Wimpy WindsWednesday, July 2, 2008 at 5:20 pm HSTAfter a promising start, turns out the trade winds wimped out again, especially on the north shore. Early readings around 13 mph turned out to be the best Kanaha could do and it was all downhill from there. Kihei had the strongest winds and were probably sailable at times with readings in the low 20s (Kihei sensor reads about 5mph high in my experience). So another July day with winds more like January. Maybe tomorrow... |
Trades ReturningWednesday, July 2, 2008 at 10:30 am HSTAfter three days of super light winds here on Maui it looks like trade winds may be starting their power-up sequence to come back on line. Readings are still too light to sail this morning but the direction, NE, is better and the averages are actually in the low teens. Both good signs that the trade winds are coming back. Hopefully Maui will work it's magic and we'll get some sailable conditions a little later today. The forecast is calling for trades to build today and tomorrow but still be on the lighter side of normal. Pretty weird to have such light wind in the dead of summer on Maui. |
Maui Winds Sputter and FadeMonday, June 30, 2008 at 9:00 am HSTThey took a little longer to die out than I thought they would, but Maui's trade winds have faded to virtually nil. Saturday was the last day people could reasonably eke out some planing conditions as the trade winds stubbornly refused to die completely. Winds Saturday afternoon averaged in the upper teens, flirting with 20 occasionally - 5.0 conditions for women and 6.0 conditions for guys from what I heard. I'd have to classify yesterday an official 'no wind' day with light onshore sea breezes of less than 10 mph prevailing throughout the day. The same conditions look like they're setting up again today. What's worse, the forecast is saying those conditions will prevail over the next couple of days. No trade winds in the end of June and beginning of July on Maui! That's extremely rare. Forecasters are saying that light trade winds will start returning to Maui on Wednesday. |
Top 10 Maui Windsurfing VideosFriday, June 27, 2008 at 5:00 pm HSTWindsurfing videos are without a doubt, the most popular thing on this website. I thought it would be interesting to look at the web server stats to see what videos over the past wave season were the most popular. The following are the top ten most downloaded videos from this website between October 1, 2007 and June 29, 2008. Not sure about anybody else, but I'm surprised at a few of the results:
Before I looked at the data, I expected the videos that had been up the longest to have the most downloads. As you can see, that's not the case at all. It seems to be generated more by the subject matter of the video. Early in the year there was a lot of buzz about Kauli Seadi switching to Neil Pryde. I had actually gotten some video of of Kauli on NP sails earlier, but when he plastered his sail numbers on his sails, I thought that made it official and did a video of just him that day at Hookipa. Turns out that fed into the windsurfing gossip machine, driving that video to the top of the charts. One of the bigger surprises to me was how well the Robby Shreds Sugar Cove video did. That was only posted in mid-May yet still got enough downloads to make the number three position. I've always noticed that any video with Robby Naish in it gets downloaded a lot. But this video, posted so recently, of small little waves at Sugar Cove, not Hookipa, did so well, that it just goes to show how Robby is still the king of windsurfing celebrities. The next big surprise to me was the Slalom Practice video. Maui is known around the world as a wave sailing mecca. The popularity of a little video of some pros blasting around bouys at Kanaha on slalom gear goes to show that the windsurfing world is interested in more than just wave sailing. Along the same lines was the Starboard Photo Shoot video. In terms of quality, this video has to be one of the poorer ones I did this last season. The subjects are pretty far away. I was getting blasted by blowing sand, so the camera wasn't that steady even on the tripod. And there's not really any radical action. There's some freestyle going on, but it's nothing compared to the freestyle you can see elsewhere on the web. I have to wonder if the popularity of this video was due to the tandem board. I expected the Kona Lanes videos to do better. Kona Lanes events are pretty spectacular to witness. Mabye that doesn't get conveyed well on video. Anyway, I thought it was an interesting insight into the world windsurfing community to see what they're interested in seeing. It will probably be a few months until you see any new wave sailing videos posted here, but you can expect to see more slalom video action from the Maui Race Series. Any other Maui windsurfing stuff you guys are interested in seeing? Drop me a comment if you've got anything in particular you'd like to see. On to the wind report. While we've had lots of days of trade winds in June, the wind strength has been less than normal. Usually in June , 4.2, 4.5 and 4.7 are about all I need. This June my 5.0 and 5.3 have been getting a lot of use. Wednesday was another one of those days. I sailed 5.0, marginally powered or underpowered for a couple of hours. A 5.3 would have been better, but I was too lazy to go in and rerig. Yesterday was even a bit lighter - light enough for me to not even bother heading down to the beach. 5.3 might have worked at times, but it looked like 5.7 or bigger was the call most of the time yesterday. Today was a cloudy, gray day on most, if not all, of Maui. Wind was looking like it was going to be pretty light on the north shore with averages in the upper teens. With the cloudy light wind combo, I committed myself to working, only to find that the wind came up to sailable 5.3 levels around 1:30 or 2:00 at Kanaha. Looks like it was windier in Kihei the whole day. Continuing the light trend, the winds are forecast to get even lighter over the weekend and light sea breeze regime is set to dominate. What that usually means is light onshore wind at Kanaha - usually too light to sail anything but a longboard - and stronger, possibly sailable winds on the south shore in Kihei. It's a pretty unusual set up for late June and early July on Maui. Comments:Most people probably don't know what 'kona lanes' means. they don't understand that the kona winds only occur a few times a year and they don't understand it means epic conditions at lanes if there are waves. If it was called "The most massive josh stone aerials ever and mega late lip smacks" maybe it would get more hits! Good point. I'll keep that in mind for the next one. Makani |
Still WindyTuesday, June 24, 2008 at 9:30 pm HSTTrade winds are still blowing on Maui. I took Sunday and Monday off from sailing but not from lack of wind. Looks like both days blew in the the 5.0 range or less for guys. Got back on the water today with 4.7 at Kanaha. The wind had been pretty steady in the low 20s before I hit the water, but at times the 4.7 was feeling a bit big. But the wind mellowed out a bit towards the end of my session - back to 5.0 levels. Not much happening in the waves and swell department. Even the wind swell today at Camp One was pretty small for June. Pretty much just blasting around, back and forth sailing. Somebody on the one of the iWindsurf forums asked recently how the crowds have been on Maui recently. Overall, my impression is that we've got quite a bit less visiting windsurfers here this summer. Weekends are still pretty busy at Kanaha, but not weekdays. The proportion of European windsurfers to US and Canadian windsurfers seems to be higher this year. It also seems like we're seeing less of our Japanese sailor friends here this year. Whether all this is due to the Maui political BS against windsurfers or the crappy economy, high air fares or what, I don't know. But, my highly subjective, un-scientific survey says we're seeing lighter windsurfing visitors to Maui this year. |
