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.
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.
posted by Jeff at
3:55 PM
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