Dawn Patrol - 12/26/2024

Marlon and I dawn patrolled WPB.

There were nicely breaking waves, but the tide was pretty low.

Marlon brought his longboard (Jackie) and I brought No.34 with the Spitfire 960/Skinny 365 combo on the Project Cedrus Aluminum mast.

I had a blast!  And several of my rides were 3/4/5 recycles (mostly 3s, but I did get in a solid 5).

The only downer was on one of my repeats I got inside pretty close to shore.  I thought I was still in deep water, but when I came down I ended up grounding and teetering (ugh).  I got the stab at one of the tips and the trailing edge of one of the front foil sides.  I already fixed/sanded these (along with the Eagle 890 where I touched bottom paddling out yesterday).

Those loops towards the left are some of the recycled rides.

18 rides - I love this shit!!!

W:153/PW:2/FD:100/F:5/S:29

Dawn Patrol - 12/24/2024

Marlon and I hit WPB on the dawn patrol today.

Light offshore breeze, rising tide and some fun swell moving through.

Same setup for me.

Marlon brought his latest longboard (Luna?)

This session was super fun!!!

The waves would peak up and sustain a pocket - which I carved back and forth on for pretty long distances.

It is Noe's birthday, so we had to make this a quick session.  I was pretty heavy on the trigger today.

Shari was out - in addition to Scott, Andrew, Dean and a couple of other foilers.

15 rides in an hour - 

Wonderful present in the middle of winter in the Northern Hemisphere!!!

W:152/PW:2/FD:99/F:5/S:29

Dawn Patrol - 12/7/2024

Marlon and I hit the dawn patrol.

The usual crowd was there

Conditions were a little bit bumpy - but nice size and a foil friendly +2.0' high tide

Marlon was out on his longboard.  He caught some fun ones and then put the drone up.

I brought the same equipment that I have been setting up lately.

The waves were big enough and fast enough that there were some instances where I was over foiled with the SF960.

And I am still nursing my right knee (back foot) - so I opted not to push for recycling (too much - I got a couple of double dips when it was easy).

I got was bombs today!   There was one in particular where I could see that a section going right was going to stand up and break - so I stalled and when I leaned forward to hit the accelerator, the wave was pitching out right behind me - fracking awesome!!!!

Pretty defined take off spot again.

23 rides in this session - 

I'm going to get the SF900/S365 back from Erik and bolt that on tomorrow.

W:145/PW:2/FD:88/F:5/S:29

Evening Session - 12/6/2024

Another SW swell is hitting - super awesome considering it's December.

Chest to head high on the sets - but even with a low tide, the waves were pretty fat and didn't want to break until it hit the inside (and then you would have to contend with closeouts).

If you keep the mindset that surfing is about finding the good in the situation you find yourself in, then there were good sections to be had.

Marlon brought out his newer longboard (Luna?).

I continued the Revo Max streak and had the NVS Taylor Knox Twins in today. 

The search is over - these fins did everything I needed them to - hold on the drop, drive and nimbleness in the bottom turn and release at the end of a top turn - all with my sore knee (so I know if was more the previous fins).

Now I can go and ride my other boards (the Cymatic and Great White Twin have been calling my name... I just wanted to get the Revo Max dialed in first).

W:145/PW:2/FD:87/F:5/S:29

Evening Session - 12/2/2024

After running a bunch of errands, I got home, picked up Marlon and we hit the beach to relish in the still really good surf.

Marlon brought his newer longboard.

I continued the fin testing in the Revo Max with the NVS Blackbird Keels.

These still had drive, but they did release a little better than the Vernor Magic Twins.  But not easy enough to do the TV turn...

I have also been having issues with my right knee (too much Foil Drive-ing - if I put too much pressure it starts to hurt).  Not sure if it is more fin or me not being able to push more with my back foot.

This swell is supposed to start coming down... I may only have one other session at WPB to try out another set of fins (I've got the Glenn Pang Twins in the slots now).

W:145/PW:2/FD:87/F:5/S:26

Dawn Patrol - 11/24/2024

Dawn patrolled WPB again.

Slight wind, rising tide and slightly bigger swell!

Marlon longboarded - but didn't stay out for too long - it was actually cold this morning.

I set up the same gear - it's just that good!

With the near glassy conditions, the rides were phenomenal today!!!!

Super hard carves -

And repeats - a couple of 4x and even a 5x!!!!  You can see them on the left side of the tracks - the rounder loops.

Kalani, Noel, Dean (and another guy I don't know were out SUP foiling (no motor) while Dennis was out SUP foiling with the FD.

I got 20 solid rides - and could have probably stayed out another 30 minutes (but Marlon was waiting)

Awesome session!!!!

W:145/PW:2/FD:83/F:5/S:21

Veteran's Day 2024

On this Veteran's Day, I just wanted to take it easy with La and Marlon.

First up was a dawn patrol with Marlon and longboards!  Although if I knew what the surf was going to be like, I think I would have brought the Sweet Potato.

Marlon brought his recently made longboard and I brought the Viking.

The surf was fun - and all the regular foilers were looking at me funny (like what are you doing on a surfboard???).  I caught several fun ones and didn't want to get too tired (long, fun day ahead).

W:139/PW:2/FD:80/F:5/S:20

Next up was errands.

I fixed our gutters on the side of the house I couldn't previously reach (you'll have to ask me about this in person if you are interested).  Then I got the last coat of epoxy onto the board Greg asked me to fix.  Then I cleaned up the garage a bit - and then we headed out.

We hit some stops and had to fight through some traffic, but ended up at the North Shore.  We got some new threads at Xcel (mahalo for the discount!!!), and then ended up at the new Patagonia shop!

Pretty cool shop!  They had some pretty cool imagery up on the walls - one was Moona Whyte kitesurfing a sizeable barrel at what looked like Teahupo'o

Which reminded me I used to do stuff like that - and that subsequently made me dig out some equipment (and get mentally prepared to do it again).  I really haven't had the desire to kitesurf because you can't do it near where I live (have to drive to Kailua or Mokuleia).

Maybe it'll be fine to take a little drive....

And lastly, Greg came over to pick up the board I repaired for his daughters.

Fun, relaxing day!!!  If you are a veteran - I hope you had a good one!

Evening Session - 10/18/2024

Interesting session today.  The report said it was blowing 17 mph side on shore.  Knowing it was lower wave energy, I decided to try parawinging again.

When I got to the beach, there were even whitecaps on the outside. 

I setup No.30 with the 75cm Project Cedrus mast and the F One Eagle 1090/DW210

Unfortunately as I paddled out, the wind got lighter and lighter.

I paddled out towards Coves and waited for some wind to fill back in.

And waited.

Finally there was some wind, but not what had been blowing earlier.  At first it was enough to get the parawing up off the water.  Then it got strong enough for me to stand on the board.  But I was not able to get the board moving and up on foil.

I tried again - and even got the parawing to be stable and get me in towards shore (but not on foil).

Finally I decided to pack it up and head in.

I actually caught a wave and prone foiled - so this session was not a total skunk.

I definitely needed more wind.

I can control the parawing when there is some wind - I'm going to go ahead and do the modification that Greg Drexler said to do.  I'm guessing that will help control the wing better when the wind picks up.

Seeing as how I actually caught a wave and prone foiled a wave to get in, I'm going to credit the prone foiling session count and not the parawing.

I did see Marlon at the beach.  He got in a quick session just to wash the work dust off.

W:127/PW:2/FD:73/F:5/S:19

Evening Session - 9/29/2024

And to wash off all the foam and epoxy, I hit the beach with Marlon in the early evening.

Nice full tide, light wind (but wingable at times) and if you were patient, decent waves.

Marlon brought out his new longboard.  He said he caught a few - then he came in to drone.

This is pretty much the go to setup now.

And since we came out late, this was a fast session (48 minutes).

Lots of symmetry!  I mainly went left to avoid taggling with the crowd, but I got to pump out the back and recover some ground.  No double dips today but really I was focused on top to bottom carving turns (SO MUCH FUN!!!!)

And for a short session, 14 waves is a ridiculous count!  That's a wave every 3.4 minutes.

And the rides were super good - the waves would jack up and the turns were incredible feeling -

Seeing as how I've been using No.34 for just about everything, I'm going to try using No.30 to get up on foil using the parawing.  Struggle bus time - but I really want to use that to get into waves...  If I can get the mechanics down with No.30, I should be able to get it with No.34 (and even some of the prone boards on breezy days). 

W:122/PW:2/FD:68/F:4/S:19

Dawn Patrol - 8/10/2024

Dawn patrolled WPB this morning.

No consistent wind, but it wasn't glassy either.  Nice rising tide (but I still had a couple of bumps trying to get outside).

And there was some surf coming through - I'd call it chest high on the sets.

Marlon was also on the dawn patrol (but he drove "his" Crosstrek separately so he could leave earlier to do something for work).

Same setup as last time.

Kalani, Dennis and I were outside the SUPs, but for me the waves were hard to pick up. 

I did catch what I would expect, but it just took work - even outright pumping to get setup on a wave's power core.

I'll call this 15 rides.  I caught more than that, but on some I just peeled off because the wave would flatten out.

Good fun - but the waves were not as big as I thought they would be. 

W:97/FD:58/F:4/S:15

Evening Session - 8/1/2024, Part 2

And after foiling, I went home to pick up Marlon so we could go surfing.

The tide was really high, so the surf was a little drowned out (even compared to my earlier foiling session).

Marlon brought the longboard I built him way back when.

I brought the Seaside and Beyond!!!  And I switched out the Bessell Quads for the Ono Convertibles.

Every now and then a good set would pull through - I ended up catch a handful of ridable waves.  This board feels great as a twin!!!

Prayot and Zach were out foiling.  And towards the end I saw Gary out SUP foiling.

The swell is supposed to get bigger...

W:94/FD:54/F:4/S:15