Maui Monthly no. 41. September 2008

no. 41. September 2008

Cabo Verde, France, Sylt,...

Aloha all. What a month of drastic changes. I spent the beginning of September in Sal, Cabo Verde in extreme summer heat, working diligently with my team on the reconstruction of our windsurf center so we can offer new and exciting services for winter 08/09, check out www.angulocaboverde.com We had a great surfing summer and a couple off season days of sailing to get me fired up for Sylt. I left a week early for Sylt to go test some new Angulo prototypes in France.

Got to sail Wissant for the first time and hung with a couple enthusiastic rippers by the name of Emeric and Hubert...

Salut le gars!

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

After that I took the Autobahn to Sylt where during a week of intense weather and action we got a lot of sailing, sitting, freezing and fun. I happened to win my first ever slalom final which was all the more satisfying with the presence of my boss/ friend, Phil Mcgain, whose look of pride on his face made the victory all the sweeter.

A lackluster performance in waves proved potentially positive, as my wife gave me one of those talks that only wifes can give, and helped me remember the talent and opportunity that God has given us and got me inspired to refocus and take a more serious charge at the second half of my career. I just got home after some grueling traveling. I am biting at the bit to start sailing, training and come out swinging blows in 2009.

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 41. September 2008

Nice time at Home for Gabriel I had a very nice time at home this month. Came back from Turkey and stay at home until Sylt. Was very nice. I could stay with my family and go sailing everyday with my friends.

Normally September in Fortaleza is always very wind and this year can’t be different, We had wind every day around 15 to 25 knots. I was going for a wave sailing every morning with my friends and my home spot, just 2 minutes from my house. Very nice !!! I was using my Global 5,4.There is the real Global condition, the wind is more side-on shore, so this sail is really nice for me. Around mid day we always go for some slalom or formula sailing. This time my friends and my dad get out of the work for the lunch time and they use it for sailling. This month I had the opportunity to try the TR-4 9.2 on my Formula board. This sail is a machine in strong winds,very fast. I love it.

September is time for some local races in my city. We went to the first event of the Brazilian tour. The place is called Flexeiras, around 130 km from Fortaleza.

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

Beautiful place and perfect conditions for racing. We did 5 slalom races,1 freestyle elimination and some Kitesurfing.

The end was very good for our family, I won all the slalom races, my brother won the freestyle and my dad finished 4th on slalom.

After this event I went back home for more practice to Sylt, the last PWA event of the year. I knew it will be something very different comparing to any place I’ve been and I was right. Sylt is unbelievable. Can be sunny but in 20 minutes starts raining, or hot and very cold. Also something different for me is the combination of light wind and big swell. I had few good races in this event. After few mistakes i finished 15th in this event what put me in 19th spot overall in 2008 PWA Slalom42 ranking. It’s a big progress from comparing to last year when i finished 28th in Slalom.

Hopefully in 2009 i will jump into top ten and later only podium spots :) See you on the water, Gabriel.

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 41. September 2008

A Month of activity for Phil The big news of September was the Sylt World Cup. The final event of the year with waves, freestyle and Slalom disciplines. I decided to head over and get back on the race course for the first time in two years. I spent the majority of September getting ready for the event, testing, training and tuning my gear ready for the action.

We also started some serious work on the TR-5 and made some decisions about the direction of the R&D and some of the changes we are going to make to improve the sails.

Adjustments to the twist and some shaping will be in order for the TR-5 which will help control and speed.

Sylt ended being a huge success with all three disciplines being completed in the 9 day window. In fact after so many times in Sylt I’m sure it’s been the windiest regatta and by far one of the most radical wave performance I’ve seen in a long time. The wind was predicted to pick up all week long and by Saturday we had completed 3 slalom rounds and a freestyle round. On Saturday afternoon the winds finally picked up as dark rain cloud moved in from the South West and the wave performance started. The heats were run well into the late afternoon with the final heat of the day being completed in the dark around 7pm. The next morning the winds were even strong and the finals were completed with sailors using as small as 3.3m sails.

Another slalom round was sailed on Sunday and that was enough to get one drop and complete 4 rounds of slalom.

I had some good heats and sailed as well as I could. I was happy to be on the race course again and get a feel for how our sails are fairing against the competition.

It’s now back to paradise to complete the work on the TR-5 for the next few months. Meanwhile check out MauiSails Video Footage from Sylt event.

Aloha Phil.

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

The temperature is dropping September was a month of complete opposites from the warm waters and constant trade winds of Maui to the freezing and inconsistent winds of Sylt. I started off the month in Maui feeling really fresh having already been on the island for a few weeks. I managed to sneak in some fun wave sails at Camp 1 with upto logo high, cross onshore conditions and was really impressed with my Global 5.4 in these conditions. But I didn’t have much time for the wind and warmth of Maui and on around the 11th I headed back to England.

Back in England I was straight off to the Poole Windfest for part of the UK slalom tour. The Windfest is one of the biggest UK events attracting thousands of people on the beach and normally a big chunk of the windsurfing community, but the event is somewhat jinxed. Over it’s 8 year history its has not exactly lived upto to the Wind part in it’s name and unfortunately this year wasn’t any different.

So with the lack of wind I used the weekend to show our race sails and launch the new Fanatic Ray free slalom boards on the beach and in the local shop which created quite a stir, but didn’t even manage to get my toes wet. The event also hosts the biggest windsurfing party of the year with 3,000 well oiled people making up for the lack of wind.

England has had the windiest summer ever and more rain than even we’re used to (I say that but I’m getting much less used to it these days!) and some of my windsurfing mates got out sailing every day in August which is unheard of. But for the 2 weeks I was there it was 25 degrees sunny and glassy! This less than ideal windsurfing weather continued as I made my way to Sylt, where I’ve never spent more time in my wetsuit and done less racing. When we did go out the wind could change form 7 to 25 knots and back to 5 in a matter of minuets! Not a very nice experience that’s for sure. But the Sylt world cup is a yeary reminder of how popular and what a great sport windsurfing is. I think we have some of the most talented athletes from any world class sport and it is great to go to a place like Sylt and see genuine windsurfing fan who know your every move and follow the world tour with excitement and respect.

Next month I’ll be headed back to Maui where the winter swells should be headed our way and the TR5’s will be being put through their passes. I can’t wait!

Aloha! Dan Ellis

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Maui Monthly | Our Experience Your Reward no. 41. September 2008

Did anyone see September?

While going about life on a daily basis, September has just come and gone. It’s been a good month for learning and getting the race sails into deep development, earlier this year than ever and with much more focus on refinement.

Now that there are two iterations of TR’s with Dynamic Skin Tension development, we are able to know where we have been right...and wrong. So the task now is to take that correct thinking bit and magnify the effects throughout the range. This is a good feedback month because there is a lot of high level racing, and after big regattas like the Formula Worlds, we can expect to hear a lot of desires driven by experience. And also top results to show proof of concept.

Art has been having some fun applying his technical education to making our analysis as scientific as possible.

Adding the load cell has opened our eyes to some interesting new tuning wrinkles and has pinpointed some things that we suspected and are now confirmed with accurate measurements that get beyond dimensions alone.

As we build our data base more and more we will be able to pass this on in simpler tuning instructions with greater accuracy.

We are also working on a sail that can fill the bill for gliding and enjoying light wind on a big board, like SUP type.

We didn’t want to just jump in and push something out there so I have been waiting to see how the whole thing is evolving. And to see what people really want. I’m tending towards something that can roll up. But that will limit material type. Always something to keep it interesting.

Maui, Hawaiian Islands

Fully focused on TR-5 development At the loft, we are now fully focused on TR-5 development.

We have been paying close attention to the tension distribution and twist pattern of each sail size throughout the TR-5 range. We are finding a nice balance of slightly softer feel and more even twist progression with reduced rig tension. Our compiled data is proving useful for relating the performance of one size to another in an effort to create a harmonious transition from size to size. The profiles of the new sails are proving to be more efficient and are leading us to a new level of race performance.

As the new prototypes arrive at the loft each one goes through a process of checking details, rigging, tuning, measuring and analyzing shape adjustments. If the sail looks good then it is off to the beach for some on the water testing. We utilize GPS technology combined with head to head testing to determine the sails performance on the water. The ultimate goal with race sails is always to make them faster. After testing the sail then it’s back to the loft for fine tuning. If necessary, the sail is re-cut to reflect proposed adjustments. After re-cutting, the sail is tested again before making changes to the CAD design file. A new prototype is built and the cycle repeats itself, often several times for each sail size.

The best thing about working in the windsurf industry is that you actually enjoy bringing your work home with you.

There’s a new swell arriving on the north shore today and I’m looking forward to doing my homework this afternoon.

Aloha, Artur Szpunar

Looking forward to October and wave season.

Aloha Barry Spanier

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