fast season is finally nearing and the tests in Karpathos hopefully prove to have been a help to really go for it. We have been looking for new venues in anticipation of the big storms and I feel I’m ready for the real work. After months of testing with the TR3 sails I can’t wait to finally have a shot in high wind speeds. Meanwhile things are heating up in our ranking and it looks as if to get in this years’ top ten ranking you need an average speed of at least 44 or even 45 knots. Hennie Bredenkamp just posted a fast session in Namibia, in Germany a new and potentially very fast venue has been found and the Gorge area seems to come back alive after many years. More and more reports about fast speeds on pretty large sizes are coming in proving the biggest technical gain has been made in moderate windspeeds. But the real stuff still happens in extreme conditions. Luck plays a big factor as well. It needs to be seen which continent gets the best conditions, in the end the ranking will be influenced a lot by the forces of nature. Martin van Meurs. www.mauisails.com | 0
Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 28. August 2007
Reward month for Art. I have been working as part of the MauiSails design team since spring of 2005. It’s really a pleasure working with Barry, Phil and Kevin not only due to their experience, but also because they are open-minded individuals and encourage creativity in the evolution of the MauiSails product. Some of my responsibilities include working on the sail design files with Barry, sail graphics, parts design/3-D modeling, sailmaking and testing. This past month has been very rewarding as we finally received our 08 production wave and freestyle sails. After all the time spent evolving and tuning the designs it’s great to get the finished product on the water. The new wavesails have an amazing feel to them. They maintain their characteristic power but now feel a bit softer and superlight in the hands. Top end efficiency and handling are also improved. For wave sailing this means that you have full power while driving a bottom turn but the sail essentially disappears and feels very neutral during the top turn. No more getting overpowered when doing a radical cutback in offshore winds! These benefits of a softer, lighter feel and excellent handling translate throughout the 2008 sail line. One of the key factors to achieving the performance of the new sails was refining their twist. We used ideas that were first implemented in the TR-3 and applied them to the other sail lines with excellent results. The profiles of the sails have a very progressive twist throughout the sail body, not just in the head. When powered, more of the sails profile is correctly aligned with the vector direction of the higher velocity upper airflow. This translates to better efficiency and control. When making a sail softer and allowing it to “flex” more, it is important to still maintain good skin tension. We accomplished this through adjustments in the seam shaping. Additionally, the constant curve of the MauiSails masts plays an important role in having the sail set up with the correct shape and twist characteristics.
Maui, Hawaiian Islands
Great Month for Barry. What a great month August has been. There was killer good wind, lots of testing, and plenty of action out in the world. Kev was flying the MauiSails flag high leading a huge pack of serious competitors from the big brands, and to see him finish out the year in front of the former twelve time World Champion gave me good reason to see us being more and more competitive in the near future. I know there will be some guys who spent a lot of time looking up Kevin’s tail pipe wanting to try his gear to see if they can get a leg up from changing over. So many positive things have happened in my world. The challenges that I was facing to resolve some issues that have been distracting are over, and I’m more free to concentrate my efforts again. A trip to Oregon and some days at the lake showed me that windsurfing is still thrivng in the USA, with a passle of little kids going at it all day long on dedicated teaching gear that now makes it easy for almost anyone to learn, and families were getting together to share the experience. In tough economic times in the past, I remember that our business was not seriously affected because it seemed that people sought relief in sailing, and it was relatively affordable so that was possible. There may be a lot of big yachts for sale soon, but windsurfing gear will be inexpensive and more fun. Always was, always will be. Even if all that happens is that a lot of old gear gets dragged out and used again for affodable entertainment, we will still be looking good as a sport. Maybe more folks will be curious about why there are all these people smiling after a good day on the water. Aloha, Barry.
We are now busy finalizing the freeride designs and working on the TR4. We already have some innovations planned for the new race sails as well as the usual fine tuning to get them really clean. Should be exciting. Aloha, Artur Szpunar
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