Teaching Noe to Wing

Happy Birthday to Noe!!!

We went out for a family water day - Marlon and La used SUPs and I gave the intro lessons for wings to Noe. Managing the wing, setting up for takeoff, riding weak side, launching and landing from the beach, and schlogging were the topics of the day. 

Actually - she is a natural and showed proper form and understanding.  We just needed a little more wind and she would have been up and riding already.

Even with the giant wing I wasn't able to get up on foil.  Honestly, being able to drill on managing the wing and schlogging are important topics and skills - not being distracted with getting up on foil helped focus on the core skills (for getting back to the beach when the wind drops off).

Fun family day!!!!

Evening Session - 12/21/2022

Marlon and I did an evening surf session yesterday.  Waves were waist high, the tide was low and the wind was still coming in from the west (but not strong enough to wing).

I opted for the Viking to negate any small surf issues (and kill the crowd factor).  For a board this long, you'd think it is just for going straight - but that is quite the contrary.  If there is some height to a wave and it is standing up, I love to move to the back of the board - the thinned out profile of the back rail really bites into the wave and (besides the extra swing weight) this board surfs way shorter than it is.  That coupled with its ability to paddle into bumps well before they are breaking waves makes this board magic!

I have really grown to like the True Ames Greenough High Speed Volan fin on this board.  It wasn't instant affinity like the Futures Randy Rarrick Black Tip fin I have on the TJ Everyday, but more a gradual appreciation for what this fin can do.

The monk seal was back - but had moved over to the beach in front of the MWR rental shack.

There were still some good sized waves coming in from the wind event if you were patient.  I caught multiple fun rides.  Kalani was out on his foil.  I saw him catch a few triples.  Roland was out also, but he was under the weather (and probably should rest to shake the bug that he has).

La was using the truck this evening so we took the other surf mobile out.  Fun session!

W:127/F:99/S:43

Evening Session - 12/2/2021

Thursday after work, I needed to get in the water - but there was no wind, the tide was on the lower side and the waves were forecasted to be on the small side.  Those conditions warrant breaking out the longboard... which I actually haven't in quite some time.  I saw Roland and he even asked if I could still ride a surfboard!!!!????......

Marlon paddled out at the beginning of the session, then headed in to launch the drone.  These are some stills he pulled.

It was actually pretty crowded and I think most of the people were beginners (or people who don't care about surfing etiquette).  I still managed to pick off some fun microwaves. 

There were some decent sized waves, but those tended to dump and close out.  I started moving to the inside of the lineup and got the pick of the liter.

Roland was loyal to the foil (but he doesn't care if his foil gets scratches).

And even threw in a loop every now and then.

It has been a long week... I needed this!

Drone Action with Marlon

Marlon has gotten to be really good with his drone.  The past few sessions I've been going out with him to begin developing my own drone skills.

The family behind Marlon had the same drone, but you could tell they were just getting started (they were just doing basics and staying at a higher altitude - Marlon was trying to get as low as possible to the grass and banking as he pulled up out of the low runs).

Marlon was doing searches in the shallow waters for wildlife - he saw tons of turtles and found an eagle ray.

Our parking spot from the previous days was better - this spot up high was cool, but really dusty.  I parked here thinking we would be out of visual range of the beach goers - but when we flew overhead, Marlon said he saw a few of them pointing back towards us.

Definitely not as much exercise as foiling and surfing - but almost as much fun!!!

More Blanks

Marlon and I went to Fiberglass Hawaii up in Wahiawa this past Friday and picked out blanks for our next projects.  He picked up a 9'8" Y blank in polyurethane with a laminated stringer.  He is going to make another longboard (purple colored????)

I got a 9'8" XX in EPS.  I'm going to chop it in half and get two foilboard blanks out of it.  I think it is 3.75" thick at the middle - these boards will be sinkers for sure.

Have I said I really like this truck of mine???!!!

Next Ding Repair Job

After picking up Noe at her friend's house, I went ahead and picked up her friend's surfboard to fix a pretty bad rail ding (I hate rail dings).

Man that is one good looking truck!!!

Surf Rack Repair

I've had a Thule rack on most of the vehicles I've owned since I graduated from undergrad (almost 30 years).  This last set I bought for the Ridgeline has been showing signs of the rubber coating on the clamp/foot coming off.  Well - the signs weren't wrong.  The coating just peeled off.

I cleaned them off with the Dremel and sprayed them with black Plasti-Spray.  They look like new - but time will tell if the plasti-coat will stand up to the road.

I started with the backs because they were pretty much shredded.  I'll reinstall these and see how they hold up for a few weeks.

Logo Sticker

I found a friend that had a cut vinyl sticker making machine and I asked her to make a run of logo stickers.

Here's one on the surf mobile

And here's another on our cooler.  I'll take pictures in the sunlight tomorrow.

Third Time Out on the Hypernut

I had the afternoon to myself (La and the kids went to a end of the season party for their sailing club) - so I went on a foiling jaunt.  The truck was made to do this ;)

The wind was supposed to be up, tradewinds - 15 to 25 mph from the NE.  I brought the 5.0 and 4.5 sails, and the Maliko 200.  All the foils are setup for plate mounting now.

The wind was blowing 15 mph with gusts past 20.  Then it would have a few lulls below 10.  I decided to rig the 5.0 with a looser outhaul (for more power when needed).  Foiling with larger wings that are spaced closer together is different than foiling with high speed foils (smaller wings spaced a lot further apart).  So instead of using large sails, I'm using smaller ones - but I'm trying to gage the sail size from my regular windsurfing experience - and knowingly dropping a couple of sail sizes.  The launch at Hickam Harbor is perfect.  You walk out to chest deep water, flip the board so the foil is down, hop up and uphaul.  At 106 liters, this Hypernut isn't exactly a high and dry floater, but I am getting used to balancing it while getting underway.  I made several runs and initially was worried about making it back to the the launch/landing site (there is nothing but rocks everywhere else) - but after a few  runs, I was pretty confident I could make it back  without issue - the foil mast and wings act like a huge fin providing lateral resistance to drift.  I still have to sail upwind and keep conscious of the line I'm sailing, but I think I can limp back to the starting point in low wind.  

Now for the good stuff - I got the foil to lift several times.  The first time I thought "whoa - I'm way up - this is really high off the water" and I proceeded to breach the foil to windward.  There are a lot of things going on all at once - pressure from my feet, the sail rig, where my weight is relative to the foil, position of the foil mounted on the board, and others I probably haven't thought of.  On subsequent runs I kept more front foot pressure and more pressure to the windward side of centerline, sheeting out more to reduce power and I was getting longer runs.  Of note, I also had the boom a hair too high up on the mast.

The thought I have running through my mind is what would happen if I have better control of the foil (exerting pressure to control the lift of the foil and not have to have it lift at random when I'm moving fast), can I further drop the sail size?  Especially since I've seen videos of people sailing in less wind with smaller sails (I just don't know how much those people weigh).  I'll keep a log of the sessions - equipment and weather conditions - and see if I can figure this out.

 The rigging spot has really nice grass.  There is a hose with good water pressure and drainage so I can rinse the gear (while it is also on grass - at a spot midway between the rigging spot and the launch).  And the walk is pretty short from the launch to the rigging spot.  I think I'll be sailing here a lot more than Kailua (closer to work and the house, way less crowded, less chance of the truck getting broken into, less work to setup-walk-launch-rinse-walk back).

Friday Afternoon Surf Session

Traffic was kind to me this afternoon - I got home early enough to pick up Marlon and get over to the beach.

The surf was not big, but still really fun.  What a great way to wash off the week and welcome the weekend!

Our beach has a new resident...

Weekend Surfing

Our time demands were a lot less than normal this past weekend.  Enough so that I got to go out and surf twice this weekend.  Coincidentally, there was also a south swell that hit and made things interesting (but the tradewinds also picked up and it wasn't quite an epic swell).  With the larger than normal size, I decided to breakout the Firewire Greedy Beaver - a little overkill since it does fit in the bed, but here is the board tied up to the roof racks.

I was actually a little spooked about keeping it in the bed because of the forward tiedown hooks - they could put a ding in a board if there is a little movement in the bed.

Plenty of room up top.  The surf was pretty wind whipped on my Saturday evening session.  I did manage to grab a few waves where I got a good bottom turn followed by a long-ish glide.  Good fun (and probably better that fighting the wind on the TJ Everyday or a SUP).  I ended up putting the board in the bed on the way back home from surfing.  The board did not shift - I'll probably still put a piece of foam over the tiedown hooks, but it is pretty handing having a truck bed - might as well use it.

And on the Sunday morning dawn patrol - the wind was low at the onset.  And it stayed low just until I got out (about 8am).  Marlon used the 6'5" shortboard quad that I built (look to the beginning of this blog several years back) - he said it was real easy to duck dive through the breakers.  I got several good takeoffs - still short rides, but it feels good surfing a shortboard again!

Mother's Day Surfing

La actually asked to go surfing on Mother's Day -

Have I said I love this truck???  Four boards, two paddles, chairs, snacks, extra clothes and more on board!

I got to surf the longboard and the Starboard Element (and I should have surfed the ULI Lopez and the Wavestorm to make it an ALL BOARD day - but I just farted around instead).

A couple of "jellyfish" body surfing.  These pictures are from La's phone - I'll post more from the GoPros shortly

UPDATE:  Here are the GoPro pictures

This was Marlon's first time SUPing in the waves - he said it was real easy to catch anything that came by.  I can see La and Marlon taking SUP surfing breaks a lot more now.

More Pictures from the Kids Previous Race

Catching up on the posts again - here are more from last weekend