2005

As the last day of 2005 comes to a close here on Maui, one inevitably looks back on the windsurfing that the year brought. Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good year for sailing on Maui. The stats;

I logged 152 days of sailing in 2005, 3 less than I did in 2004. By my count, I missed about 65 days of sailable wind due to injury, work, snoberry or plain old inertia. By my reckoning that's 217 days of sailable wind in 2005, but I'm a bit of a wind snob and I often don't even bother looking at what the wind is doing in Kihei.

My better half logged a total of 185 days of windsurfing, and Maui Windsurfing video guy, Steve Robinson, reported in with 195 days of sailing in 2005. Steve says he lost 61 days of sailing due to various injuries. By his calculations, there were 256 days of sailable wind on Maui in 2005.

The busiest months were April through July, with nearly every day of those months being windy. By contrast, January sucked with 5 days of sailable wind and this December has been pretty lame as well, with 7 - 10 days of wind, depending on your weight and how big you're willing to rig. We haven't had anything over the mid-teens since last Sunday and several of those days didn't get above 10.

It's been a prett good wave season this fall. Surf this month has been epic. Too bad there's been so little wind to play in it.

What does 2006 hold in store for us? Who knows. Chances of good wind are statistically low in January, though it looks like we might get a bump up tomorrow and then later on next week.

Happy New Year to one and all and here's wishing everyone lots of good time on the water in 2006!

Aloha

Xmas Present

Christmas day on Maui started off with beautiful sunny blue skies. The forecast was only calling for winds around 10 - 15, so it was a pleasant surprise to find Kanaha blowing in the upper teens. Normally I would't get too excited about that, but this time of year, you take what you can get here.

Arriving at Kanaha, it looked like marginal 5.8/90L. I pumped onto a plane and headed for Lowers where some nice clean head-high sets were coming in. Caught some pretty nice waves despite the wind being pretty light and offshore. Good fun. Just what every windsurfer wants for Christmas.

At dinner later in the evening, I heard second-hand that one well-known local windsurfer had spotted a shark while out sailing at Lowers with his wife. Little did I know I was chumming along a couple of times while waiting for enough wind to waterstart in that exact same area!

Finally getting some time to catch up on windsurfing video footage taken by our Maui Windsuring video correspondents. I got a bunch from Steve Robinson a few weeks ago from the Aloha Classic. The Aloha was all about bringing out windsurfers of any level for competition. Lots of kids participation despite the sizeable waves and shorebreak at Hookipa. This video shows future windsurfing star Kai Lenny battling with the Hookipa shorebreak just to launch. You think you got it tough. Try launch in light winds when the shore break is almost bigger than you are!

Another promising talent in the Maui windsurfing world is Skyler Haywood, son of former speed sailor Fred Haywood. Skyler lives just a few houses up from Kanaha so he gets lots of TOW and he's a regular site at Kanaha. Norm Roediger got some footage of Skyler recently.

Looks like we could be in for a long period of the doldrums here on Maui. High pressure is sitting right on top of the islands, effectively shutting of the trades. Waves are HUGE though. Lots of big swells being generated by the big storms in the north Pacific. The tow surfers should be getting their fill as Jaws will probably be going off several times over the next week or two.

Maui Windsurfing Report

With all the photos and videos posted over the last couple of days, I forgot to report on the wind. Wind has been super light this week. And, if you've been on Maui, suffering from the lack of wind and you thought, "no problem, I'll just go hang out on the south side beaches." Well, you were in for a surprise then as well.

A couple of days ago there was a minor shark attack in Wailea at Keawakapu beach. I man was out swimming a couple hundred yards off the beach and a tiger shark came up from under him and chomped on his left hand, taking off his pinkie and tip of his ring finger. The guy swam back to shore without further incident. Authorities closed the beach and surrounding beaches and found a 12 foot tiger shark lurking about that they chased out to deeper waters. Then yesterday an eight foot tiger shark was seen off the beach of Kam 1. Beaches were still closed until 7:30 this morning when they reopened. Read more about on the Maui News site.

In other news, we're on a high surf watch here on Maui. Waves heights are supposed to be 25 - 30 feet! That means that it's probably a Jaws day today. Anytime we get a north swell over 25 feet Jaws goes off!

Currently we have winds from the NNE at about 14. Not really enough to sail. Kihei is showing low 20s, but that graph reads high. Worth keeping an eye on though.

Hookipa Consequences

Robby Naish outrunning a freight train of logo-high whitewater.

Robby Naish sailing along all casual-like on the inside.

A beautiful, long smooth Kona winds wave at Lanes.

More Kona Lanes Media

Didn't get a chance yesterday to post more photos and video from Sunday's Kona winds on Maui. As you can see, some of the windsurfing action was often obscured by the blowing spray from the waves.

And here's another video segment. Be patient, it's 6+ MB. Quicktime video format. The one on the previous post is over 8 MB so go get some popcorn or something while you wait for it to download.

Kona Lanes

Maui winds switched directions on us today, from the normal NE trades to SW Kona winds. Winds started cranking early. For most mortal windsurfers, Kihei was the place to sail today. I stopped by Kanaha around noon and no one was sailing. It was ugly. Dead near shore, cranking outside, gusting over 30, big sloppy, messy wave. So, the choice I had was to either go sail Kihei, which can be fun on a SW Kona day, or head up the coast to Hookipa to watch the action at Lanes. I chose the latter. A half dozen sailors were out and putting on a show. Only the exceptionally good need even attempt to enter the water.

Sets were mast-high+ at times and rarely smaller than logo high. Robby Naish and Kevin Pritchard were among the participants in the event.

Despite the high surf and high wind, the most interesting site of the day was watching a windsurfer try to tow in a tow-surfer, not from a rescue, but to launch him on a wave. We watched as a tow surfer jumped with his board into the water and started paddling out, right in front of Lanes. At the same time we saw a windsurfer launch from Hookipa with a thick bright yellow rope attached to his harness (from what we could see). We watched incredulously wondering if they were really going to try to tow surf behind a windsurfer. Sure enough, they tried. Never made it up, but they tried and even made it back to the beach alive.






Also got some video of the action today as well. Here's the first. Kona Lanes video.

Wind Takes a Holiday

The wind on Maui has taken a holiday for the last few days. Light sea breezes have prevailed the last few days. Today we have light south Kona winds, though not really sailable except maybe with some big gear. That may change tomorrow as we expect a cold front to usher in some stronger Kona winds. This may correspond with some big surf which could make for a classic Kona day and Hookipa Lanes for those with the skill to manage it.

Speaking of Hookipa, today's Maui Windsurfing video episode features the infamous rocks of Hookipa.

Windsurfing Variety Pack

The windsurfing on Maui the last week or so has been mostly light wind with some nice waves. Yesterday, the Maui windsurfing gods blessed us with a little bit of variety to spice things up. Forecasters were predicting a bump up in wind strength and by god they actually got it right. Much of yesterday was light but by mid afternoon it was cranking. Not having sailed windy conditions in awhile, I made a mistake and rigged a 5.0. Wrong! Back to the beach for a 4.5. That was the call of the day on a 79L wave board. Nice waves at Uppers and very light crowds made for a fantastic fun afternoon session.

Today, we were back to the light winds. It barely looked sailable when I arrived mid-afternoon. I rigged 5.8/90L hoping it would be enough. Slogged out to the wind line and found that the 5.8 was just perfect. And, much to my pleasant surprise, there were still some really nice waves. The offshore light wind, really cleaned them up. Some occasionally logo-high sets rolled through to add excitement to the mostly-shoulder high stuff. Damn good fun.

On to today's video segment. Continuing with the theme from the last video post, in this video from Hookipa we see what happens when charging down the line windsurfer meets whitewater. Thanks to Steve R. for sending in the clip.

Weekend Report

Yet another beautiful day of wave sailing at Kanaha yesterday. Winds were pretty light 5.0 to 5.8 depending on when you were out, but the waves were very clean, very smooth at Uppers. Lowers looked good too, but I opted for the fewer crowds at Uppers. Really nice head- to logo-high, perfect size in my opinion. Weather was sunny, no squalls to mess things up.

The forecasters were calling for an increase in wind today. You know what that means. That's right, it's got to get lighter. Sure enough, winds today hovered in the mid-teens and upper teens throughout the day. I stopped by Kanaha briefly, but it just didn't look like I could even make my 5.8 work.

The extended forecast for this week calls for trade winds to be replaced by west winds. Not sure how accurate that's gonna be. I've seen west winds on Maui once before. Not sure where the best place to sail will be. Kihei will be dead-onshore and sloppy conditions and I think the north shore may be too wind-shadowed. Some of the super secret spots on the west side will probably be the place to be.

Got a bunch of windsurfing videos from Steve R. today from the recent Aloha Classic. I'll be posting some of these over the next few days here and at MauiWindsurfing.net. Here's an appetizer, charging down the line on a smooth Hookipa wave, with a beautifully graceful dismount at the end of the line.

Beautiful day of winter sailing on Maui's north shore yesterday. There was supposed to be a really big swell, but I'm guessing the direction was too much out of the west and was partially blocked by Molokai. We had, waves, but they weren't the ginormous size that a lot of people were expecting. Lots of head- to logo-high sets at Lowers and Uppers both. Lowers was a lot less crowded than usual. Kind of surprising given that I heard that Hookipa was closed out. Anyway, wind was mostly in the 5.0 to 5.5 range with some occasionally stronger periods in the 4.7 range. As I said, Lowers was actually kinda nice. Only a couple of guys per wave at most, very manageable. Uppers was only a half dozen people total. A nice day of sailing all in all.

Looks like we might get a couple more days of wind. Waves are on the decline at the moment but another swell is coming in a couple of days. Around mid-next week it looks like the winds may disappear for awhile again. It is winter here after all.

Patience, Kanaha Pays Off

Though Kihei has apparently been the place to be for wind the last few days, I just couldn't get excited about sailing the flat, washboard choppy water of Kihei on northerlies. I decided to stick it out and wait for winds on the north shore. I had a feeling it might happen today and it paid off. After a dismal start, winds at Kanaha kicked in midday into the low 20s. By the time I got there they had dropped a bit and I needed my 5.8/90L combo, but it was good. Maybe a dozen people total sailing between Lowers and Camp One. Sweet! By the time I got to Uppers, the wind kicked into the mid-20s and the 5.8 was unmanageable. Played around in the waist high waves for a bit, but then had to go in for 5.0. Once out on the 5.0, the wind dropped back to previous levels of course. Oh well, I was still able to make it work off and on. Felt great to sail after a 3 week absence.

Thanks to everyone for going to Kihei today! It was great to have the north shore to myself.

Trades Return... sort of

As you can probably guess from Norm and Speedy's comments in the previous post, the winds returned yesterday. I'll have to rely on their reports as I was stuck in Honolulu all day yesterday. Yep, even on Maui the wind returns on the day when you can't get out of work. Course today, I put out all the fires by noon and was ready to head down the hill to get in my share of the fun. But noooooo. Maui's fickle winter trades decided that yesterday was enough, at least on the north shore. The wind absolutely tanked after about noon on the north shore. We're talking low teens. The graphs did show sailable wind in Kihei, so that was probably the place to be today. Guess I'm not quite desparate enough to head over and sail Kihei .... yet.

TRADE WINDS!!!

After an absence of over two weeks, the trade winds are making a return to Maui, much to the relief of scores of windsurfers. We saw light trades today in the low teens, but that's the strongest we've seen in awhile. Tomorrow should be better and things look like they may set up to have the trades blow through the rest of this week. On top of that, we've got a good size swell coming in right now and an even bigger one that should arrive in a couple of days. Stay tuned.

November Fizzles Out

Maui windsuring in November this year started great with nearly two full weeks of daily wind. For nearl the last two weeks however, we've had no sailable wind. And, as we head into December today, the lack of wind continues. It's been a frustrating weather pattern, lots of clouds, cooler temperatures, rain - not what you typically associate with a tropical paradise. Latest forecasts discussions hint that there might be some trades mid to late next week, but until then, no windsurfing on Maui.