Weekend Sailing Report

Turns out that Saturday was a pretty nice day of sailing after all. Wind came up to the 4.7 - 5.0 range. Once again it was really easterly, requiring a bit of a slog to get to the wind, but once out there it was pretty consistent. I'd have to say it was more consistent than we've seen most of the month. Waves were a bit sloppy, small and confused, but no complaints, it felt good just to have some steady wind.

Sunday initially didn't look like it was going to blow at all, but the wind came up again in the afternoon. Report from Speedy was good 5.0 conditions again. But the wind dropped before I could get on the ball and head down to the beach so I missed it.

Today, sadly, the wind took a holiday. Beautiful sunny weather but the high pressure ridge is nearly on top of us, setting us up for light sea breazes through most of this week. Later in the week we're supposed to get a cold front coming through the island chain, followed by a return of the trades.

All in all folks, this was an incredible January for wind. I sailed 13 days this January, almost doubling the most I'd previously sailed here in January. And, I believe Captain Greg will end up logging something like 27 days of sailing this month (he's got formula gear). I'd estimate that windsurfers visiting here on vacation this month probably could have sailed 20 days with the gear that's available in the rental shops. That's just amazing for a January. More evidence of climate change or just a fluke?

Wet Weather Leaves

The wet weather pattern that we've had here through much of this week seems to have finally left yesterday. Yesterday dawned with clear skies and sunny, blue skies prevailed throughout the day. The wind yesterday however remained very easterly, pretty light inside the reef, but pretty strong outside. I opted for 5.0/85L which was about right for 10 minutes. After that it was waaaay too big. Really gusty day, but by all accounts (with the exception of a report from Speedy), yesterday was by far better than the previous couple of days. Even the normally very positive people stated that Thursday "pretty much sucked." Speedy, though says he had a really good time. Just goes to show how subjective all this is.

Today has dawned clear again. Winds are very very light this morning and from the southeast. Not a good sign, but NWS is calling for 10 - 20 trades. So, best to keep an eye on it.

Wind Snobbery ... again

Wind snobbery has reared its ugly head once again. Apparently it's been windy today and yesterday. Windy enough to sail if you're desparate to sail in cloudy skies and rain showers. Obviously I haven't bothered to head down the hill and check things out first hand. Sitting in my upcountry office monitoring wind graphs and web cams, I've witnessed the wind graphs reporting winds well into the sailable range, 20 and above. But the cams have been painting a less than inviting picture for this Maui windsurfer. Gray, sparse white caps.... And the radar images have been painting colorful blotches of yellow and orange marauding along Maui's northern coastline. But, I chatted on the phone today with fellow Maui windsurfer JK who reported very strong 5.0 conditions on the outside today and some fun, albeit smallish waves. He also reported showing up at Kanaha yesterday, debating rigging, when a downpour of rain convinced him otherwise. So there ya go. Yes, apparently it's been windy enough to sail. But,ya gotta ask, just how desparate are you to sail? For me, Maui windsurfing is about sailing in sunshine and warm temps and wind over 20mph. Take one of those away, and to me, it's just not worth it. I'll wait for the next day here in paradise when I can get 3 for 3 out of that criteria. Snob? Maybe. But on Maui, you can afford to be.

In other news, I finally got around to getting the Fred Haywood cam working on my PC. For those of you who don't know, Fred Haywood, former speed sailor extraordinairre, and now Maui realtor extraordinairre has a house just up wind from Kanaha and has a live streaming video camera pointing downwind towards Kanaha. I resisted installing the software to get this to work, but I did the other day. Very simple and easy. If you're a Maui local looking for another data point to judge whether or not to blow off work and head to the beach, or if you're somewhere else in the world and want to torture yourself watching streaming video of people sailing at Kanaha, I recommend downloading the software and bookmarking the site. Go to www.fredhaywood.com. You gotta download the Abacast plugin, but it's pretty painless. If you have a high-speed connection, go for it. Now that I have this thing downloaded and installed I can have the camera feeding me live streaming images of what's going on down the hill. Thanks Fred!

Sunday Morning Wind Report

More trade winds to report over the last couple of days. I didn't make it down to sail on Friday but it looks like it was probably pretty good until the early afternoon when someone placed an order for an extra helping of wind and the wind kicked in to the upper 20s to low 30s again.

Yesterday was a pretty nice day. Wind was initially a bit light on the inside but by early afternoon it filled in a bit and 5.0 and 90L was sweet for about an hour at Uppers. Then the wind kicked in again just enough to make that combo a bit big. 4.5 and 85L would have been much better then. There were some occasional nice sets, some even logo high at Uppers. Lowers was quite a bit smaller, but maybe a bit more consistent.

Not quite sure what the next few days hold in store wind-wise. It's very light wind right now with beautiful sunny skies. Forecast is for showers and T-storms the next couple of days. They're still saying that the trades are online, but my guess is that the atmosphere is unstable enough to make the wind gusty if it is windy enough. Later in the week the forecast is still calling for wind. That and some new swells headed our way may make for some nice wave sailing this week.

Hey folks! Sorry about the lack of reports. I know all you that aren't on Maui are just dying to get your fix of what's happening in the windsurfing world here. This January continues to be an odd month - windy. We've seen varying degrees of trade winds every day this week - some only sailable if you had big formula gear, but at least 3 days so far this week with 4.5 to 5.0 conditions. The waves are a bit hit and miss. Monday and Tuesday there were some nice smooth head-high sets at Lowers. And it wasn't even crowded on Tuesday. Monday, every teen and sub-teen Maui grommet must have been sailing Lowers, including all the hot shot rippers you see in the magazine. Kinda cool, but some of them still have some wave-etiquette to learn. Then again, it was Lowers, where hardly anyone follows wave etiquette, no matter what their age.

Today there were a few occasional sets, at Uppers mostly, but it was mostly pretty sporadic while I was out. Winds today were 4.5 to 5.0. Pretty nice day of sailing in the early afternoon.

The forecast continues to promise trade winds into next week, though it sounds like they will begin getting more wet in the next day or two. That usually means squalls, which usually means up and down and gusty conditions. All in all though, we can't complain about the sailing this time of year. Just the fact that it's windy at all in January is a good thing. I've already surpassed my January record. And, local speed racer, Captain Greg, has sailed every day so far this year. Granted, some of it's big sail and formula gea, but 19 days of sailing in January on Maui is incredible.

High Winds End

Our week-long stretch of high winds on Maui came to an end today, with winds barely reaching 16 at Kanaha for a brief period. The last few days we continued to see lots of gusty winds. The cliche that comes to mind to describe the wind for most of the last week is quantity vs quality. The quantity of wind was high. The quality was mostly pretty low. I didn't make it down to the beach on Thursday, but I stopped by during lunch time yesterday to witness dead conditions inside the reef, and what looked like raging winds outside. Steve R. told me he was overpowered on his 3.7 outside the reef and that the chop was horrendous. Turned out most of the day was really offshore and gusty, with only a few desparate tourists stubborn enough to bother with it much.

The wind tomorrow, should be light, like today. But, it looks like the trade-wind generating high pressure to Hawaii's north may rebuild on Monday and hold court for several more days. It doesn't look as strong as the last one, so hopefully we'll get some sane sailing.

Wooo Hoooo!

Back to more manageable sailing conditions today on Maui. Afternoon sesh, 5.0/90L was about right most of the time. Gusts were a bit much at times, but overall, today was by far the best day of sailing in the last week, in my opinion. Some guys were out on 4.5s and 4.7s but I was glad I had the 5.0 during the lulls and to get off the beach since the direction was pretty offshore/easterly. For waves, Lowers was the place to be. Fun shoulder-high sets, uncrowded. By contrast, Uppers seemed a bit sloppy and close-out.

The latest forecast/guess from the weather guys is increased wind tomorrow through Friday morning then backing off after that and turning light SE on the weekend. In other words, get your windsurfing fix in the next couple of days. Tomorrow has a high insanity-potential though.

Crazy Wind

Adjectives to describe the wind today... crazy, wicked, evil, hideous. Some might call it gusty or blustery, but let's not mince words here. It was heinous, wicked wind today. Wind with a vendetta. Wind speeds most of the day averaged around 30, but that doesn't paint the complete picture. Yes it was windy, but it was some of the gustiest wind I've ever sailed in. Gusts into the mid-40s when I made the mistake of going out on my 4.0. In addition to the gusts and holes, it was shifting around quite a bit. I didn't hear one positive comment from anyone I saw at the beach today who had been out. I even overheard Kevin Pritchard comment to Phil McGain, in what had to be the understatement of the day, "little bit blustery out there, eh?"

I didn't sail yesterday, but I hear from those who did that there were some nice waves but that it was a bit squally. The graphs corroborate that, showing up and down winds that corresponded with the squalls no doubt.

Sorry to paint such a negative picture of sailing the last few days, but that's just the way windsurfing is sometimes, even on Maui. Winds are forecast to drop slightly tomorrow, then ramp back up again on Thursday and Friday. But as I type this in at 9:40pm here on Maui, it's blowing 29mph still at Kanaha.

June in January Continues

Turned out to be another windy day today on Maui, with winds in the 4.0 - 4.7 range. A couple of squalls dropped the wind a couple of times, but 4.5/85L was good for me mostly. Waves were on the small and sloppy side, except for some occasional sets and Lowers and Uppers. Way upwind, Sprecks looked like it had some good-sized swell rolling in still.

Forecast is for more of the same this week, except Thursday and Friday when it's supposed to amp up a bit again. Windiest January I've seen here. Now if the temps would just warm up to June levels. On the mainland I used to bitch and moan about sailing in sub-50 degree temps. Now I bitch and moan about sailing in sub-80 degree temps.

Is This January?

High winds continued to dominate the Maui windsurfing scene on Saturday, with average wind speeds around 30 throughout the afternoon. What's more, conditions look ripe for the wind to continue in the sailable range through this week. So far this year the wind is looking more like June than January. No big organized swells at the moment, but we're still getting residual waves and/or wind waves.

Wild Day

After a brief hiatus, Maui's winter tradewinds returned yesterday. Yesterday's sailing was characterized by big surf and squally weather. I didn't bother going down since the iWindsurf graphs couldn't lock in on a consistent reading. I hear from those that were there though that the waves were absolutely huge, a wall of mast-high + breaking waves from Lowers to Uppers with no gap, and that the wind was up and down due to squalls marching through the north shore throughout the day. Oh, and the temps yesterday were abnormally low for Maui. I know those of you in colder climates will scoff at this, but it the temps barely managed to hit te mid-70s yesterday. Bone-chillingly cold by Maui standards.

Today dawned cold and sunny. Temperature on my upcountry thermometer this morning read a cool 54 degrees, when I was able to drag myself out of my warm bed. Brrrrrr! Skies were sunny though and gone were the annoying clouds and showers of yesterday. The wind at Kanaha started out light to moderate, but when I got on the water around 12:30 it had kicked in to the mid-20s. Glad I went with the 4.5/85l instead of 5.0. Personally, I've had better days of sailing. I found the wind to be extremely gusty today and the water extremely choppy. Just one of those days where I couldn't get dialed. I tried 4.0/79L in a brief second session, but the holes made it too inconsistent to be fun. I called it a day around 2:00pm. Looks like the wind kicked it another 5mph around 3pm, with averages in the upper 20s to 30mph. Wild day!

Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

What a way to start the new year! Beautiful sunny skies, 5.0 winds and head high waves at Lowers. The wind today was pretty onshore so you needed a little more sail or board than it looked, but 5.0/90L was about right for my first session - 5.2ish would have been a little better, but 5.0 was pretty good. Lowers was sweet - relatively uncrowded and sweet head-high waves all day. Later in the day the wind kicked in for a bit, enough to get out on a bit smaller board. No better way to spend New Year's Day!