Maui Monthly no. 37. May 2008

no. 37. May 2008

The great sport of Windsurfing.

Aloha everybody, Maui Monthly time again. It’s actually a great time because putting pen to paper really puts things in focus about how great it is to share in the sport of windsurfing.

This month started off putting the finishing touches on a three week long training and testing camp on Maui.. Had a lot of water time with Gabriel, Phil and my buddy Micha Buzianis. We all headed to Korea in where I was thoroughly impressed with one of the best event organizations I have ever seen. As co-organizer of the Cabo Verde event I know all too well the trials and tribulations that go with organizing an event. Korea, in general seemed like a well run, on time, and organized country. It’s always interesting to experience a different culture up close and personal. We stayed at a cool little beach town that had some great conditions that were unfortunately absent during that actual competition period. However there was a coinciding RS-X race and amateur race and it was neat to see how active the windsurf scene was over there. A big thanks to Mr. Han and his team.

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

I then did four days of travel starting at Ulsan to Inchon, Inchon to Honolulu and than on to Maui. I did a twenty hour sprint around Maui picking up sails, masts, boards, etc. and unpacking and repacking. I checked back in and went Dallas, Newark, Lisbon, and finally to Cabo Verde.

Arriving back to Cabo Verde was a joy and a half. Having my son run down that hallway give me that big hug is always that greatest joy. The fact that he is only waist high and runs headfirst can sometimes be the greatest pain as well. I got to spend some quality time with the family. I even took a morning stroll with my wife. We had a wedding party for one of my workers who brought his new wife over from Guinea-Bissau and I had some of the best sailing of my life.

Day after day of 8.4 and 9.2 slalom sailing right off the windsurf center, smooth water, warm skies and nobody else out but a couple testing buddies. Having the run of the ocean we were doing jet-ski / windsurf speed testing, buoy rounding, and easy testing with the windsurf center and white sand only a stone’s throw from the water.

Few days ago I took a quick flight from Cabo Verde up to Canaries. In hopes of getting some good jump practice before July as I will be at the Windfest in Hood River right before the Pozo contest. I took advantage of a week break to come up here. The last two days have been funky, but looks like it’s turning on today. The rest of the week looks good, so hopefully I’ll fly home on Wednesday with some confidence under my belt.

A lot of Aloha to you guys. Josh.

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 37. May 2008

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

Two events without The Wind.

It’s time to relax a little bit with the family !! This month started at the Defi Wind. I went all the way from Maui, but we were waiting for the wind on the beach every day of competition. In the first day all the competitors went to the beach for the picture. That was really nice, the beach was completely full of competitors with the sail numbers lycra looking to the helicopter. Very fun ! I was on the water one day before the event, the wind was around 25 knots very offshore and the flat water.

My TR-4 7.0 is amazing on this condition.

After the DefiWind I stayed 7 hours at the airport in Bordeaux waiting for my flight to Maui !! Is always good to come back to Maui and relax a little bit. We did some photoshoot at Hookipa. The waves were small, but was very fun. I spent 3 days at Maui and went to Korea for the first event of the PWA Tour.

People in Korea are very friendly and they are always trying to help us. The event was very well organized, but unfortunately the wind was very light. I was at the first heat together with Dan Ellis, so we were always on the water trying to do some starts. I was using my TR4 9.2 and Mistral SL RD 135 and this combination felt very comfortable. In the end we couldn’t do any race.

I came back to Maui again to organize everything in my house there. I spent this year more than 3 months on Maui, so me and my brother we had a lot of things.

Finally arrived here in Brazil. I have a new house very close to the beach. It’s always good to came back and see the family again, relax and go sailing on my Formula Sails. The TR-4 12.0 is amazing. I’m going very fast on downwind and upwind. I’m very happy with this sail.

Now I’m going to the gym again to be prepared for the second event at Costa Brava and for the Canaries!!!

Aloha, Gabriel Browne.

Photo : PWA/Carter

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 37. May 2008

Maui, Hawaiian Islands Photo : PWA/Carter

3 continents and loads of sailing Wow what a month, 3 continents, loads of sailing and no wind at event number 2 of the year. I started off where I left of last month getting a great days sailing in Gruissan’s perfect flat water and flying on the 7.0 TR-4. I then headed back to London for a brief stop on my way to Korea for the years 1st PWA race event. It was my 4th trip to Korea so I knew not to expect allot of sailing but that i’d be shown the most amazing hospitality from a culture very different to anywhere else I’ve travelled in the world. The enthusiasm from the organizers in Korea and the way they go about putting on an event, sets an example to the rest of the tour.

Alongside Sylt, windsurfers are viewed ( at least for the week) somewhere close to super stars!

Though we didn’t get any official rounds finished I actually did allot of sailing in Korea. I was in the 1st heat with Gabriel and we tried no less than 9 times to finish it. This gave us some great start practice and opportunity to really see how the 9.2 stood up in the lightest of winds in a real race environment. After all the attempts, I came away really confident and buoyed by my light wind performance which has been one of my weaker sides in the past. With the combination of my Fanatic Falcon 145 and the 9.2 TR-4 I was one of the 1st to get planning which isn’t bad at close to 100kg!

Then it was back to London, this time for an even briefer stop where I picked up 3 new Fanatic slalom prototypes and headed out to Maui for the rest of the month to test those and get some much needed TLC from Jessie!

Maui once again did not disappoint, being windy the entire time I’ve been back. We got all the board testing done and some race training around the cans. There seemed to be even more slalom sailors than usual at Kanaha beach with all the locals getting ready for the Maui Race series, so there were plenty of people to set up practice races. Even with all the wind I managed to drag myself from the North Shore and spent a couple of peaceful days paddle boarding with Jessie and a few mates on the West Side.

Now I’m ready to head back across the world for the next PWA event in Costa Brava via my usual quick stop in London.

My next update will be from the windy rocks of Pozo, until then good sailing.

Aloha Dan Ellis.

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 37. May 2008

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

The first Fun Speed Meeting ever was held.

Apart from the fact that my leg is clearly getting up to strength and my speeds are getting up to the desired standard I have been focussing on a new format for our website www.gps-speedsurfing.com We’ve had a lot of Easterly winds in Holland. This made us search for new venues. We found a very promising new speed spot in the North of Holland and some blistering speeds were set this month in relatively light winds. I was competitive again and for the first time since my injury I managed to get over 80km. With a top speed of 44 knots I had a nice training session. Barry gave some interesting possible tuning solutions and I feel there is still room for rigging improvements with my super fast TR-4 sails. Boogies new production Venom fin arrived. It was thrilling to have a sail on them since he has been developing the new slalom/speed fin for around one year and the end result is great. I was involved in the development and testing of the new fin and I’m proud to say we succeeded in creating one of the fastest but also easiest handling fin at low and high speeds alike. Check www.c3-fins.com for the end result, you won’t be disappointed.

I noticed lots of people are still intimidated by the technical aspects of GPS speedsurfing and the speeds shown on our website. Downloading can be troublesome for many and lots of sailors are only using a GPS to check speeds on the device itself. We wanted to create a racing format that lowers the threshold for entry level windsurfers or more accomplished windsurfers still not too familiar with GPS. The latest GPS recommended GPS devices: Navi GT-11 and GT-31 have got a nice built in functionality developed by one of our respected tech group members: dr. Tom Chalko. His solution which is called speed genie allows sailors to check topspeeds and speeds set over a fixed timeframe.

You can set the genie to 10-20 seconds or any time frame you like and instantaneously check the best average speeds over the set time frame. We used this functionality to check speeds in the first FUN SPEED MEETING (FSM) sponsored and supported by Eurofun Oostvoorne. The event was a huge success and people were thrilled to see the possibilities. To me this kind of entry level speed events are just as important as the outright record attempts since they help to grow our sport. It was fun to be around and try and help out the people on the water. I hope to be present next time as well.

See you on the water, Martin.

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 37. May 2008

Finalizing the wave and freestyle sails.

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

It’s been a busy month finalizing the wave and freestyle sails along with double checking all the fine details. The first production run is scheduled to start soon and we are all very excited about the new sails.

The Loco returns as a light-weight, high performance freestyle sail. We have refined the luff curves and seam shaping to give the Loco an even lighter, softer handling and feel. We also increased the x-ply and reinforcements in the foot and clew areas to give the sail better resistance to the abuse associated with radical, freestyle moves.

The sails have made another leap in terms of performance.

The most noticeable characteristics of the new wave and freestyle sails are super-light handling, balanced power and excellent efficiency.

The popular Switch line of sails has also experienced shaping improvements to give it a better profile distribution, cleaner twist and softer feel. Performance gains include better handling, stability and speed.

The Legend has been tuned to optimum performance in side to side-off wave conditions. The sails smooth power provides excellent drive while bottom turning but its flatter upper profile and refined twist give you absolute confidence to push your top turn as hard as possible. The new Legend also features an all X-ply construction which together with our strategic reinforcing has made the sail stronger while still shaving off some weight.

Many people had requested that we add a larger Legend and Global size to the line-up, so we acted. We have created brand new Legend 6.1 and Global 6.8 designs. It seems that everyone wants to get out wavesailing more often, in less wind. The first time I rigged the 6.1 Legend, it set up really nice but I still had some reservations about how such a big wavesail would handle. Once on the water, I was really amazed at how manageable and light the sail felt, given its large size. Even though I was only on an 84 litre wave board, it was no problem to take off, cruise upwind, crack a couple lips and throw some backs. Was I really on a 6.1? Later on, we sent the sail to Cabo Verde and quickly got an enthusiastic reply from Josh, calling it his “go to� sail. I guess we can all look forward to more, good light wind sessions.

The Global continues as our power house wavesail but now has better manners. It maintains its low end power through slightly fuller shaping in the lower body but the upper profile and twist have been refined to allow it to excel in the widest range of conditions. Whether side-onshore wavesailing or bump and jumping, the Global helps you make the most of the conditions.

Aloha, Artur Szpunar

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 37. May 2008

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

I’m ending the month with a trip to Floras Lake, Oregon, to see my duaghter, Destiny, graduate from high school. I’m very excited for this milestone in her life and always love to see the lake and all its natural beauty. Maybe I’ll have some shots from one of the best places in North America to enjoy this sport with a family.

Aloha, Barry.

Where did May go?

This year was the most fun I’ve had doing photoshoots.

Bogo was on Maui for 3 weeks and working really hard to get some different shots, as well as video’s. We worked out some great angles on different parts of Maui that I’ve never done before and I don’t think anybody else has done either.

We had a lot of fun with this, but especially being over powered on some of the freeride sails and sailing up the coast to get the magic shot.

Barry’s May just slipped away.

I don’t know what’s happening but it seems as I get older there is a shortening of the months. Or at least it feels like that. Maybe it was because i was so wiped out sick for the first half of the month. Whatever i got on my China trip put me down hard and it was about all I could do to keep up with my correspondence for a week or so. But now it’s all better and the energy is back to full bore level.

The last few weeks have been spent keeping track of details and doing all the little things that are required to keep those pesky problems under control. I have had such a good feeling about all the sails, especially the TR-4, and can’t wait to get more feedback from out in the world. So far there have been some good speed results, high marks for the 12.0 being raced down in Brazil, and the high level of enthusiasm from all the people who are getting to know just how amazing these sails really are.

May is closing in on final production designs for the wave and freestyle summer ranges. Lots of new things are finally coming together and the latest samples are looking to be a very attractive store floor package, and the performance reports coming from Cabo Verde and Brazil are proving to be worthy of the new materials and finish. I expect there will be a lot of happy users soon.

We also did some instructional video’s for rigging sails and showing off some of our products. These should be coming up on the website as we release the new sail ranges.

I was continuing to work with Josh and our team members on racing tactics and tuning. We finally got the boys off to Korea World Cup with all the toys and ready for battle, but the wind in Korea didn’t pick up enough, so we will have to wait until the next regatta to see who has there act together, oh well that’s windsurfing.

We have been able to take advantage of the great conditions here on Maui and finalize the 2009 models of Legend, Global, Switch and Loco. The new sails are feeling awesome and can’t wait for you all to get your hands on them.

On a personal note I completed my first triathlon. I competed in a sprint triathlon in Honolulu and placed third in my age group. This cross training has been great for my sailing, it keeps my body loose and my legs are in top shape for the up coming Maui slalom race series.

Talk to you next month.

Phil

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