Monday, July 4, 2011

Dialed in

Yesterday, the wind was a bit light for Maui standards: Nina was on a 4.5 / 77l FSW board, I was on a 5.0 / 93 l FSW board. Lots of fun - after a week here, I finally felt fully dialed in (I'm sure it helped that the wind was on the lighter side). Had some nice chop hops, worked on the sail-first jibe, and went for long distance speed so that we could post our first session on the GPS team challenge.

On most of my outside jibes, I had problems timing the swell and my turns. More often than not, I sailed uphill while going downwind, and lost all speed. However, I did get lucky with the timing on one wave, planing fully through with a minimum speed of 11 knots - a new personal best for non-flat water. I also sailed about 25% more distance (48 km) than ever before in Maui. Here are the GPS tracks:


Nina first had some problems slipping on the old Goya during jibes, and had to go back in to get her booties. Then, she saw some big bloody bait out in the ocean, and decided to stay inside the reef  until all of her jibes were dry. At times, she was a bit overpowered on her 4.5. Her speed results for the day were pretty good, since she went upwind on her way out, and then had to go downwind when coming back in.

Today looks like another light wind day, perhaps even lighter than yesterday. Maybe I finally get to try the 5.7 m sail :) We'll go down to Kanaha, anyway, to meet our friend Scott, who just arrived yesterday from Boston.