Hypothermia Sets In

It is frigging cold on Maui. No really I am not kidding, I am freezing my ass off! Check out this picture of snowy Haleakala!



Picture courtesy of Brian Thomas

There is snow on the mountain! I would have taken a picture myself, except it rained all day in Kahului and the mountain was not visible from the loft. Still I could not have matched that fantastic picture.

I know you all think I am a big wuss to complain about how cold it is on Maui, but let me put this in context. My wardrobe consists entirely of shorts and T-shirt/rugby shirts. I live in an uninsulated cottage on a windy ridge in Pukalani that has no heater. In fact you can’t even buy heaters in the store!

As soon as I got in from the rain I made myself a hot chocolate with brandy and stood in front of my oven set to bake with the door open and nursed it shivering! I mean it was in the bone chilling sixties!

Winter Speed

This January is looking a lot more like summer than anything else. Small waves and strong winds – go figure. Well that means I’m doing summer like things such as speed sailing due to the lack of waves. We have had some good waves, but when we have the wind has been too light for a FB like me. So just don’t start getting the idea I have given up wave sailing!

I actually wanted to do some fin testing but that did not work out. The plan was to do five runs, then change the fin and do five more, take the best three speeds of each session and see which had the better average. I got a good first session in before I came in to change fins. I was a bit underpowered on the 6.0, but I gave away all my 6.6s so that’s all I had. Everything went well with only one minor crash when my foot slipped off in a gybe when I hit some chop. Unfortunately the tide was very low and I struggled to get going again all the time being grated against the reef. I ended up actually making contact with the reef on a beat back upwind, but much to my relief my favorite fin was almost unharmed and I came away with only a few scratches. Thank god for G-10!

The second session was horrible as the wind got all wobbly. I ended up doing a lot of cursing as at times I could not waterstart and sailing a 65 liter speed board underpowered through the surf is positively infuriating. I abandoned the second session and it took a while to get back up wind. I kept sinking in lulls and watching all the ground I just made disappear as I drifted back downwind with the strong current.

Here are some of the results from my GPS Results software:

max:
time m km/h knots
21:15:57 18.5 66.578 35.949
21:13:21 18.5 66.476 35.894
21:16:01 18.3 65.944 35.607
21:33:32 18.1 65.180 35.194
21:27:27 18.1 65.012 35.103
22:09:43 17.8 64.228 34.681
21:10:57 17.8 64.096 34.609
22:06:04 17.6 63.310 34.184
21:24:29 17.2 61.825 33.383
22:26:27 16.6 59.679 32.224
average[2]: 66.527km/h 35.922knots
average[5]: 65.838km/h 35.550knots

100m:
time s km/h knots
21:13:23 5.5 65.159 35.183
21:15:58 5.6 64.281 34.709
21:27:30 5.6 64.120 34.622
21:33:35 5.7 63.287 34.172
21:10:58 5.7 63.176 34.112
22:06:08 5.7 63.073 34.057
21:16:06 5.7 62.789 33.903
22:09:45 5.8 62.429 33.709
21:24:33 5.9 60.794 32.826
22:26:31 6.2 58.131 31.388
average[2]: 64.720km/h 34.946knots
average[5]: 64.005km/h 34.560knots


10s:
time m km/h knots
21:13:27 177.8 64.021 34.569
21:27:34 175.2 63.094 34.068
21:11:00 173.9 62.602 33.802
22:06:11 173.6 62.490 33.742
21:33:37 171.2 61.621 33.273
22:09:48 167.7 60.370 32.597
21:24:37 166.0 59.759 32.267
21:15:58 164.7 59.286 32.012
22:26:34 160.0 57.598 31.100
22:03:34 151.1 54.410 29.379
average[2]: 63.558km/h 34.318knots
average[5]: 62.766km/h 33.891knots

I also uploaded my session to GPS Speedsurfing:

http://www.gps-speedsurfing.com/gps.asp?mnu=user&val=26915&uid=2626

As you can see I set a new personal best 5x10 of 33.89 knots! I think that moved me quite a few places up the standings. So all in all well worth the frustration of the second session and all those little cuts.

We will be using the GT-11 for the Maui Speed Challenge this year. The GT-11 GPS is truly a great unit and very accurate, but they are a little complex and don't normally come ready for speed sailing. If anyone is interested I have a few for sale that I have already set up for speed sailing complete with a modified Aquapac. I doubled the velcro on the Aquapac to make it more secure. I have put them on my webstore (just scroll down to the bottom):

http://www.ocean7sailing.com/

For more information on GT-11 units e-mail me: tom@ocean7design.com

Cheers,

Tom

Small Sail Development

So here's a little bonus nugget for all you who follow the blog: We are adding a 3.0 size to the 2009 Fire! That may not be important to most people, but hopefully it will get a few Gorge sailors excited.

Right now our hardcore test team of Temira and Laura are putting the small sails to the test and giving us valuable feedback. Temira is certainly a dedicated sailor to brave the Gorge in winter. She sent me this link of a session she had in super nuking conditions (hope this is OK to post!):

http://photovlado.com/jan17/

The sails used were a 3.2 Superfreak and 2.8 Diva. Sick windy!

Temira also has a nice picture of a forward in the new Windsport mag page 28, while Diony rips on page 68. She is coming to Maui to thaw out for a couple of weeks, and I will be sure to send her back with more sails to test.

Ok, now back to staring at my computer screen - so many sails with so many parts! The pic is a screenshot of a 2009 Smack pattern. Top secret - don't tell anyone!

Hot TV

We are proud to announce the release of our new video platform, HotTV where you will find windsurfing action as well as helpful video clips for rigging and product explanations.




HotTV consists of 4 main categories:
ProductTV contains informational videos of our current line of sails.
RiggingTV which will contain all of our rigging videos…we are currently working on a comprehensive library of our current sail models.
ActionTV features action videos from around the globe. We welcome all Hot Sails Maui sailors to submit your home video for exposure in the ActionTV section. In order to submit your video either mail a copy of your video to the Maui loft address or upload your video to an ftp address where we can access it. Submit your own video to us today! ArchiveTV houses all of our videos from our past…so if your looking for information on a previous sail model year chances are that you will find it here.

Aloha from Maui Hot Sails Maui Team

A New Old Experience

The light wind continues, but the surf keeps rolling in. Today was a day I had to get in the water. I would have grabbed my 8.8 GPS to test, but my big boom is broken so instead I took a brand new 7.5 Fluid sample - the biggest sail I could rig. I also used a brand new Starboard Futura 133L board. Two firsts at once! The combo proved fruitful and with a little pumping I was up and planing. I enjoyed cruising outside the reef watching the big swells rolling under me. The waves looked fun, but I knew I was having more fun cruising on that gear than if I was out struggling on wave gear. Being old, fat and out of shape has it's drawbacks!

Hessel the intern was out on the Starboard SUP 12'2" and his new 4.7 Super Freak. On the inside I was slogging and he easily passed me and out pointed me. "Have a go" he said, so I did. I was completely unable to hook into the miniscule 22" harness lines on his Super Model boom but it did not matter. I cruised to the reef and instinctively flare gybed (a manouver I have not done in 15+ years!)and cuised back in gliding along. It all seemed very right and very familiar.

Being the aforementioned big wuss, I went back and got my 7.5 rig with the nice big 32"harness lines. I was back out on the water and flying. The sensation of a longboard is so different from a shortboard. To me it feels a lot like yacht sailing the way the board cuts through the water in a steady purposful advance. Shortboards are great when they are planing, but when they are not they really suck. Not so the longboard that smoothly accelerates with no awkward transition.

Unfortunately the light and wind were fading so as the sun sojourned behind the West Maui mountains it was time to call it a day. By the time I was back on the beach I was planning my next adventure on the longboard and trying to figure out where I could tie on a hand-line for fishing!

So that was my first longboard session on Maui, and it took me right back to my roots on a gravel pit 20 something years ago.It was fun!

Try it.

Rigging time!

Yesterday we had a crack at making some rigging videos for the 2008 sails. Our professional video guy is not on island so Jeff and I had a go at it. We figured it is better to have something rather than nothing and we can always upgrade later. So please don't make fun of the videos when they go on line - you know I am a sensitive guy!

We did quite well and got all but two sails done before the camera battery died. They might need quite a lot of editing as we did the video at Jeff's house which happens to be at the end of a runway! We should get them online within a week or so.

I almost sailed today. I went to Kanaha but there was no wind, well maybe 5 knots. Glenn was out at lowers ripping, but even he seemed to have a hard time slogging out. I watched for a bit and noted the 3 sails I could see on the water were a Smack, Superfreak and Fire (Glenn) - all Hot Sails! Having perfected the art of doing nothing over Christmas I did not feel up to an un-hooked slog session. Damn I wish I had a SUP board, the waves looked really fun!

Well that's it for now, sorry no pics for this post!

Tom

Quick review

Sorry I have not posted for a while. I took two weeks off for Christmas and was off island. I probably should have posted something from the road, but I have the memory of a goldfish and I forgot the blog password!

Anyway it was an eventful Christmas! I spent it at my fiancé's parents in Pennsylvania. Yes, that's right fiancé! I proposed to Anne on a walk in the snow on her parents property on Christmas eve. She was wearing camo and sitting under her brothers hunting tree stand at the time. I'm not sure she will ever forgive me for tht one!

I did get to go skiing one day (windsurfing in PA - Hell no too cold!) at Holiday valley south of Buffalo. I have not skied for 4 years, but I gave it my best shot and despite skiing every black diamond run (suspiciously easy - I think they were really blues) as recklesly as I could I did not fall. However the next day I had a really hard time getting my socks on! My poor back was just barely recovered from that gnarly day at Ma'alea and those damn airplane seats. God I'm getting old!

I did however party like a rock star for New Years Eve. We visited friends in Maryland and spent the New Year celebration with Erin and Chris at their good friend Patrick's '80s party in Anapolis. Now Patrick is an Irish lad who sings with a popular Irish band for a living. Needless to say a good time was had by all! If you are lucky I might scan in some pictures to post!

Anyways this is a Hot blog so here's what's going down now I am back to work:

The main business of the week has been 2009 sailcloths. I am busy checking out samples and colours from our two lamninate suppliers. We will add a new x-ply colour for '09 and we still have not decided what that is. Maybe canary yellow, maybe cyan. If you have a strong feeling about this let me know!

Also on the agenda are the new Smack and Crossfire designs. I think I have done about 20 preliminary designs for the '09 Smack, but we are narrowing things down now. It will be mostly structural and graphic changes as we are very happy with the current performance. I might just tweak the shaping a bit.

The Crossfire is recieving some structural upgrades and some shape and luff curve tuning. No dramatic changes here (none needed).

Well there is actually alot more going on that I don't have time (or can't) talk about right now, but I hope this post gives you a taste. I promise to post more often if I can.

Cheers for now!

Tom