Maui Monthly no. 22. February 2007

The level of sailing here was just incredible! It was cool to be part of this event with such amazing conditions. My Maui Sails/Starboard combination was really working good out there on the water. I used the 5.3 Legend, and it was just great the way you could get going early to move around, as well as drive it when hitting the lip. I was happy to get third place and it is a good start in defending my world title again this year!

Kevin Pritchard US-3

Photos : PWA / John Carter

no. 22. February 2007

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

So short month for Kevin.

This month was a short month and boy did it fly by. Right from the get go we had some amazing Kona winds kick through Maui, and man was it windy. It had to be gusting up to around 50 knots, and the waves were nearly double mast high. It was quite a treat to say the least. The port tack conditions were some of the best sailing we have had all winter long, and to get four days in a row of epic, port tack Lanes is pretty darned fun.

The only problem with the epic port tack sailing is that I was trying to get trained up for the first event of the season in Cabo Verde, which was meant to be starboard tack down the line. So I ended up going down to CV early and what a treat that was. We got there on time to enjoy some of the world’s best wavesailing. I had three days right off the bat with solid six foot, barreling point break waves right from the start. It was unreal. It was like a dream the waves were so perfect. I rolled out my 5.7 Legend thinking this is going to be the sail for the contest... better not break it. After a week of training, the competition kicked off with a bang. Epic mast, to mast and half high waves fired it. It was unreal!! The competition of the century, all the boys were there, Siver, Polokow, Angulo, Kauli, Baker, and it was all up for grabs with big waves rolling through.

I had a super tough second round heat with Siver, and Polokow, along with the high flying Alex Mussolini. Levi won the heat with a tie between me and Mussolini for second place. I managed to get the nod on a countback, leaving the two hotshots with a long battle to get in contention. In the next heat, I had the heat of my life. For sure, I had the biggest, HIGHEST aerial I have ever done. It felt like it was 60 feet high! I saw it on video and it wasn’t that big, but it was still pretty high. I could hear the people on the beach gasp as I came down, and it was great. Most people were claiming it to be the biggest aerial ever done in competition. I finished third in the event, and I was pretty happy with that. With the level of competition so high, and all the boys throwing down some big moves, just to be on the podium at an event like this is a pretty big accomplishment.

The other big news for me is that I was nominated for the “World Action Sportsperson of the Year” for the 2007 Laureus World Sports Awards. It is like the Grammys of sports awards, and it looks like it’s a pretty big deal. Lots of famous athletes are going to be there, and also on the list are some of my heroes, like Kelly Slater and Travis Pastrana. So to be on the same voting tablet with those two guys is pretty cool. If you want to know more about it go check out www.laureus.com .

That is all for me from an action packed month of February.

See you on the water!

Kevin.

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 22. February 2007

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

It was really Good Month for Taty.

I had a blast in this event in Barbados with some sick waves and really nice windsurfing and surfing. There’s was a lot of people at the beach watching the action.

Kiting and surfing was also part of the event and believe me some of the local guys here are ripping.

Barbados will be a place that I will never forget the people there a really nice very helpful and laid back...everything is “irie, hahaha”, but I had a really great time.

I was there for the Brain Talma action man event and I won the Windsurfing freestyle discipline with Kiri 2nd, Diony 3rd and Tonky 4th.

The prize that I won was a round trip ticket from Barbados – London, London - Barbados on Virgin Atlantic.

I couldn’t travel with all my stuff to Barbados because American Eagle doesn’t accept boards so I had a chance to check in one boom, sail and mast. So I took my 5.2 loco and with this sail I won the freestyle event and also was doing some wave sailing with it the rest of the days and also did some photo with Alex Williams and another photographer from the Italian magazine.

Back to Bonaire and the wind was good 5.2m and 4.5m sail wind conditions.

On the 25th was Kiri 17th birthday so his mother organized a freestyle event on Bonaire. I was on the 5.2m Loco with my Starboard Flare 111 and these combination of this gear enabled me to win this event as well with TonHi All I was really relaxed during the heat and made most of the double moves : double spock one handed, double flaka, goiter into flaka, double switch stance grubby, switch chacho into flaka, one handed shaka and many other moves that i did in the last heat.

My Head is spinning here of the freestyle that I have been doing so I need to get some sleep because tomorrow is another 4.5m sail day, so later dudes..

Taty NB-9

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 22. February 2007

What happened? Where did February go?

February was a great month. Mike Yasak went to New Zealand with a few new TR-3s and showed the boys down under that a middle aged guy can still be at the top of his game, by winning his age group and finishing second overall in their National Championships. This was the first chance we had to see these designs performing in ‘real’ competition and it was satisfying to have him do so well in the new environment, and report positively on his speed and performance. Congratulations, Mike!

Our home game has been all about wave sails and getting the Inspire school sails completely ready by working with Tinho on the final tweaks. Our adventures in wave performance have included making some major changes to the development of rig tension and how it relates to twist.

Some of what we are learning from the race sails has been finding its way into the thinking about wave sails, although the problem is slightly different, we can still gain from the application. These are such small sails in comparison, and so seemingly uncomplicated, yet we always find new ways to make a difference you can feel. It does amaze me that there seems to always be depth in the challenge no matter how far we seem to go one year to the next. There is always something to be learned and improved and that is what’s so fun about doing this.

February is also a month of organization, lots of packing and shipping new stuff, and the beginnings of excitement in the European areas as the snowmelts, the sun starts shining again, and people begin to crave time on the water.

Now is when we hear the results of the past year’s work, and feel the return on all those efforts. Thanks to all of you who have communicated and helped us to make everything better as fast as possible.

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

February is always short :) February is always short because it only has 28 days, but when I look back it seems like it was only a week long. So what did I do for 4 weeks. Keeping super busy has been my plan this month, whether it’s testing or keeping the business side of things going.

I had my 44th birthday on the 19th so put that on your calendar for next year and send me lots of presents. . No! I was happy just to go sailing with some friends, good 5.0m wind at Hookipa. Can’t beat that. Had a little BBQ in the evening and that was it.

The rest of the month well? I always look at this time of the year to catch up on the paper work which sat around from the previous year. Getting all those receipts ready for doing your taxes, making sure all our company books were straight.

We have seen a record number of orders coming in for MauiSails since we started two years ago so this is really exciting. The TR3 has been named Editors choice in France for the premier race sail for the 2007 season, this alone is huge for us.

That’s about it on February!

Phil.

Aloha, Barry.

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