Weird Weekend

Continuing the trend for 2006, the winds for this weekend have been rather weird. Yesterday was the last race of the Maui Race Series, the state championship. I made it down to Kanaha in the early afternoon to see some of the last heats of the "morning" - the age class heats. Winds were about as light as I've ever seen at a Maui Race Series event, probably averaging 15 or so.

When the racers took a break for lunch, I decided to rig - I was seeing some steadier whitecaps upwind. I made a typically foolish decision and rigged what I wanted to sail vs what I needed. I should have rigged 5.7 but rigged 5.3 and spent the next hour slogging my way upwind to try to get into the smallish waves breaking at Uppers. It was a valiant effort if I do say so myself, but it wasn't going to happen. I tried the 5.7 and was able to plane a couple of reaches, but then the wind decided to get serious about taking a siesta. The racers had gone back out by this time to resume, and I watched as several pluncked down in the water and struggled to get waterstarts, others were towed in by the jet ski. The common sentiment I heard from racers after they called it for the day was "what a weird day."

Meanwhile, over in Kihei, things were cranking. Winds were strong enough to warrant guys rigging 4.2s. We've got high surf advisory on the south shore right now, so there were some decent waves too. Speedy, who like me, isn't usually much of a Kihei fan, was regailing me with tales of logo high surf at Maui sunset. I was pretty surprised that he actually seemed pretty stoked about a Kihei session.

Winds today have lightened up even more. North shore has been reading about 10mph from the north and even Kihei is barely hitting 20 or so (subtract about 5mph from Kihei graph to get a more realistic idea of what it's doing there). The weather guys are saying that we have an unseasonable upper level low that will shut down the wind for a couple of days and make it hot, stagnant and muggy here. Winds are supposed to return around Wednesday.

Thanks for the replies to the previous post on wave sailing right of way. Good comments and contributions.

Daniel and Right of Way Rules

Former Hurricane Daniel passed through the islands yesterday, mostly just bringing wet and gray conditions to the north shore. Winds got a little crazy in the afternoon, with averages in the low-30s. Didn't look inviting to me at all so I passed on it. Today's skies are dawning bluer and hopefully we'll see less rain and some decent wind. The last of the Maui Race Series is being held today. I haven't made it down this year to see any of the races, but I may go down and shoot some video of a few races today - as well as get a little session in. Winds are supposed to be with us today and tomorrow then slack off on Monday for a day or so before returning again.

A comment on my last post asked about posting wave sailing right of way rules. I posted a comment, but I'll repost that here. Any feedback from others on the subject is welcome:

First of all, the sailor headed out from the beach has right of way over someone coming in. I see this one violated a lot. It is considered courtesy at least here in Maui to let the guy on the wave have the wave if you're going out and you can work around it, but technically, the guy going out has the right of way.

Second, the first sailor on the wave has right of way and third, if two (or 3 or 12) sailors catch a wave at the same time, the one closest to the critical section has right of way. These two get violated a lot too. Granted there's enough people some times that it's hard to tell who caught the wave first. That's why you need to know the third part, about the one closest to the peak having right of way.

In my opinion, as long as someone isn't blatatly and flagrantly breaking these rules, if they at least seem aware of the rules and seem to be trying to follow right of way, I'll cut them some slack. Otherwise they get a dose of serious stink-eye from me. ;-) And I think most people I know are willing to share a wave with someone if that person demonstrates an awareness of your presence and is making sure not to put you in danger or ruin your ride.

Kihei ... um ... hmmm ... well ....

It had been awhile since I've made the trek over to the south side to sail Kihei. Winds didn't look like they were going to happen on the north shore today and it looked windy in Kihei. "What the hell?" I thought. "I'll give it a try." Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a fan of sailing Kihei. Today's session reaffirmed that feeling.

I arrived mid-afternoon to find all parking within a quarter mile of the launch already taken. The lawn was littered with gear. Checking things out, it looked pretty light inside and blasting outside. There was a small, waist-high wave breaking on the reef, and every one of the 4,456 windsurfers there today was fighting for their piece to shred. Since I wanted to fight with the rest of them for my piece of that action and it was so light on the inside, I rigged my 5.0.

Just as I suspected I needed every square centimeter of the 5.0 on the inside, but a few hundred yards out, the wind was way stronger, like 4.2ish. It didn't take long before I realized why I don't like sailing Kihei. Kihei, in my humble opinion, is perhaps the gustiest place I've ever sailed, and today it lived up to that reputation. Even on the outside, there were strong 4.0 gusts and anemic 6.0 holes. On top of that, add 90 degree wind direction shifts and short-period wind chop making for some of the harshest knee-pounding sailing around. The saving grace were those occasional waves. Nothing epic mind you. But, the waist-high waves were the biggest waves I've seen here on Maui in 2 months. Caught a few decent rides, but since I try to respect right-of-way rules, I had to let many of the waves go to other sailors.

Anyway, a lot of whining, I know. I should just be glad I got to sail today. And I it was good to get out. But, I try to call it here as I see it. And for me, Kihei sailing just isn't worth it most of the time. Now if I were smart, I should have gone out to La Perouse to check that out ...

By the way folks, if you're looking for more coverage of Maui's surf and windsurfing scene, check out Giampaolo's blog. Good stuff:

http://mauisurfreport.blogspot.com/

Sweet Sprecks Session

Caught a real sweet session at Sprecks yesterday. Looking at the iWindsurf graph for Kanaha it looks pretty unsailable most of the afternoon. I know the wind is typically a bit stronger up at Sprecks than Kanaha, but I would have thought that Kanaha would have been sailable as good as it was at Sprecks. Sailed perfectly powered 5.3 for several hours in the smooth rolling swell at Sprecks. One of those rare sessions where you've got everything dialed, you're in the zone, things are all flowing perfectly. Ahhhh! Gotta love those days.

Looks like Daniel is rapidly deteriorating. Still unclear exactly what effect he'll have on us. Forecast track is for him to pass south of us some time Friday - Saturday. Could bring increased rain and wind.

Maui winds continue their atypical pattern for July with mostly light winds on the north shore over the last several days. Trade winds have been weak enough to allow day time sea breezes to set up and prevail most days. Friday and Saturday we saw light, sailable conditions on the north shore. Thursday and Saturday however were a bit too light for most people's quivers. Yesterday looks like it was a Kihei day. Winds at Kanah never got above 15 and were very northerly, while Kihei saw winds hitting the upper 20s.

To further complicate things this week, we've got another member of the former-hurricane club, Daniel, heading directly towards us. Daniel was a category 1 hurricane as recently as yesterday but weakened significantly last night. Good thing too. Current forecast path is for Daniel to hit the south end of the Big Island Thursday evening and pass just south of Maui Friday morning. Projected wind speeds at that time are in the 40mph range. Until then, our current light trade wind pattern will prevail.

Bud Makes Maui Wind a Dud

As predicted, former hurricane Bud is currently passing north of the Hawaiian islands and is effectively shutting down the trade winds. Winds yesterday and today have only been light onshore sea breezes during the day, hitting about 10 - 12 mph. Great stuff if you're into boards wider than docks and sails bigger than tents. Not what most people come to Maui for though.

Bud should be exiting to our west tomorrow, but on his heals is his sibling Carlotta, also a former hurricane, who, in addition to keeping the trades light may bring in more moisture. The upshot of all this is that, here in July, typically our windiest month, we're likely to see very light winds through early next week.

My experience here on Maui the last few years is that these former hurricanes often play havoc with our trade winds but it's usually in August when this happens. Guess Bud and Carlotta didn't get the memo. And if that weren't enough, there's currently hurricane Daniel in the eastern Pacific. We'll have to wait and see what his plans are.

This Bud's for Us

Most people probably aren't aware that, here in the Pacific, we have a hurricane season that corresponds to the hurricane season in the Atlantic. The eastern Pacific's first hurricane this season was Bud. Bud, like it's anemic beer namesake, has fizzled to weak little surface low pressure system so there is no real threat of it doing any damage to Hawaii. But, it will most likely have an effect on our winds. It's currently stumbling along toward us, and probably won't even bring much rainfall, but it will be enough of a nuisance to slacken our trade winds a bit more than they already are.

The last few days we've had pretty light trades for this time of year - 5.5 - 6.0 for most guys. I sailed 5.7 yesterday for the first time in quite awhile. Probably could have made the 5.3 work at times. It was actually kind of nice to get some mellow sailing in after so much 4.0 - 4.5 sailing the last few weeks.

Crowds are at their peak levels right now at Kanaha - lots of local families, mainland families as well as lots of visiting windsurfers from Japan. It's interesting to see how the visitor demographics change throughout the year. I think August tends to bring a lot of folks from Italy. Germans tend to visit more during the wave season.

Anyway, looks like today might actually be lighter than the last couple of days. Then Bud will probably kill the wind a bit more for the rest of this week. Looks like more typical July trade winds return after the weekend.

Maui Winds Mellow

Our strong and gusty trades that we've seen this week have mellowed a bit yesterday and today. Yesterday's wind was pretty onshore and light - 5.3ish for most guys. Things are shaping up similarly today. Kanaha is currently averaging around 18mph. Should be mellow day for the race series today for a change.

Once again, a big mahalo out to Derek who provided the photos shown below. Enjoy!

Cool Photo #3 from Derek

If anyone recognizes this guy, post a comment so we can see if we can get a copy of this photo to him ( bigger version than what's posted here).

Cool Photo # 2 from Derek

Cool Photos

Thanks to Maui Windsurfing Blog reader Derek who snapped some cool photos from the air from a helicopter 6/28 over Sprecklesville and was kind enough to share. Cool shots, Derek, thanks. Two more to follow.

The forecasters have once again blundered in their Maui wind forecast, at least for the northshore. While we've had strong high pressure, strong gradients and it has been windy as hell in Kihei, Maui's northshore has been under assualt by clouds that haven't brought a lot of rain, but have tended to dampen the wind substantially and make conditions very up and down throughout each day.

I was lucky yesterday to time my session during the late afternoon once a squall had passed and got a very fun hour blasting around on 5.3. There were even some freakish waves at Uppers to play in, although they were very small and not really breaking much, it still provided some fun terrain to play in. Fun time since it initially didn't look very promising.

Winter Winds Blow Through Kanaha

Yesterday we saw a bit of a break in the day-after-day 4.0 winds we've been having and got a little reminder of what winter often brings. No, not waves - rain squalls and rainbows. Some moisture-laden clouds upstream brought up-and-down conditions ranging from 4.5 before and during the squalls to 5.3 conditions after the squalls. I opted to time my sailing for the clearing after the squalls and got some brief sailing in on 5.0 in the late afternoon.

Things are forecast to go ballistic this weekend. The forecasters are saying strong high pressure will pump up the winds into the full-blown nuclear range today through Monday with gusts into the 40s. At 8:00 the Kanaha sensor is already reporting 21 mph so it looks likely that this will pan out.

On to our Maui windsurfing video of the day. I spent the 4th of July on Tuesday sailing at Sprecks and took some video during a break. Winds were blowing in the 4.0 to 4.5 range during all this. Right after I finished taking the video I jumped on my 4.0/77L combo and blasted around fully powered. Nothing too epic in this video, mostly just a bunch of B&F (back and forth) sailing, but that's mostly what we get here this time of year.

Groundhog's Day

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Same old. Same old. Basically a broken record here. More strong winds. No waves. Video from Sprecks on July 4th coming one of these days. Ta ta.

Still Windy

Not much different to report from Maui over the past few days. The wind is blowing in the 4.2 to 4.5 range for guys every day, sub-4.0 for the ladies. Skies are sunny and clear, temps are warm, waves are minimal. More of the same today and the upcoming week. This is why Maui is the place to be in July if you want guaranteed wind.

Summertime

It's summer time in Maui and that usually means no waves. But we occasionally get some small stuff at Uppers, good for backside riding and aerials. Here's some footage of local sailor Jazz Glickenhaus shredding Uppers. (QuickTime, 6.0 MB) Sorry about the quality, it was pretty far away.

Winds really cranked in yesterday afternoon. By noon, lots of people were already getting blown off of the water, visitors rushing back to the shops to get smaller gear. By the time I arrived around 3:00pm it was raging. I grabbed the 3.7 that my wife had been on and headed out. Woa! Way powered. I dare say I was even maxed out on that.

We were supposed to get more of the same today, but so far winds are only blowing about 20. Maybe the racers will get lucky and not have to sail their 5.0s in 30mph winds.