Two are the reasons that make this the king of the mounts, both related to the fact that the mount can turn around the mast:
1) even if you're at the end of your ride right in front of the rocks and you HAVE to jibe and don't have time to stop the video, it's no problem because you can turn the camera towards you later, stop the video and turn it on the other side again.
2) you can shoot somebody else
Here's a short clip that shows an example of point 2.
ops! from giampaolo cammarota on Vimeo.
Oh yes, handling the camera with the front hand while hooked in the harness in gusty wind considerably increments the chances of catapults... Nico is still laughing.
I got a bunch of other clips, you can check'em out on my Vimeo page.
One of them shows particularly well the so called "accordian" effect of the Superfreaks. Here's what I was compelled to write after seeing it.
When a gust hits you, part of the initial gust's energy is absorbed by the sail to change its shape from flat to fat. That's why the transition from a lull to a gust on a Superfreak is smooth...
Similarly, the transition from gust to lull is also smooth, because the sail continues to deliver a little bit of power while changing its shape from fat to flat.
Now, imagine an ideal world in which the wind blows perfectly steady. No need for a Superfreak, you'd think.
Wrong. More precisely, partially wrong.
Sure, in light steady wind and flat water, no need for gust absorbing capabilities.
But in strong steady wind (is there really such a thing?) -let's say 20 knots and up- the water has chops. And chops change the course of your board with a continuous series of micro right-left up-down deviations that translate into the sail just like gusts. A continuous series of micro gusts, ALL of which smoothly absorbed by a Superfreak.
And let's go back to the light wind for a second. I'm not a big sails kind of guy, but a lot of people on the HSM forum swears that the SF excells also in super light wind conditions. Not too difficult to believe if you compare the weight of a SF ultralight 9.0 (for example) to the one of a Neil Pryde (kudos to them for being one of the very few sails company that publishes one of the most important characteristics of a sail: its weight!) V8 of the same size: 4.23 Kg vs 6.10 Kg. Almost 2 kilos lighter!!!
Do you guys understand the enormity of the difference? I'm afraid not.
This photo is from the first of the Kona days. Not too big, not too scary, not too windy. Perfect for my first time at Lanes with the Kona.
Oh well, it was a lot of fun at Hookipa today. Wind up and down with the squalls, mostly on the light side and waves on the rise with some head high plus sets. Bit sectioning and disorganized, since there's two swells overlapping. The big sets were the best.
On one of them I went down on a top turn and got worked over the falls with the back foot stuck in the footstrep. That terrible moment again... this time was even worse because I had the time to think to Jeff Henderson (broken foot) and John Skye latest footstrap injuries (good luck to both).
Fortunately (how long is the good luck going to last?), I didn't break anything, but my right knee (the good one) got a nice twist. I kept happily sailing but, as usual, tonight it hurts and I'm giving it Ibuprofen and frozen peas...
As usual, tomorrow morning is going to be worse. And that might mean a few days out of the water. As usual, that happens at the start of a week that should be really good for wave sailing.
Oh well, as usual it could have been sooooo much worse.
As usual, I'm stoked.
PS. Let's see who's the first one that guesses what happened in the "camera in hand" clip.
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