Strong winds kicked in yesterday with winds in the early part of the day in the mid-20 range, but later in the day kicking it in gear and bringing winds averaging around 30mph. Winds were pretty easterly, meaning a bit offshore and a bit of a slog to the windline. Winds were also pretty gusty and shifty. There's was a good size swell running yesterday with lots of mast high + waves at Uppers. Water was pretty choppy though everywhere but on the waves faces.

I hear Hookipa didn't really happen yesterday, not windy enough so several of the pros came down to Kanaha to get their fill of the action.

Today the winds are forecast to swing around to the SE. When this happens, Maui's winds tend to get shadowed by the Big Island to our east and we tend not to get anything sailable.

Missed It?

I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be windy today. Maui loves to prove me wrong. Around about 2:13ish looks like the wind kicked in with readings above 20. A quick look at the Fred Haywood streaming video cam showed sailors planing at Lowers, under gray skies and rainy conditions. I thought for sure it was going to drop back into the low teens where it had been all day, so I opted to stay home and keep an eye on it while working on updating the MauiWindsurfing.net website. Well, Maui, who in the Hawaiian pantheon is the trickster god, tricked me once again and not only kept the wind above 20 but even made it build into the mid and upper 20s at times. But, the cams and the radar images continued to show rain, so I whimped out.

On the positive side of things, I finally got around to adding a Maui Windsurfing Information section to MauiWindsurfing.net. It's only a start. Hope to add more photos and better descriptions of the various windsurfing beaches as I get them. Check it out and let me know if you see any errors, missing information or other info you think should be included.

Mahalo

From this morning's National Weather Service forecast discussion:

"WEAK TRADES TODAY WILL TURN TO SOUTHEASTERLIES OVER THE NEXT FEW
DAYS."

(Sigh) Yesterday was light trades, hovering around 10 mph most of the day. So far today, we have winds up around 12. Doubtful that it will get sailable.

There seems to be some confusion about what the wind is going to do a couple of days from now. Most forecast discussion are saying it will get windy but from the southeast, which generally means that on Maui we don't get much since we're shadowed by the Big Island. The GFS model on WindGuru.com however shows nice windy NE winds (as of this morning anyway).

Very Light Trades

We're in a pattern of very light trade winds here on Maui right now. We went through a messy, rainy period Tuesday and Wednesday, with lots of flooding on the other islands, mostly Kauai and Oahu. That mess seems to have finally left, but we've only got a weak ridge generating anemic 10 mph winds from the NNE. Looks like that will be the case for the next couple of days, then the weather guys are saying things get complicated and difficult to predict. Lots of low pressure systems potentially I guess. So, good day for surfing or, god forbid, golf.

Weird Wave

The Triangle/Weird Wave. If you've sailed Kanaha during wave season you've no doubt seen this grumpy weird wave that breaks at odd angles and comes up from nowhere. Most people try hard to avoid, but sometimes it still manages to sneak up on unsuspecting victims and clobber them from behind. This video shows a smallish weird wave sneaking up and smacking Berndt Roediger from behind. Lucky for him it was a small day.

Holiday Sailing

Yesterday was a holiday for those of us in the US. The wind wasn't forecast to do much, but the Maui wind surprised us once again with some solid 4.5 - 5.0 conditions throughout most of the day. Skies were a bit cloudy much of the day and the waves were minimal but the wind was fairly consistent.

Lots of big names at the Kanaha yesterday including Robby Naish and both Matt and Kevin Pritchard. Matt and Kevin may be on different gear now, but the were sailing around together practicing their spocks in preparation for the upcoming supercross season.

Here's a couple of shots of Matt practicing his spocks:


















For more Maui Windsurfing photos and videos, head over to MauiWindsurfing.net.

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning here on Maui and it's a mild, windless gray day so far. We have high clouds on top of low clouds filtering our normal sunshine. Winds today will most likely be on the light side. Trades are supposed to start coming back on line, but may be on the light side. Worth keeping an eye on, but don't get your hopes up too high. Forecast for the next few days is for light trades. Maui may be able to work it's magic enough to pump these light trades up into the sailable zone.

Meanwhile, if you're stuck in the freezing temps on the mainland, head over to review our past photos and videos on the Maui Windsurfing Blog sister site, MauiWindsurfing.net. I'm hoping to get myself a video camera this spring so I don't have to rely on other people supplying me with video. Any recommendations from anyone out there? My main criteria is good zoom and good enough quality for web delivery without breaking my piggy bank.

Rain

If you're on a windsurfing vacation on Maui right now, you're probably feeling a bit bummed. Winds are very light, skies are gray and we've got rain, at times pouring rain, depending where you are. Looks like we'll be getting more of this tomorrow and then on Sunday start transitioning to a light trade wind pattern. At least that's the forecasters best guess right now.

Wednesday Sailing

Monitoring the winds today, I was surprised to see iWindsurfing readings of 20 at Kanaha. Got an hour or so on the water, about 2 - 3pm on 5.7/90L. Initially it was good, but the wind dropped and swung a bit offshore. Looking at iWindsurf graphs afterwards, the Kanaha graphs were definitely reading too high. The airport readings reflect today's conditions better I think.

Hardly anyone on the water though. Definitely off-season for Maui windsurfing. Most everyone I saw at Uppers was either a local or a pro. Only one set of obvious tourists. Speaking of tourists, I was down at Kanaha on Monday checking out conditions when I heard, then saw a guy shouting, "Hey! What are you doing in my car! Get out of there!" One of the aforementioned tourists caught one of Maui's ubiquitous car prowlers in the act. Scared the guy into the kiawe. So, let that serve as a reminder, the car prowlers are still prowling. Whatever you do, don't "hide" your key under your bumber or in your wheel well or anywhere on your car. I've said it before, I'll say it again. These losers scout out the parking lot, watching where people "hide" their keys. When you leave, they collect the key, and treat themselves to a nice buffet of your belongings. My opinion, don't bring anything of high value to the beach with you (except your gear of course). Take your keys with you. Put them in a pocket or something. 'Nuf said on that topic for now.

BTW, thanks to Speedy and Pascal for reporting yesterday's conditions. Always great to get some input from others on this venue.

Jaws Video

Just noticed Speedy's comment from the other day. Someone asked awhile back if we had any video from Jaws a couple of weekends ago. Looks like the guys over at Sideshore Media caught some of the action. Check it out. SideshoreMedia.com. Kevin Pritchard, Robby Naish and Jason Polakow are the sailors. Not sure who the tow-surfers are.

Thanks Speedy!

Winter in Maui

Wednesday morning here on Maui and we continue to have kind of unsettled weather. Lots of complex meteorological features hanging around. Winds on the weekend were pretty light, dare I say unsailable, unless you had formula gear. Monday and Tuesday were sailable if you were at the right place at the right time. Though I don't know for sure, I suspect Kihei had stronger winds the last few days, but looks like they were a bit offshore. Kanaha was a bit up and down the last few days, mostly on the light side thanks to wet squalls marching through on a regular basis and throwing a wet towel on the trade wind fun. According to NWS, the winds are supposed to slacken a bit more today as trough of low pressure to our east wobbles over us on its westward journey. Then they say we might have a little bump up again tomorrow. After that, they're pretty confused, "FROM FRIDAY INTO THE WEEKEND THE SITUATION REMAINS QUITE MURKY." All in all, this is pretty typical winter conditions here on Maui.

Funky Friday

I wasn't thinking that we'd get to sail yesterday, but the Maui winds graced us with another day of sailing. Winds and waves were a little bit funky, but it was still fun. I sailed 5.8 and 90L. Wind was a bit yo-yo-ish and the waves had a tendency to kind of peter out. You'd see a nice logo high swell rolling in, jibe to catch it, sail in, watching it rolling in behind you and then it would kind of just disappear. Weird. Temps were a little warmer and it was a sunny day, not too many people out there on there water.

Some one asked the other day in a comment if I had any video of the recent Jaws event on Sunday. I don't but, I found out that Kevin Pritchard, Robby Naish and Jason Polakow sailed it. There's a coupe of photos on the MauiSails site, http://www.mauisails.com/news.php?id=39.

Winds are looking lite today. Weather picture for the next several days looks confusing.

BRRRRR!!!

The most noticeable feature of Maui weather the last few days have been the below normal temperatures. I'm sure those of you elsewhere in the world won't feel sorry for us here, but temperatures at sea level have only been hitting the mid 70s this week. But travel upcountry a bit and it gets even colder. The other day we didn't get out of the low 60s up here and this morning is a nippy 52 degrees.

The winds have been mostly out of the north this week. We had another shear line come through mid-week and winds always turn from out of the north after that, bringing in cooler temperatures. This usually makes Kihei the windier place to sail than Maui's north shore. Sounds like a fewe people sailed Kanaha on Wednesday afternoon's northerly winds, doing coast runs up and down the coast. I hear the west side was a cranking 4.5 and nice waves.

I braved the cool wind chill yesterday briefly to sail 5.8 and 90L. When I rigged it would have been enough, but the winds pulled a bait and switch on me and promptly dropped a few notches, barely blowing the upper teens while I was out.

Today is beginning sunny, clear and cool once again. Winds are forecast to be somewhat light and to turn out of the east a bit more which should start to warm things up. The weather geeks are all confused about what's supposed to happen to our weather starting on Sunday. Sounds like it could get wet for a few days.

Super Sunday and Monday

Big swell hit the north shore of Maui yesterday, big enough to make Jaws break and close out Hookipa. Lowers was logo and mast high and Uppers was huge. Winds were 5.0. Very nice day of sailing. For those of you stuck on the mainland or elsewhere in the world, or on a couch yesterday, you missed an epic day (sorry Jazz, don't want to rub it in too much but you would have loved it yesterday).

Today the waves were a bit mellower. Still some occasional mast high sets at Lowers. Uppers came down a notch so that only one of the reefs was breaking at opposed to yesterday when the outer reef was breaking. 5.0 was a little light today, 5.4 would have been perfect most of the time except for a brief stint of mid-20s in the late afternoon.

Light winds should take hold tomorrow, followed by another shear line on Wednesday followed by another brief stint of trades on Thursday and Friday.

Bratty Nemesis

I was hoping to be able to report some sailing today. Alas, the weather didn't cooperate. This week we've seen some pretty typical winter weather for Maui. High pressure got shoved down too close to us to provide us with trade winds so we had pretty light and variable conditions Monday through Wednesday. Sea breezes built strong enough a couple of those days to provide guys with Formula gear enough to get out and sail (judging from the graphs, I have no reports from anyone to confirm this).

Yesterday we saw the passage of a typical winter shear line. I had never heard the term shear line before I moved to Maui, but it's basically the trailing end of a cold front. The cold fronts amble across the north pacific in the winter, providing us with our beloved winter swells. These fronts are usually pretty far to our north, but they trail along a "shear line" behind them like a 10 year old kid dragging his coat along behind him, dragging it through the puddles and mud. And like that 10 year old brat's dragging coat, the shear lines drag in clouds, rain and other muck to sully our beautiful sunshine and trade winds.

Anyway, so yesterday we experienced the 10 year old's coat dragging along through the Hawaiian island chain slopping us with rain. He was supposed to have cleared through by this morning with a nice high pressure system builing in behind him with our beloved trade winds. The weather geeks were predicting 20 - 25 with gusts to 40. Alas, I think the 10 year old dropped his coat on top of us, leaving us under soggy, gray skies and lack of wind today. That pre-pubescent brat! Hey kid, isn't that your mom calling you! That's right! And don't forget your coat! Ha! My best weather guess is that our 10 year old nemesis will have picked up his errant coat and cleared out of here tomorrow, making way for our trade winds. Kids! Sheesh!