surfing and wave sailing

Robby Nash dropping in at Jaws
This is what we call wave sailing in my neck of the woods!
Jaws 12/25/09
I shot this from the cliff over looking Jaws
Jaws
Jaws
Jaws
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Nice pics Olaf and thanks for that link. How's that left been looking in front of Mama's...cough cough.

Been flat for 20 days here until over night, headhigh wind chop and 45F water.... at least the air warmed up a bit. Too foggy to see just how it looks right now...I'm not feeling the love this morning.... getting old and need a new wetsuit badly.

Prize Bolt...

Parrish lightning bolt mid 70's shaped on Maui

Hayne, That is a super classic and deserves to be on the wall for all to view ! I always loved Lopez's Lightning Bolt board shapes from back in the day. What a classic logo. Do you still ride that fine stick ?
I wave sailed the wave in front of Mamma's Friday evening till dark with 15' faces and light 5.0 m wind. It was just magic! I sailed there yesterday and didn't have as much fun.
The surfing here on the north shore of Maui has been ALL TIME this winter but the wave sailing has been kind sketchy lately. I pity the folks that only windsurf or kite.
I have had my camera with me a lot lately and I know that I have promised a sunset shot from Mammas and intend to produce it soon. But The sunsets from my house have been soo spectacular lately due to the vog pollution produced by the volcanoes on Big Island that I try to be home so I can have a cold Corona and just bathe in the excellence! I think that I'll post one of those images in the meantime.
I have had so many great surf seshes lately that they all run together but one stands out and that was New Years Day. Dale Cook and I surfed Noreagia's just the two of us for hours with double over head glassy waves! Norie's is typically a right hander but I was getting great lefts that day also. The intervals were spread enough that I could paddle right back to the peak most of the time.(Except for the set that I got caught inside on that hammered me severely. I would dive for the bottom and just get mangled then when I surfaced I would see Dale looking at me and I would smile take a breath of foamy air and dive for the reef again this went on for about five waves in a row.)
We scored so many great waves that day and both agree that it might have been our best sesh of the season.
I'm looking at a new swell that rolled in last night and it's another Makker! Glen James is forecasting 15-20ft. with 26sec intervals! That is Hawaiian measurements. The faces should be in the FIFTY FOOT range at certain places.
The tow in gang will be having a great time from outside Sprec's to Peahi!
It also sounds as though there will be a fair amount of island blocking and wrapping so there should be places for mortals like me to get some waves.

sunset from my lanai

Sign I found in the field by the shroom patch.

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Sweet board! Reminds me of another good surf flick, Five Summer Stories..I remember guys riding 'em in the mid to late 70s when I was kid bodysurfing @ Ipanema Beach

I just received this email from Dana Miller in Pistol River, Or. informing me that the Pistol River Wave Bash is back on again this year.
It is a great event and is usually represented well with amateurs and pros alike. It's held in one of the most striking ocean settings on the planet.
If you have never been to that section of the southern Oregon coast it is well worth the journey. The ocean is wild and the land scape is just as wild.
The town of Gold Beach is one the few places that I have lived where surfing and windsurfing is embraced and respected and revered as an almost royal and noble endeavor.
I am sure that we will have a contingent of Maui wave sailors attending and feel sure that various other groups around the world will be represented as well.

Thought you might be stoked to know they are bringing back the Bash:

After a nearly ten year hiatus, the "Pistol River Wave Bash" is making a comeback. So if you already have plans over the third weekend in June (the 17th thru the 20th), you might want to start trying to get out of it now. The tides for those days are quite low midday under the influence of the new moon and coming in hard those afternoons. It's an auspicious time of year too. The sailing season is in full blossom and the swells are still hitting before it typically goes kind of flat in July. Yeah, I was just looking at my "water log" from last year and I sailed seventeen of the last twenty one days in June. (The last two weeks really fired with thirteen of the last fourteen days giving up sessions. A couple of those were big sail days but it's all about the waves, right?)

While some details are still being worked out, the Gold Beach Fairground has been tapped for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as to provide even more camping than there already is. Permission is in place from the parks department to hold the event at Pistol River State Park -- which means "the Rock" but hey. Now while I'd rather be sailing at the Jetty, the Cape or Face, the Rock is of course the best place to hold a contest at Pistol due to the considerable logistics involved with holding an event these days. And the Rock certainly provides safer and far more plentiful parking. There may even be pirate radio broadcasting the wave by wave commentary for everybody sitting in their cars at the various viewpoints, including the epic "sky box" viewing from the old road up above the highway.

Recruiting is ongoing for event sponsors, judges, an event director and of course, contestants. Already, word has it Robby is coming. Greg Aguera said he'd come over to judge. James Lundin (Force Ten Video Productions) has stepped up with offers of a generous prize, scaffolding for the judging stand and service as a judge as well. Everyone I've talked to in Gold Beach is totally stoked and there's all kinds of sponsorship being offered up. Gold Beach has always had a reputation for loving the windsurfing and apparently, they haven't forgotten us. Lodging prizes, restaurant certificates and windsurfer discounts are already in place.

If you would like to get involved, please feel welcome to contact the promoter directly or you can get with me as well.

Contacts:

Sam Bittner on Maui. bittnes@gmail.com
Dana Miller in Pistol. kazedoka@mac.com

I thought that yesterdays wave sailing was kind of GNARLY! Maybe I was just tired from working on the intergalactic communicator all day and didn't feel comfortable with the possibility of loosing my rig and swimming at dark in unusually strong currents and Big tightly spaced waves! I got a few waves and was glad to make it back through the channel.

Giampaolo Cammarota just posted this mauisurfreport.blogspot.com…

intergalactic communicator

We are wave starved here, (more so than usual)...

Last surf we had went from overhead discombobulated wind chop to little side shore, west wind, waist bangers over night.... at least the water went back above 47F.

Supposedly a swell event is on the way for tomorrow or Monday. Hopefully the wave killing west wind will stay away.

Just missed the sunrise...

Morning of MLK Day East side Folly Beach pier

Most scared I've ever been was on this board... suffering the 2 wave hold down at the left in front of Mama's... glad my leash didn't break cause I swam up it...Reminds me of fresh sashimi over cabbage from the Paia General...good times.

Maui board shaped by Jimmah late 80's

Rusty 6'7" x 18 1/4" x 2 1/4"..Only board I have w me, good thing I can ride it from 2' to 8'..The rest (7'0, 7'6 and 8'0) are in Mexico City awaiting next Puerto trip..

Shaped by David Barr for Sumbawa trip in '96...still going strong

It's companion 7'0" that's in a picture a few pages back is long gone, took to Puerto and stopped having it fixed after snapping it for the third time..

Rocket

Theres not enough talk about kitesurfing!

Im out for a ride on lake michigan during a storm

Erik out Kitesurfing on Lake Michigan 9/4/2008

Brrrrrr...

Christian wrote:Brrrrrr...

Yeah wear a 5mil wet suit almost all year round... There is about a month (August) where you don't need one or you can get a way with a shorty.

Post Up Kiters !

My girlfriend Karen is a professional Kite Instructor here on Maui.

Like I have stated before If I didn't have so much time invested in windsurfing I would probably be a kiter.
For four years in a row I was employed by Mike Waltze Productions and among other projects we put on an international kiteboard competition sponsored by Red Bull. It was a lot of work and a a lot of fun to put on we had a giant budget and no expense was spared to make the "Red Bull King Of The Air" event the best kite event in the world.

I really have only one negative thing to say about kiting and that is when novice to intermediate kidders try the waves and they have really no practical surfing experience or knowledge of priority in the line up. If they lose control on the wave and drop their kite it is very
dangerous.

Rainbow at Hookipa

King of the Air

thanx 4-sharin' ahh nice photos especially the rainbow

I'm headed out there next wk for my b.day - very pschyched to see the ocean once again

maui no ka oi~

suprer kiter flying through a line up near you !

RB KOA

RB KOA

KITERS

Ok not wave sailing...
But almost just as exciting when it's below zero temps!

When I first started sailing I started off on a long board. By the end of my first summer season I had started to feel comfy on my new 9'6" Naish Hawai'i semi sinker slalom board. Then Late Oct/Nov. came and it was just getting nasty cold in New England. I expressed my bum'dom too my mentor named Jeffrey Brown. Jeff just laughed and said "Good, because ice is nice and will more than suffice!". He explained the basics of ice sailing too me but I was not wowed out. Then as the ponds and eventually lakes started to freeze over Jeffrey would come into work on Monday mornings raving about the fresh black ice he found up in N.H or Maine. Jeff was my production foreman and Jeff Henderson the designer for the windurf division of Hood's sail loft in Marblehead where I was working and how I started to initially get into board sailing.
Jeff Brown got me hooked on ice sailing but the gear was a little trendy for my taste. At the time there was only one descent ice sailing board. It was called the 'Freeskate' and the concept was developed by Paul Mindich and some of his New Jersey cohorts. The Freeskates were not cheap. About $350.00 for a board, skate trucks and blades. Well at the time my dad was retailing skate gear so I knew that I could get trucks at wholesale cost. The guys in the spar division of Hood's had a huge shop with a few Bridgeport machines and said Jeff and I could come in after hours and grind out our own blades. That left the deck. I saw flaws in Paul's design/construction and built my own board.
The first season on ice I did fairly well for a green horn. I beat any other first timers and kept up with Brown and Henderson. When we had big regattas I was managing to come across finish lines in the back of the break away pack.
The second season there seemed to be a demand for boards. So I built eight boards. I traded one square across the board for a sail built by Jeff Brown, kept one for myself and sold the other six. That second season Jeff and I became pretty much unbeatable in course racing. I say Jeff and I as I could just never ever beat Jeff (dat bastid LOL). Paul Mindich was very accommodating and let us sail in any Freeskate class event but our finish standing meant nothing if we were on one of my boards which I dubbed the 'IceTope' with a class insignia of:
U235
----
(sail#)
In the 'Open Class' events that Paul Mindich (of WaterBourne surf/sailboards) hosted, it was open season/anything goes and our (Jeff and I) standings held officially.
For two seasons we sailed numerous events all over New England and as far south as New Jersey. Then Henderson moved to Paia and set up shop in the Pauwela cannery. Shortly after he asked me to come work for him and off I went to Maui never to ice sail again. But someday in the next few years I know I will get back on one. You see Jeff still has not only the one I traded for the sail but my board which I left with him in caretaker ship. Jeff and I made many modifications and advancements to the typical 'FreeSkate' setup. However in the 25 years since I last sailed Jeffrey has effected huge changes and most all grand advancements in equipment. Mostly in suspension, steering and blades. The sails have not changed all that much and... the board not one iota!
Jeff still sails my original construction almost thirty years later. The big Jazz for me is that over the years many people have tried unsuccessfully to mimic my boards. in the first decade or so that Jeff was sailing the board he would not let people take real close looks at it. Then he relaxed and let people go over the thing with metal machinist's rules and vernier calipers. Still too this day no one has built a better board (according to Jeff)!

Last fall I went looking for my old friend Jeff Brown with a google search and low and behold this is what came up:
Ice GPS speed sailing record

Well so I got in touch with Jeff through an online forum where he was posting and got this personal email back:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hey John,
....where did you go?
So, do you live in Nevada somewhere?
I saw that location on your Loop'd profile, so I guess you are no longer in HI...

...You been out this way at all recently?
So many questions.....
I miss you. And I think about you a lot."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote back:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dude, so glad you emailed me directly...
Yeah a lot of ground to cover since we last checked in.
I am really tired from snow boarding all day (my new maniacal pursuit ;)
Yep been in Vegas about 4 years and I have been getting back into climbing slowly (my body is a little slower than my mind these days). I have made a few trips to Yosemite and other climbing places in the sou west. Starting to miss sailing though sometimes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff wrote me recently with:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Check out THIS video shot last weekend!
Jeff's latest video
Recognize the board?
Ice-O-Tope #1 RIDES again! :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wrote back:
Jeff those are amazing sequences, you have got the cam thing pretty down now 'eh?
something I thought of when watching earlier vids of primo black ice is like Howard Hughes in the film the 'Aviator'. He realizes that there are no clouds in his early shots and therefore no sense of speed of the air craft. You should when possible (when filming your sailing) try to sail along a lee shore etc.. It really helps when you guys go over small imperfections in the ice, that give a sense of speed.
Amazing, amazing though... you vid ROCKZ!

BTW it was always 'Icetope' in my mind.
Class insignia:
U
---
235

He He ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
received Jan 20 2010.

You are right about the need for stationary stuff to be seen so the speed of machine is realized.
This ice had just enough pattern to it. If it was all black ice then it would be tough.
I thought it was 'Ice-O-Tope', because that was stamped on my old deck plate. The written name was covered up by new carbon layers. Your board had the logo peel off as well, so I can't tell anymore.
But I Do see the U-235 written on mine! Lol!
My friend Chad was excited to use it! Better than it collecting dust.
Its flex is still virgin compared to mine!

Bottom line; these decks are seriously fast and many try to copy them without success!
There is a new wave of interest in these types of skateboard ice machines in Europe right now.
Europeans having a go at it.
They just uploaded a new vid....lame in comparison!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeff:

I was not following you about the other deck then it clicked.
The second one, Kay was sailing when I first left them with you...
That is way cool it is getting use ;)

Should I think about building more decks ?

"Next, WE plan to shoot with us ALL sailing in sinc formation like "Blue Angels"!!!"
Ok great idea, but another suggestion...
In the vid's you have made so far there has been a good feature of you doing a lot of linked freestyle tricks. I think that would be kick ass. You are very good get someone to film you doing say 4 minutes of continuous linked freestyle maneuvers ;)
That ^ would be a good eye opener for water sailors regarding the vast difference between sailing on true or (your own ball of) apparent wind ;)
I have seen very brief clips of you power sliding etc..
But I would love to see one of you doing 360's, sail from lee said etc etc !

~~~~~~~~~~~~

So what's the bottom line here?
Well I built an ice sailing deck that is a glorified, positive camber, Mahogany/Graphite construction that almost thirty years after it's inception HOLDS THE WORLD SPEED RECORD for freesail rigged, ice sailing craft.

Hayne von Kolnitz wrote:Hey Olaf, Could you do me a huge favour, no hurry of course, but could you take a photo of the left in front of Mama's, looking towards Noriegas and the West Maui Mountains, during a sunset? Please oh please?

the left in front of Mamma's Fish House
Hayne, Sorry there is no sunset in this one. I'll try again and post if I get a good one.

Not a bad pic Olaf ;)

Brings back memories. I once surfed Momma's on a super glassy late winter day. It was a small swell but so glassy it was breaking nicely. My buddy surfed with me for a while then went in too the shore for something. He paddled back out with a mask and snorkle on. Boy that was a gas. We traded the mask back and forth.
At one point I was paddling back out and my buddy was dropping in on a fast little right. As I started my duck dive I looked into the pit to see and hear him coming down the line. I say see and hear because he was surfing with his masked face in the face of the wave and breathing through the snorkel. The resisitance of the mask made him wipe out shortly after passing by me and he surfaced with a huge W0000t!. I gave it a go and saw what the jazz was. It was so cool to be able to vividly see the fish etal over the reef as you passed over them.

More kiting!

Thanks for the pic Olaf.... looks easy from here doesn't it? I remember surfing that wave when Hookipa would be packed and noone bothered with Mama's... maybe because of that shallow reef?

Good times.

Our "swell event" earlier in the week did exactly what it has been doing. El Nino sends us nasty west winds which kill the waves.

Got some pics on the camera but haven't dfownloaded them yet... not much to see. Went down the beach looking for kiters since it blowing 20 knots but there were none...

Thanks again for the photo of one of my most memerable waves.

Hi y'all...been lurking on this thread for a while and drooling at all of the beautiful pictures!

The other day my girlfriend and I bought tickets to Maui on a bit of a whim 'cause they were cheap...now we're trying to dirtbag it around the island for a week or so. Any tips?

So far:
-We're planning to avoid most of the west side resort-y stuff - maybe just check it out for an afternoon or something.
-We'll camp for a few nights in the national park. Spend a few days traipsing around there...
-Sounds like there's good snorkeling a few places just off the beach
-We don't surf or wave sail, but might be interested if there's a cheap place to rent a board and a safe, mellow beach to learn (I've 'surfed' a few times, she hasn't)
-Other than that, lots of beach time :)

Any other suggestions? How 'bout favorite (cheap) places to eat (and maybe a mid-price one or two)?