surfing and wave sailing

You tell some interesting stories. Yes, I was about 10 or ll when I got that board from him. I think he originally made it for his youngest sister, but she wasn't that into surfing so I got it. I remember him using the Freeskate on the frozen Navesink river in Red Bank, NJ. The river actually froze over a few weeks ago for the 1st time in a few years. I think you could put skateboard wheels on those as well for warmer weather use. Paul and his brothers (Carl & Mark) where pretty innovative with their fiber glass skills. As a side business, they also used to line the beds of pick up trucks with glass. Gave people with rusted out beds quite a few more years of use. Thanks for responding - small world!

Hi guy’s, It’s so cool to see this thread getting attention again. After six months of rehabbing my compression fractured tibia plateau I’m happy to say that I have healed enough to be back in the surfing and wave sailing game every day now.
We are in the middle of a north shore winter and we are getting swell after swell. Fortunately there has been plenty of medium size stuff to test out the boundaries of my knee. I have had several monumental glassy head high long board days at Kanaha. Good waves, mostly friends in the small lineup, the girls surfing in bikinis (no wet suits). You know what I mean?
I’ve have also had some great wave sailing seshes at Kuau and my first well over mast high day at Kuau.I don’t mind saying that I was a little sketched as I watched my bro’s dropping in on waves that had faces three to five feet taller than their masts. I knew that no one was going to blame me for moving on down to Kanaha where it was considerably smaller. So that is what I did, I drove to Kanaha. I took one look at the conditions there and said to myself” YOU WOOSS!!” I drove back to Kuau and sailed a perfectly powered 5m sesh. The intervals were such that with some timing I could sail right outside without even climbing white water. I got a lot of big waves and paid no penalty for them. That sesh was just what I needed to build my confidence back to the level necessary to play in this arena. The next day was really good as well but a lot smaller.
I surfed two seshes at Noriega (a morning and an evening) two days ago. There were some double over head sets and I chose to avoid the bigger stuff after getting worked by a wave that wasn’t nearly as big as the makers. I did manage to snag a few really good waves but I really had to be selective. Once again there wasn’t much of a crowd for either sesh and allot of aloha in the water.
Yesterday “Gale” dropped in and it’s so freaking windy on the ocean that it really isn’t all that much fun. If I hadn’t been sidelined for the entire first part of the season I probably would opt to sit this event out. It is scheduled to blow hard and steady for a number of days thus generating a substantial easterly wind swell. These waves, all though large, haven’t had the luxury of traveling thousands of miles across open ocean and spreading out on their unobstructed journey to the Hawaiian Islands. This swell is generated by our own trade winds and they are coming in fairly big, steep, and at very short intervals. This equates to allot of broken gear and potential hazard to the fool rolling the dice. I was caught with my pants down yesterday. I survived but it wasn’t very much fun. Today I’m going to take my small sails board and fin and give it another try.

Hey Olaf:
I remember hearing this first from Fred Hayward...

"what's the opposite of planing ?...

COMPLAINING! "

Fred's right Trundlebum. My first sesh of 0/9 I launched at Kanaha with "Fast Freddy Haywood" and he is still fast! Mike Waltze once told Fred if he had $5000 he could get rich from being a professional windsurfer. Fred loaned Mike the cash. The rest is history! Mike also taught Fred to windsurf that's sort of historical also. Fred was selling condo-time shares over on the west side and business was very slow.Fred was busting his but and not making diddly. Every day Mike and Gary Ebersold would launch from the beach at the condos Fred was pushing and sail over to Lanai and back. One day Fred walked up and stuck up a conversation saying "You guys have definantly got the right idea. Where can I get one of those things and where can I get a lesson?" The rest is history!One day I was sailing at Sugar Cove and I noticed Fred limping in with a broken mast. His sail was folded over about three feet from the top. there was enough wind for Fred to make it back under his own power even with as big as Fred is. I talked to a friend on the beach later that was there when Fred landed and she told me that he not only sailed all the way from Spartan Reef but he was towing a large yellow fin tuna behind him.I think that I would have cut the fish loose myself!

Ahhh yeah...
That's a cool reminder Olaf.
Yep Fred was Pioneer of sail board fishing technique.

Funny Hayward story:
I lived for a year or more in Paia town on a dead end street.
Fred and his wife lived a few doors down the street from the Baldwin Ave start of the road.
Well my (attractive roommate... Johnny V's G.F @ the time, Raybelle Eckert) said she had a creepy feeling that there was a peeper skulking around the hood Lately. I sluffed off till one sunny Sunday morning while having coffee together she looks up and gasps. Sure as shiite, there was two palm prints on the window in the config of a person peering inside.
Ok that was enough for me !
I started scheming.
The neighbors on the street had started to swap stories and it was apparent that some young local guy was peep'n around late night. Until...
One night (as Fred tells it) he wakes up in the middle if night, not sure why. He didn't really have to pee or anything like that, he just woke up. He immediately got a creepy feeling and sure enough as he wiped his eyes and looked around the room in the darkness he saw a figure. He freaked, jumped up and chased the kid out of the house and half way down the block.
We laughed hardly at his description of what he must'a looked like barrelling down the street buck naked in hot pursuit of the young peeper.
His story got me riled up because we lived in a cottage behind a main house on the street. Our cottage was right on the cane field. Fred said the kid ran down to the main house and then gained access to the cane field by running down the walkway to our cottage and around our house, over the pony wall in the back and off into the cane.
So I schemed further.
I booby trapped the bastid !
Thinking now how can I set this guy up but not threaten the local animals/pets.
As I say there was a cinder block wall around the property and the wall was about 8' high on the side that the perp travelled when coming and going from the cane field. So I took a broom stick and duck taped it to the wall of the house and the cinder block property line wall. From the stick I hung with fishing mono filament a zillion lines each with three separate treble hooks at random heights.
The stick stayed there for about 4 days until one night, in the middle of the night, I did not hear him coming, but I sure woke when I heard the shriek. I chuckled and went back to bed. In the morning I found the stick and all it's hooks gone. There was little drops of blood trailing off and over the back wall. I followed the blood for about 500 yrds down the cane road until it turned off back into the residential houses.
That was the end of our peeper.
Between Fred and I, we put enough of a scare into the lad he put his late night voyeurism down or conducted his late night forays somewhere else.

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Speaking of Fred and Walzte...
I know Mike Waltze was but I do not remember the other members of the original 'WindSurf Hawai'i' company.
They revolutionized the hardware both with super beef/bomber construction as well as being the first to use standard tube sizes that could be repaired without having to search out some proprietary, European, Alloy tube sizing.

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Do you remember the original speed trial days ?
When sail boards first demonstrated the ability to out run the huge, expensive craft the likes of 'Cross Bow'. Fred was one of even perhaps the first American to seriously train for speed trials. In those initial days the theory was the bigger the sail and the harder the wind, the faster you. But it took a gorilla to hang onto the rig. Fred fit that bill and set early records.
However today if you saw a pic' of Fred BITD training at Ma'alaea it would look so silly. This monster dude on a relatively long and very wide (by todays standards) speed board, hanging onto this massive sail (for the wind strength).
I will look around. I would love to find a copy of one of those early pic's of Fred Training or in competition.

Good to be sharing again and will address early "speed stuff" soon as I think about it a bit. I have some stories about those days.I sailed at Noreaga today! I droped in on some substantial waves and expressed my self as best I could! I ran from one that I thought was going to eat me!

I thought I would share this mornings forecast.
The north shores will find this latest northwest swell remaining active Tuesday, gradually fading into Wednesday. Another new NW swell will arrive around Friday, keeping surf up into the weekend. There will be some wind swell wrap from the surf along the east facing shores locally…as well as a batch of northeast swell waves arriving Friday into the weekend.
Yes! I am in heaven! The trades are scheduled to keep pumping so the surf wont be all that good but the wave sailing IS world class. With all the pro's at Cabo Verde for the contest we mortals have the place to our selves!
Trundlebum,I have been building(off and on, lately more off)a house on the beach at Kuau for the past while with my friend Robert Karpovitch. Robert was the sail designer for the team of Jimmy Louis(board shaper),Fred Haywood(rider).They traveled all over the world on a fabulous budget to break the world speed record held by Pascal Maka of France.Robert was sail designer for "UPsails"owned by"Bic Sports". Micky Eskimo was their celeberaty and is still to this day out charging big waves on his SUP board at Kuau and diligently self promoting Micky Eskamo.Robert had/has his own line of "Paia Sails".It is great to get Robert going about the infancy of the sport since he was there at conception and loves to tell the old stories about the days when pro windsurfers were liken to rockstars.Well, every where but in the USA that is. Robert still rides his original Dacron sail designs and Carl Hill asymmetrical board. He goes out on the biggest days and has no more trouble than the rest of us. A wealth of ocean knowledge and raw courage in one's quiver goes a long way.Don't you agree?

Wow Olaf... keep it come'n M8, good stuff !

Names that are a blast from the past.
Mikey Eskimo... I have not thought of him in ages.
When I first moved to Maui we were next door neighbors for a while.

Bob Karpovitch and Paia Sails... hmmm
He made some nice sails, does he still have the house right next to the general store in Paia town?

Carl Hill, very unassuming character, super guy !

Jimmy Lewis:
When I worked for Jeff Henderson at Hot sails the shop was in the Pauwela cannery on w.Kuiaha.
Jimmy's shop was a few doors down right next to (forget his name damn and we were carpenter partners on a couple of union jobs on Kauai).
I remember when Jimmy was a premier shaper for speed boards there was a guy (whose name I forget) that had a very limited time to get a board from Jimmy before leaving for the speed trials. Jimmy was out of epoxy. The client/rider was extremely wealthy so he said screw it and flew to L.A and got back on the plane with two gallons of epoxy in his carry on.
Yes of course that was way, way pre-911.

The roof of the Pauwela cannery is one of the best overall conditions check spots for the overall N.Shore.

How about other shapers? How are they doing, are they still doing ?
Johnny V.
Roy Boi
Adam Stanford
Craig Masonville
And is Angulo still going strong ?

One of my favorite sticks was an Angulo, 8'4" round pin asy (not a cutaway/can opener)
Speaking of can openers, are they still in use ? And... wasn't Craig Masonville the originator of the can opener?
Does Craig still have the quonset hut that he holds church services in, on Baldwin right behind where Ed's health food store originally was.

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Olaf, where is Noriega's ?

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Back to speed rigs:
I had/have a crazy friend I wonder if he is still on Maui (doubt it) his name is Robbie Morrison. He had a wood shop in the Pauwela cannery.
Any way Robbie was training for speed trials for a while and had 3 Jimmy Lewis boards (Jimmy still use the shark logo?) Robbie was at Spreck's almost every day and when there was enough wind he would be sailing his fav' board which he called his 7/11 because that was the dimensions.
Robbie and I would swap out sometimes. He'd take off on my wave board and let me take a few speed runs on his Lewis board. Spreck's (when it's blow'n good) is a pretty god speed run spot. Take off from the beach staying to the leeward side of the channel. Then bomb off down wind across the long shallow reef. You would get perfectly flat water with just a little 10" (or so) white water to negotiate every 100 yrds or so. Pop back out through the reef and drive back up wind outside so you could use the wind swell for extra ooomph getting back upwind.

Speed boards are a trip.
If you fall or just hit a hole and depower off a plane and sink...
Water starting one is a trip. You can be in a solid 25-30kts, looking upwind at the wind streaks and pumping the little rig like mad. At water start they seem to be completely under powered. Once the rig is up and you have water started it's like trying to get a slalom water ski up and planning when the boat hasn't enough ooomph to pull a skier.
Then all of a sudden you can feel the board getting ready, a little body english and Ka-pow! Off on a plane at warp speed. Get some flat water, rake the rig and lock the foot of the sail off on the deck... and Hang the fook on !

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Re: Sailors treated as Rock Stars.
In Paia town there was/is a local artist Named KenMark (Keneth Mark Levy).
Kenmark lived at Rob's house next to the general store for quite some time.
Any way... Kenny has this cartoon series he did BITD called 'Legion of the Ho'okipa Heros'
If you have never seen it then find Kenny and ask him about it. It's pretty funny.
(if you do... give'm my aloha from Johnny Ray)

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I am going to dig out my box of old pic's and see if I can get'm scanned ;)

Aloha to everyone that cruises through the “other sports” section. We could use some input from more of you guys that are ripping it up in other areas and in other mediums. Trundlebum I very much enjoyed your stories about yacht sailing and watching that awesome standing wave. The last time I was at the beach at Santa Cruse my van was robbed. They left my climbing gear, thank GOD, and they couldn’t get the tape deck out. They found my travelers checks and left them. I thought that it was ironic that the only tape they left was in the tape deck. It was The Beach Boys Greatest Hits. I played it over and over all the way back to Colorado.

Jimmy Louis is still very much in the front line of the board shaping world. I don’t think that you can get a sail board from him anymore but his surfboards, kite boards, and SUP boards are everywhere and very popular. Yes, he still has the shark logo and the shark reputation. It’s very difficult to get a custom anything from Jimmy but his production epoxy models are world class. I know of a few people that he has shaped a board for lately but they are in HIS “ohana” if you know what I mean. Google him.

Ed Angulo Is still producing boards and I wouldn’t mind riding his shapes at all. Everyone that I know that does is pleased with the performance of his sailboards, surfboards, and SUP’s. Ed’s kids Josh and Mark are still very much ripping the waves with a vengeance!

I ride Keith Taboul sailboard shapes. He is the shaper for Quatro and Goya boards and is the shaper of choice for most of the pro’s even if they are sponsored by other gear manufacturers they have other brands graphics on Quatro boards. It appears that they have to ride Quqtro’s to be competitive.
Taboo is getting more popular since Mat Pritchard started promoting them .
Mark Nelson,Dave Mell's Sailboards Maui, Peter Tomlin’s shapes look great as well and the list goes on and on.

I’ve been raving about the waves allot and haven’t even mentioned the abundance of sea life that has been exposing it’s self to me lately. We are in the midst of whale season and every time I look at the ocean these days there is whale activity. Turtles and flying fish are abundant as well. It makes me feel that I am part of a vast freeform ocean theater.

I launched my sailboard from the usual spot at Kuau two days ago in extremely marginal conditions.
The waves were great but the wind was extremely light. There was a cloud over Haiku and a squall to the N/E so I figured that either or both of these features would provide enough wind to move me around and catch a few of the perfection waves that were pumping in.
A number of sailors had been out and made it back to the launch. Several guys weren’t so fortunate and they had to swim with their gear to other” sketchy” landing spots down the coast.
I figured that I had about a 30/70% chance of making it back to the channel .The odds were against me but I launched any way and hoped for the best. The wind was so light that it took forever to get a water start and when I did I found the only way I could plane was to bear off the wind and loose valuable ground. I semi planed and slogged for a while and lost ground on every reach. I rode one wave and was then punished by the next three. This little episode pushed me even further down wind and made getting back to the Kuau launch a massive struggle and a zero on the fun scale.
I tried to be positive thinking that the squall would push through and produce enough of a breeze to make it back. But that just wasn’t happening. I was afraid to sail too far out to sea in fear that it would completely shut down and then things would go from a pain in the butt to an epic!
Every time I would sail towards land I would be presented with opportunities to catch waves and would have to turn around and let those great waves go in order to continue to make the little bit of progress that I could. I did this routine several times and thought this is BULL! On my next reach I purposely pointed into the action theater. With only enough power in my sail to keep from falling over backwards,I drifted purposely into the peak and waited. I let two nice waves go by. I didn’t want to pump myself out of posisition while trying to chase them down.
It wasn’t long before my wave came along. It was a beautiful pealing left hander. I rode it for as long as it held up and then I caught the residual pulses following it and rode them as far into the bay as possible. There was no hope of ever sailing out of this position so I started swimming for the back of the bay. Having done this swim a number of times over the years I was familiar with the currents and used them to drift and paddle along the jagged rocky shore line. I scoped out the progress that Robert and I had made on the house he is building on the shore as I passed by it.
In the extreme back of the bay there is a sort of rocky/ sandy place that isn’t AS bad as the other possible landing spots. It’s sketchy at best but I knew this spot and familiarity makes it a bit safer. With patience and timing and luck I negotiated the shore pound without destroying my gear or injuring myself on the rocks.
Typically I de rig my sail and bundle it up into a tidy package. I then put my board under one arm and my bundled rig under the other and hoof it back across the large boulders back to the launch. But this day I was concerned that I might slip on one of the wet rocks and reinjure my leg that I have only recently rehabbed to the point that I can play in the ocean again.
My buddy Trevor lives only 50 yards down the beach from where I landed. I decided that I would carry my rigged sail down the beach and de rig in his yard and then return for my board. It was just safer to do it that way. When I was in front of Trevor’s beach house he was standing at the top of the small cliff over the rocky beach and said “I thought that was you. What happened, didn’t you put enough quarters in the wind machine?” I said” NO!” I passed my rigged sail up to him. I then retrieved my board and passed that to him as well. I hosed off my sandy sail and board on his lawn and then used his hot shower myself. I borrowed some dry clothes to wear while I hiked back to my truck.
I picked “Corona’s” on my way by Kuau Mart to pay Trevor for his hospitality. We drank one and talked story while I de rigged and loaded my gear into my open truck bed.
I checked my voice mail and had a message from Tom Krebs that he and some of the gang were over at the blue house on the beach at Kuau having beers and that I should drop on by.
I guess my point is that that was a great point!

BTW,trundlebum: "Noriega's" is to the left of the launch at Kuau. Almost directly in front of Waltze's house. It has sort of a spooky reputation in that it is easy to get suckered inside and anilated by set waves that can appear out of nowhere! Realisticaly though it's a faily predictable wave to wavesail and surf without a large croud.

Olaf, glad to see your back at it. Look me up when you're back in town.

I definantly will Pat it will be great to see you. I think it will be in March since I have a free ticket that expires around then.

I've had two monumental days on the ocean already this week! Yesterday I surfed Kanaha in good over head conditions with only a few folks out.The wind came up and it got sloppy towards the afternoon but not enough to wave sail. Today was another story altogether.We had probably 16' faces and good 5.0m wind at Kuau. My sesh was good but short due to a closeout set that snapped my mast in two places and bent my extension. It was a long swim in but the currents were kind and a very high tide allowed me to slip over the rocks at Tavaris Beach with out getting cut or destroying more of my gear. There is of the same scheduled for the rest of the week only it's supposed to get bigger and windier.I am hoping that with caution and prudence I wont be swimming in again for awhile but if you don't want to pay don't play! Right?

It has just been sick-big on the ocean for the past few days.Yesterday one of my bro's broke his universal tendon and lost his sail and rig he had to paddle in on his board. Another of our crew was annihilated by one those monsters and lost his board and sail. He had to swim in from the outside reef in ripping currents and giant waves.I searched every possible landing spot on the north shore and didn't find him until way past dark. We try not to leave anyone unaccounted for in these gnarly conditions. I was talking with the guys on the beach about how big they thought it was yesterday and the general consensus was that there were easily waves with 20'+ faces.I was always looking over my shoulder before dropping in on one of those giant's to make sure that the one behind it wasn't going to eat me. I only wanted the last wave of the set and I try to kick out early so I can make back out of the impact zone before the next set rolls through.It's sort of like dancin with the devil. There is more of the same on line for the next week. This is a wind generated N/E swell. The intervals are very tight and the longer it blows the bigger it gets! GAME ON !!!

Yesterday 6 sailors launched at the channel at Kuau only 2 made it back to the channel.Of the 4 that didn't there were 2 completely destroyed sails. I rigged but didn't go out after watching my friend Tom get denied time after time and never able to penetrate the initial white water. He came in over a mile down the shore due to the strong current. Game Still On! The ocean is definantly winning!

To day we held our own! In giant ,no, really giant ocean conditions all sailors made back to to the channel. There were a lot of very close calls! The waves haven't gotten any smaller and the forcast is more of the same.Game is very much still on!

Sick Olaf!

I'm enjoying the updates!

I'm headed to red rock canyon(NV) for the rest of the month.

I have some big climbing plans and might update in the same vane...

josh

Josh, I'll be waiting for your Red Rock reports! The conditions on the north shore haven't changed as far as I can tell. The view from my deck is still solid white lines across the entire coast. As Roger commented "We're dropping like flys,bro!" Same Game On!!!

WOW!! that was some event! All warriors are accounted for and we all know that the ocean is omnipotent! We get some rnr then we have Kona wind and a substanional north swell. Looks like Game on again.

I've been surfing and wave sailing a lot since my last post. I didn't today, it was just too big! So I watched monster after monster roll in with absolutely no one out at all. We have a pretty full schedule of substantial swells on line for next week. It's best to choose your battles and play your own game plan. I just want to make it through the rest of the season standing! If you know what I mean?

Well Olaf...
I am starting to miss the ocean, especially when I read your posts.

But I have not been idle in the sliding dept.
I got a snow board and have been out 7 times
(today will be day 8)
((should'a bought a season pass already))

I went the first time with my mnt boots and $20.00 garage sale board and bindings. Turns out the board is not half bad and fits me well. The bindings however... sucked !
I bought new boots and bindings and what do you know... some actual control ;)

I have been fortunate.
After my first day (n mnt boots) I started going for full days and getting a lift ticket. My buddy Phil who owns the local climbing gym is an old boarder and when I told him I was going it rekindled his stoke.
He (Phil) never left me the first day. He was rusty and easing back in but... he could have just blown me off. Instead he was like my personal tutor constantly giving me pointers and pushing me along.

So where am I at?
Well no issue with linking turns.
Forget air for now, I need to jump around on a mattress with the board on my feet to get the feel for the balance/weight of it before I go all 'hero'!
None the less, I scoot into this whimpy, shallow pipe often and... boy do I like that. I would already like to try a steeper/deeper pipe.
I have a feeling that next winter I won't be doing much climbing between first snow and spring time ;)

Well I have to go fill my flask, put dif' laces in my boots and generally get ready for another day of the big, white, standing wave.

BTW...
I think I dig the slope, social, sub culture.
Last time out I met a sweety ;)
She is my age and makes me look sedentary.
She rides switch through trees, rides rails and jumps etc..
I went over to her place and low and behold she has a Ninja bike and complains that she's not that good at riding wheelies.
I promised to be nothing but a gentleman when she showed me the 12-gage riot gun under the bed and the Glock in the dresser draw :0

This one is feisty and free...
All pray for J.Ray LOL
I'm gunna wind up either...
-Broken hearted
-Generally physically and emotionally worked
-Beaten to shit (trying to keep up on the slope)
-Shot (as in the knees or heaven forbid higher)
-All of the above

Or... a pretty proficient rider in no time ;)