fish video

Okey, okey...

even if the camera on top of the mast wasn't aiming at the proper spot, I edited the clip anyway. Hopefully it will give you an idea of the turns you can achieve with that fish of Brian.
It actually doesn't, really... a front shot from the beach would have been much better, but... better than nothing!
Check those couple of jibes, if anything...


Here are the results of the Molokai Oahu paddling race. And here's a couple of photos of the amazing winner Jaime Mitchell.
A wonderful action one,


and one that shows the unbelievable level of fitness of this guy.


What else? Oh, nothing... just a fantastic SUP session at 1000 peaks this afternoon... glassy waist to shoulder high peeling perfection...

Life in Maui is awwright!

PS. The music is clearly UB40, but I'm too tired to re-edit it now...

Brian's fish + the Maliko race video

My friend Brian Cartwright is a shaper.

Not a famous one yet, but he may become one if he keeps on shaping things like this.


That is the sickest looking board I've seen in a while. I tried it and I had a blast. That thing is 6.8 long and 22 3/4 wide (forgot to ask him the thickness, but not much more than three). It's the loosest board on earth. It bottom turns in three inches and on small mushy waves you can hit the white water lip and slide for a mile.
If you guys ever surfed on a fish, you know what I'm talking about.
The fins I had (it's a twinser) were too small so I was spinning out a bit too much in the sailing part and of course the board wasn't particularly fast, but... let me tell you... turning that thing is a blast.
Here's a photo with a 5.0 (that's why I was spinning out... I think those fins were good for a 4.7/4.5) that will make you appreciate how small that board is.


If you are interested in getting in touch with Brian, drop me an email and I'll give you his number.
I'll open a topic on my forum, because I believe this board will get some interest from the windsurfers...

What happened to the Maliko race video?
I kind of fucked it up... when you have the camera on your helmet, you can't check if it's filming or paused. The only way is to stop, sit on the board, take the helmet off and check, which I did a couple of times, but not at the end, because I was trying to catch up with the leaders (which I never did)...
So at the end I was thinking I was shooting and commenting live, but the camera was actually paused. And when I thought it was paused, I was filming instead... minutes and minutes of boring, light wind, no action, downwind cruising.
But I was still able to get something out of the cutting room. Here it is.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Share Photos - Free Video Hosting

If you can't see it here, try here.

PS. Saturday 7 28 I missed a day in the water for the fifth time from the beginning of the year... I'm at 157 out of 162, a solid 97% QUOLI.

Catching up

Finally my laptop is back with a new screen!

It's been a while since the last post, let's see what happened.

- last wednesday, thursday and friday we were blessed with some really fun up to head high windswell at Hookipa. Somebody said it was from the ex hurricane Cosme. I don't think so, but I can't be sure, because without the computer I couldn't check the weather maps. But... who cares! Waves in summer? I'll take everything...
Here's a couple of surfing shots (when it was windy I was busy sailing...).
Look at that July wave!!!!


And what about this July barrel?!?!


- friday I was actually able to do a double sesh: wave sailing at Hoo first and speed at Sprecks second. The wind was nuking, and extremely overpowered on a borrowed Speed Demon 5.0 (don't worry Juan Pablo... sooner or later I'll bring it back...), I was able to log a personal best of 29.6 knots. 3.6 knots better than the first try, not too shabby...
Actually I did even better than that... I swear! I had one run that was faster, I'm 100% positive. But when I checked the speed on the GPS, the damn thing was blinking... it lost the connection to the satellite. I have to confess that I got mildly upset... a laud "ma vaffanculoooo!!!" was heard all the way to lower kanaha.
Results (session 7), here.

- sunday there was the Maliko downwind paddling race. Here you find the results for the different categories.
Michelle was racing on my Starboard 12.2 and came in third behind the always-winning Andrea and another girl, both on specialized downwind boards (the starboard, instead, is specialized to tear apart waves at lowers).
Here is a well deserved post on her blog.
Congratulations also to my friend Jeremy, who won the standup 12 footer no rudder category.
Dave Kalama won the unlimited SUP with rudder category and australian Jaime Mitchell won the traditional unlimited lay down paddleboard division. Here's the aussie.


I'm actually stealing these photos from Sharon, but I'm leaving her the exclusive coverage of a sunday afternoon most dramatic sunset. Oh, good post about the superferry too.

I filmed some of the race with my helmet cam (I was on my Timpone 12.6 and a 4.2...), but I haven't edited the video yet... stay tuned. Here's my arrival in the arbour.


I was first (and only) of the non existing windsurfing category and for sure the one who did the least work and had the most fun catching tons of glides on the windswell waves.
Here's a new friend that came to me thinking I was an astronaut just landed from Mars on my magic windsurfer. As such, I was able to convince her to do something naughty... don't fret, just wait for the video!


This Sunday there will be the Molokai to Oahu race. Here's an article I found.
Hey, I could do that one too on the longboard with the sail!
No wait! New south swell due on sunday... I'd rather be surfing...

By the way, talking about SUPaddling, if you're looking for a good source of information on the subject in addition to the HSM SUP forum, my friends Randy and Chantalle just started a new forum entirely dedicated to SUPers: http://www.standupzone.com/. Check it out.

- yesterday I had my very own Hookipa-Maliko-Hookipa slalom session at sunset and it was an absolute blast. This time with a Speed Demon 6.0 over a very, very smooth ocean.

- today there were some fun waves at Hookipa again! And the wind wasn't the usual ugly gusty summer one! What is going on?!?

- in the meantime, a few weeks ago the third PWA wave event was held in Gran Canaria. Once again, Spanish rising star Victor Fernandez beated Kauli for a second win a row. Here's a video on Kevin Pritchard's blog that shows how these guys are really pushing the limit...

- last, but not least, I just found that you can see a lot of extras on the Hawaii: message in the waves website. If you don't have the time to see them all, please at least watch this one.
When you'll see feathers around a bunch of plastic objects, that was a bird that died because he ate all those objects.
The discussion about what to do to try to respect the environment is still active on my forum.

So long.