Back home

Fresh off the plane and how do I know I am home? Just go to the restroom!

Visiting Taiwan?

If your a windsurfer or kiter, you really have to plan a visit to Tony Fish's SPOT in Chu-nan. He is a great beach host and has windsurfing running through his veins and in his heart.

The SPOT is a relaxing beach side club of windsurfers, surfers and kiters that all enjoy being some of the few watermen and women in Taiwan. http://www.spot.com.tw/
The beach culture here is growing, but not as prevalent as in Japan or other western countries.

I somehow scheduled my visit between Typhoons, and missed both the strong wind that is famous here and the waves that rock the shoreline most of the year. However I managed to have some fun on the water in clean tiny surf with pleasant locals.

Hot Sails Maui sponsors beach clean up

Jeff Henderson and Tony Fish from Spot.com.tw helped motivate local sailors and surfers in Taiwan to do a beach clean up on the Northwest coast, a popular windsurf spot.

Today we had no wind so since an event had been planned, we decided to do a beach clean up. Hot Sails Maui sponsored a keg of beer for the volunteers.

About 25 of us attacked the typhoon wrecked beach and started piling up the wood for bonfires and bagging the INSANE amount of trash. It was cool to have everyone pull up their sleeves and make a giant mess go away. Then the piles of wood were lit and about 7 huge fires were going on the beach at the same time. It was fun.

Then beer thirty came and we all got eaten alive by voracious mosquitos. They are big a slow so easy to kill, but their stingers feel like needles going in! We then went out to dinner at a very local restaurant that served up one more insanely good meal.

Taiwan Typhoon

Best to put your sails INSIDE before the typhoon hits!

Sneak Peek Fire Power Edition

By Tom







You asked for it - You got it! I have a new sail under development: a special Power Edition of the Fire. The concept is a super powerful version for big riders who need serious grunt but still want the handling of the Fire. Here is a sneak peek of me testing a 6.0 at Kanaha (sorry no radical action) in 12knots average wind on an old Kombat 106.





The sail has been tested by some big Dutch boys Yip and Robin as well as myself. The consensus is that it does the job it is supposed to. Lot's and lot's of power and low end while maintaining good stability and a forward draft. Just like the regular Fire it is a very dynamic sail with a lot of twist giving a controlled fast ride. The sail missed the 2009 deadline (was not started til after) so it will not be a production sail till 2010, but don't worry it will be available for special order by the end of the year. Proposed sizes are 5.5, 6.0 and 6.5.

Any comments are welcome!

Bad neighborhood

Boom Building

Building the 100% carbon SuperModel boom has been my pet project for nearly 6 years now, and it was great to luck out by being in China when we have an order in production. I was able to see start to finish how these things are made, and I was blown away. 100% different than I previously thought. Watching the whole process I was able to see possible weaknesses that can easily be improved without adding weight. I had of course seen the molds before, but to watch start to finish was really, really cool. I totally understand why I have to pay so much for carbon booms now too. Some SERIOUS equipment investment. One of the biggest surprises was nearly total lack of waste. The 100% carbon pre-preg manufacturing process is super clean and creates almost no garbage, dust, or fumes.

Yummy

China is not all work. They take their food very seriously here. This is lunch for the factory workers. Not bad, not bad at all!

However, finding your bowl for lunch might be a challenge.

Sailmaking

We are well into making the 2009 sails now and I am here in China to check up on new details and materials. In the photos I am in the sewing area checking the finish of the sails. With me are the women who communicate all my instructions to the people who tape and sew the panels together. It is amazing how skilled these sail makers are. I would be shamed if I had to sew as well as they do.

This is the rigging area where they check sails. Charlie who manages this department has rigged more windsurfing sails than any other person in the world. He rigs up to 50 sails a day, and I have been working with him for 14 years. That is a LOT of sails rigged. I am checking a Super Freak UL randomly pulled for a quality check.

Mr Jeff goes to China

"Where better to make my sails than on this street?"

My annual (sometimes semi annual) trip to China is once again here and I thought I would share some things from my trip. It takes about 20+ hours to get here and it takes a while to get up to speed. I have been coming here for 21 years now, longer than just about any western sailmaker. I was making sails here before Neil Pryde moved to China, and they are usually credited with being the first brand to move production here.

Store working again

After some serious sweat and tears, our on line store is up again. Except for Super Freaks which were delayed a month, we have a lot of new sails on there and in stock!

Bruno's creation

New ad in Planche Mag in France shows Bruno on his super short "sea lion" board. It looks pretty insane, we shall test it this winter on Maui and let you know.
Bruno sails nearly no wind on his 7.0 Super Freak UL and Supermodel boom.

HOT SAILS MAUI spirit rules!! ION MAN Champs!

Torben Sontog, our German team rider (and distributor) was in Italy over the weekend. He entered a Hot Sails Maui team in the ION Man.
ION (wetsuit producer) makes a crazy, but serious windsurf Decathlon that includes:

[01] GPS Speedsurfing (1)
[02] Freestyle Super Session (1)
[03] Stand Up Paddle (1)
[04] Speedy Jump Session (4)
[05] Poker (1)
[06] Table Soccer (2)
[07] GoKart Race (2)
[08] Night Performance (1)
[09] Longest Golf Drive (1)
[10] Bike Uphill Race (1)

10 teams (4 persons per team) fight for glory! The numbers in brakets show how many persons of each team take part at the particular discipline.
On the way to lake Garda we agreed that our only goal is not to end up as the last team. At the second day we thought that a top 5 ranking might be possible. On day 3 we were the leading team and we finally won the contest on day 4! Second team was Fanatic with Craig Gertenbach, Gollito, Filippo Buratti and Fred Niedner. Team 3 is North sails with Alex Hasch, Andre Paskowski, Axel Wallem and Jonas Gorke.

It is a wonder we won against such stong teams!!! They called us the "Jamaica Bob" (did you see the movie "cool runnings")

Our Team was Alexander Lehman, Tim Jacobson, Tilo Eber (HSM teamrider and 2nd in German Freestyle Tour this year) and me.

Here our rankings:

[01] GPS Speedsurfing: Alexander on first place
[02] Freestyle Super Session: Tilo on a sensational 4th place behind Worldchamp Gollito and European Champions Andre Paskowski and Matteo Guazzoni.
[03] Stand Up Paddle: I won that one
[04] Speedy Jump Session: all together on 2nd place!
[05] Poker: Tim on 2nd place
[06] Table Soccer: all together on 4th place
[07] GoKart Race: I got 3rd
[08] Night Performance: we won that one!
[09] Longest Golf Drive: Tilo on 2nd place
[10] Bike Uphill Race: Tilo on 7th place..

CONGRATULATIONS TEAM HOT!