Maui Day 4: Windy!

Nina and Mark Angulo with the prototype

We started the day with a trip to Mark Angulo's place in Haiku, where Mark and Nina discussed the custom board she has ordered. The board will have the same shape as on the board in the picture that Mark had built for himself, but with two changes: the footstraps will be closer together, and it will be a twin fin board, not a quad. That was based on (a) Nina testing it with 2 fins, and liking it a lot, and (b) Mark's opinion that twin fins are usually better than quads. The colors will probably also be different - Nina left the design up to Mark, with the only restriction not to make it pink or purple. I can't wait to see it!
This was a real fun visit. My daughter remarked that it was hard to say who was more excited, Nina or Mark. We also met Mark's lovely wife, and chatted a bit about the windsurf lakes in her native Italy.

On the way back, we stopped in Haiku for a second breakfast, and then at Ho'okipa to watch the surfers for a while. Here are some pictures (the last three are a tribute to GP, who's blog I love, especially when not on Maui):

And finally, a few pictures of us:

Almost forgot - I actually sailed a bit, too, overpowered on 4.5. After a hooked-in nose landing and catapult, the line at the end of the boom came loose - seems I had not checked the knots on the new boom. That was an interesting 5 minutes in deep blue water, retying knots and thinking about how rare shark attacks are in Kanaha. Back in the shore, we met "The Bob", who is in town for the long weekend with his family - nice!

I thought my sailing was not good. Most of the time, my sail was pretty open, and the board rather bouncy. With wind readings in the upper 20s and gusts in the mid-30s, at least a smaller fin would have been in order, but I had lost the little nut in the fin I had brought. When I looked at the boom cam video later, though, it did not look nearly as bad as I thought, and definitely much better than last year. Funny how perceptions work.

There'll be no sailing today - ziplines and crater tour are on the menu.