Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Maui, Day 2: Going Custom

On our second day of sailing in Maui, we had a bit less wind then yesterday - 5.0 for me, 4.2 for Nina. I used my new Naish "Wave Pro" hybrid boom, and was very happy with it. Nina sailed the Angulo custom 71 l board again, a board that Mark Angulo had made for himself. She loved it, but wanted the footstraps a bit closer together - so she went ahead and ordered one, which made Mark very happy. The board will certainly be a head turner; today, she could not spend 10 minutes on the beach without someone checking out the board.

We sailed for about 2 1/2 hours today, until I noticed that yes, indeed, using a seat harness requires fitter legs than a waist harness. Getting used to the gear, we ventured out more into the deep blue water a mile from  shore. The ocean swell there gets nice and large - Nina complained about the lack of wind between the waves. It was an absolute blast, though. My GPS showed that I sailed faster and more distance than ever before on Maui (all 8 days of sailing there), and that I also did my best jibes here so far. They still were not great, though, just borderline plane-through in the best two. The jibes will have to improve a lot before I really consider starting in the Maui race series! Still, there's some significant progress relative to last year. The Angulo Chango FW 93 certainly helps: while a tad big for the chop here, it carves very nicely, making the chop disappear during the jibe.

For tomorrow, a short session in Sprecks is on the menu, with an afternoon visit to the aquarium. I'll try to also post some pictures then.