(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/Qu98p)
It's been a great winter for surfing, but Monday was enough to astonish even my jaded eyes. The morning started just so-so. We got to Kenaha at 9:00 and the wind was up a little more than the five MPH that Wind Guru had predicted--but not bad. The swell looked messy, but it seemed there were quite a few people out. My friend Paul and paddled out, and were greeted by an immense throng. Probably 20-30 stand up paddle surfers and 30-40 prone surfers. They were spread out across the good breaks of Kanaha--the channel left, the center, the near right, and the outer right breaks. I could see a good crowd down at the boneyard and a good sized group in the mushy wave in between Kanaha and the boneyard. There was even a good sized group out at uppers. Nice day, nice waves, people everywhere.
The mood was super mellow. There were so many nice waves coming through, of all shapes and sizes from nice inner chest high to occasional bombers, all with the usual user-friendly Kenaha slopey-ness. Just no reason to get your board shorts in a knot, even if people dropped in on you. What the heck.
When I was paddling out from a little wave a good sized set came in, and I counted nine people up and in the wave on the first one, eleven on the second. Looked like Gidget day at Malibu. I thought that would be a record, but an hour later I say thirteen people riding a nice wave. No harm, no foul, lots of waves. And people were playing nice--pulling out when they realized someone else was in a wave--even when they really didn't have to. That wave with thirteen people in it thinned out to one gal going left and one guy going right before the wave sectioned. Pretty cool.
About noon Paul and I were parched and hungry. We paddled in and found Alan and Julie Sidlo on the beach, and we were soon joined by Paul's wife Lisa, who had a rental car snafu to straighten out and amazingly had found the right beach to get Paul. I guess the fact that my jeep looks like a wandering circus probably helped all of them find us. We went to Main Street Bistro in Wailuku for lunch. Macadamia nut smoked brisket. Wow. I could have used a second sandwich, but I'm watching my food intake. Mostly I'm watching it enter my mouth.
Paul and I meandered back to the beach, but the wind was up a bit. We stalled a little bit, going by SIC to talk to Mark Raaphorst about his Catamaran, but he was busy glassing, so we went back to the beach and toughened up. As soon as we got to the break the wind started to drop. It turned a little south over the next hour, and then went away like someone had flipped a switch. Glass. Not too many people out, the waves pumped up a little with the occasional lineup cleaner, and we had a blast.
Whale mommas rolled on their sides fifty feet from the peaks. Baby whales fussed around them. Outside a big guy hammered the water with his tail. Bright sunlight. A line of white cattle egrets skimmed over the reef. High Stratus clouds. The West Maui Mountains and Molokai clear and grey blue in the distance. All a bit too much if you ask me--downright gaudy. At least there weren't any rainbows and butterflies.
Surfed our guts out. About 3:30 Paul said he was beat and wanted to quit. I said "that's crazy talk. This is surf till dark conditions. We may not see a session this good for another ten years. In three days you're going back to Oregon. Do you want to spend the rest of the winter thinking about the afternoon you quit perfect head high glassy waves and warm water because you were tired?" Fortunately Paul listened to reason. We surfed on until we could both barely stand. I was missing waves in faces that only took a single stroke to drop. We wobbled in, took a cold beach shower that felt SOOO great on my toasted shoulders. Loaded up, called the ladies and headed for Flatbread. We barely spoke in the car. Barely spoke when we got there first, grabbed a table, got our beers and sat there waiting for our wives.
Nothing to say. Just long glassy waves when we closed our eyes, and the blue, blue of a perfect shoulder when we opened them.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
[Blog] Close to Perfect: It's been a great winter for surfing, but Monday was enough to astonish even my jaded eyes. The morning started just so-so. We got to Kenaha at 9:00 a... http://ping.fm/dfkT6
[Blog] Close to Perfect: It's been a great winter for surfing, but Monday was enough to astonish even my jaded eyes... http://ping.fm/xZG4K
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Doing Downwinders, Part 2
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/tBkD1)
In the last installment of Doing Downwinders on a Stand Up Paddle Board we covered selecting a place, some of the safety aspects and what to look for in swells and wind. In this installment we'll cover catching and riding swells.
Many downwinders start with small swells, then progress to larger ones that are easy to catch, then move to even larger swells that are surprisingly difficult to catch, and finally to large swells that are easy and fun. You've got to wonder why this is? The answer is mostly about fetch and about how humans adapt their athletic skills to suit conditions.
A lot of downwinders start at the beginning of the fetch for a given run--a beach or point where the wind starts blowing along the shore or across a bay to the opposite shore, one side of a lake, a bend in the river. This naturally is the beginning of the fetch, and even if the wind is ripping, the swells are small--basically ripples, spaced closely together. They need time and distance to grow.
As the wind blows across the water some ripples are randomly a little taller. These get a little more push from the wind, like a taller sail would, and so they pick up a little more energy and get taller and wider. The energy is really a wave pulse in the water, and that's what travels--the water really moves mostly up and down. This taller wave shadows the waves in front of it, and blocks them from gathering as much energy, but it also overwhelms and adsorbs the small ripples close to it, because the base of the wave extends as the wave grows taller. If you looked at a picture of the waves in cross-section they would look like a child's drawing. The waves are hooked to a small degree in the direction of travel. The wind side the wave is more ramp-like, the face away from the wind is pushed into a more vertical face.
You may wonder what all this theory has to do with riding a swell. All will be revealed. For now understand that the swells you are trying to catch have small faces and the side you are riding over is ramped--they won't stop your board like bigger swells do. You can get a free ride by getting the board moving fast enough to skim over the ramps while getting a little boost from the steeper downwind faces. All you need is speed, trim, and the right angle.
To catch these you trim your board very flat, which usually means you move forward so the nose of your board is brushing the back of the micro-swells. Reach far forward with your paddle and take very short strokes--virtually just dabs. Long strokes will pull down the tail of the board and make it stall. Use a rapid cadence, and stop stroking when you first catch the swell so you can feel the balance. You may need strokes to stay in the wave but do these well up front, short dabs. Long strokes will just pull you out of your ride. With these little swells you don't need to worry about hitting the swells in front of you, you just run right over them. Wahoo.
As the fetch length increases, the swells get bigger and further apart. The bigger swells have sucked up most of the little ones and consolidated. They also naturally have a wider base and they start to increase in period. The hook and ramp character is a lot less pronounced, but they still tend to have steeper faces than backs. The bigger size makes them easier to catch, but they are still close to the swell in front, so you may have problems with the nose of your board spearing into the swell in front. You may be able to catch the swell with the board trimmed slightly nose up. If you have a hard time moving around your board, or you like to stay glued to your rudder, then this is a decent compromise in this size swell. You can shift a fair amount of weight just my leaning forward or back. Your head is a big weight.
If you are comfortable moving around, trim to fit conditions--forward to catch the swell, rearward a bit to pop the nose up. Turn in the swell to fit the board. You need a pretty hefty swell to run more than 30 or so degrees to the direction of travel, but anything is possible when you're good enough. Dave Kalama and Jeremy Riggs look like ballet dancers on their board, hardly paddling.
Moving along, now we get to where the swells are even bigger, but the steep faces are gone, replaced with rolling mounds. The swells can be quite large and yet you'll find yourself stalling to a dead stop on the backside of a swell, and struggling to overcome momentum and catch the one behind it. When this happens you may find yourself taking long, deep hard strokes. Hard to believe that isn't the answer, but sinking the tail when the nose is pointed uphill is never a great idea. It's even MORE important to reach out, get a good catch, pull hard with your shoulders and torso, and get the blade out of the water. Momentum is the key, and a lot of short, quick strokes will give it to you. Long pulls just torque the board.
Once you catch a wave in these conditions you'll often find yourself right at the balance point with the nose hanging out over the abyss but not quite dropping in. The reason is that the swell has round shoulders so the board won't immediately drop. Shift forward a little bit and give a couple of hard, sharp, short strokes and most times you drop right in. Don't freeze like a statue when you do, because the nose will punch into the swell in front of you. Look at the swell, try to find a low point, shift your weight back and aim for the lowest spot. Sometimes you can find a little bump in front of the next swell to guide your nose upwards.
If your board does punch into the next swell don't panic, shift your weight back, or even step back, bend your knees, stay stable and wait. Most times the nose will pop back up, even if it has dug really deep. The push of the swell isn't like a breaking wave jamming a pearled surfboard--it won't necessarily just keep going down until it flips. Most times it will recover if you just keep your cool.
The easiest way to keep from lawn-darting into the swell in front of you is to turn on the swell. Look ahead for downhill spots and turn towards them. The board will accelerate and you'll have time to figure out where to go. Look for low spots in the wave in front of you and steer through those. Reversing direction as you come over the top of the swell in front of you tends to speed up the ride at the same time that it extends the distance and gives you time to think. Most of the time I fall it's because I've rammed over three or four swells in a row, my board is a little out of control and my lizard brain is screaming "you're gonna crash!!!". Think your way through it, stay loose, and you'll do much better.
If you find yourself falling off the back a lot, it's because you're not dropping low enough when you get into the swell. The board will accelerate pretty hard, drop into a low surfing stance and start turning. Wot fun!
A little further on and you should find the big guys. The swell get steep again and there's usually a lot of chop mixed in from reflected waves off the shore or just wind changes. When the wind direction shifts a little the main swell continues in the direction it was headed, and some new swells start getting generated. These swells are easier to catch generally, but the side chop might knock you off. Again, it's wise to do some turning, but it's even more important to read the water and go where you want to. It's also easy to link up swells, running over the top of those in front of you. Weaving through the swells and visualizing them like moguls helps a lot. Wind swells are rarely in a straight line, they rise and fall along their line of travel and have peaks and valleys. Use the valleys to get through and the peaks for the ride.
One of the most useful pieces of advice I've had is to look for the downhill bits. You aren't so much looking for a swell to climb as a hollow to drop into. When you have a lot of whitecaps around you it's very useful to watch the swell right behind a whitecap. For some reason these tend to be steep-faced and smooth. I find pulling in behind a whitecap almost always leads to a rocking good ride.
As you progress in swell riding you'll find it easier to read the water and swell. You start looking for more subtle things, and you have a lot more time to look for them. When you first start everything seems to come at you too fast to make any judgments. After a few rides it starts to get more settled and you have time to observe. When Jeremy Riggs first told me I should be turning on the waves to ride them faster, I thought there was no way I'd ever be doing that. Now it seems like it happens automatically.
On fixed fin boards the ability to turn on swells and ride them at an angle is important--it's how you get back in. Consider that when you're paddling you're going about 4mph, and when you're riding a swell you might be going 15MPH. If you can turn on a swell and ride it towards shore you make up a lot of ground fast. Conversely, if you can't turn on swells and ride them and you are paddling toward somewhat towards shore and catch a swell headed offshore, you'll lose a lot of ground fast. So your only choice is to just slug it out paddling towards shore. It's so much nicer to be able to let the waves do the work.
I'm certain there are a lot of other people with more experience than mine who could add to this article. I welcome your comments and additions. Either add them as comments to this part, or email them to me (bill at kenalu dot com) and I'll put them into Doing downwinders Part three. Next time we'll add some video clips of paddling into swells, and show some great downwind runs.
Until then, have fun, enjoy, Aloha.
In the last installment of Doing Downwinders on a Stand Up Paddle Board we covered selecting a place, some of the safety aspects and what to look for in swells and wind. In this installment we'll cover catching and riding swells.
Many downwinders start with small swells, then progress to larger ones that are easy to catch, then move to even larger swells that are surprisingly difficult to catch, and finally to large swells that are easy and fun. You've got to wonder why this is? The answer is mostly about fetch and about how humans adapt their athletic skills to suit conditions.
A lot of downwinders start at the beginning of the fetch for a given run--a beach or point where the wind starts blowing along the shore or across a bay to the opposite shore, one side of a lake, a bend in the river. This naturally is the beginning of the fetch, and even if the wind is ripping, the swells are small--basically ripples, spaced closely together. They need time and distance to grow.
As the wind blows across the water some ripples are randomly a little taller. These get a little more push from the wind, like a taller sail would, and so they pick up a little more energy and get taller and wider. The energy is really a wave pulse in the water, and that's what travels--the water really moves mostly up and down. This taller wave shadows the waves in front of it, and blocks them from gathering as much energy, but it also overwhelms and adsorbs the small ripples close to it, because the base of the wave extends as the wave grows taller. If you looked at a picture of the waves in cross-section they would look like a child's drawing. The waves are hooked to a small degree in the direction of travel. The wind side the wave is more ramp-like, the face away from the wind is pushed into a more vertical face.
You may wonder what all this theory has to do with riding a swell. All will be revealed. For now understand that the swells you are trying to catch have small faces and the side you are riding over is ramped--they won't stop your board like bigger swells do. You can get a free ride by getting the board moving fast enough to skim over the ramps while getting a little boost from the steeper downwind faces. All you need is speed, trim, and the right angle.
To catch these you trim your board very flat, which usually means you move forward so the nose of your board is brushing the back of the micro-swells. Reach far forward with your paddle and take very short strokes--virtually just dabs. Long strokes will pull down the tail of the board and make it stall. Use a rapid cadence, and stop stroking when you first catch the swell so you can feel the balance. You may need strokes to stay in the wave but do these well up front, short dabs. Long strokes will just pull you out of your ride. With these little swells you don't need to worry about hitting the swells in front of you, you just run right over them. Wahoo.
As the fetch length increases, the swells get bigger and further apart. The bigger swells have sucked up most of the little ones and consolidated. They also naturally have a wider base and they start to increase in period. The hook and ramp character is a lot less pronounced, but they still tend to have steeper faces than backs. The bigger size makes them easier to catch, but they are still close to the swell in front, so you may have problems with the nose of your board spearing into the swell in front. You may be able to catch the swell with the board trimmed slightly nose up. If you have a hard time moving around your board, or you like to stay glued to your rudder, then this is a decent compromise in this size swell. You can shift a fair amount of weight just my leaning forward or back. Your head is a big weight.
If you are comfortable moving around, trim to fit conditions--forward to catch the swell, rearward a bit to pop the nose up. Turn in the swell to fit the board. You need a pretty hefty swell to run more than 30 or so degrees to the direction of travel, but anything is possible when you're good enough. Dave Kalama and Jeremy Riggs look like ballet dancers on their board, hardly paddling.
Moving along, now we get to where the swells are even bigger, but the steep faces are gone, replaced with rolling mounds. The swells can be quite large and yet you'll find yourself stalling to a dead stop on the backside of a swell, and struggling to overcome momentum and catch the one behind it. When this happens you may find yourself taking long, deep hard strokes. Hard to believe that isn't the answer, but sinking the tail when the nose is pointed uphill is never a great idea. It's even MORE important to reach out, get a good catch, pull hard with your shoulders and torso, and get the blade out of the water. Momentum is the key, and a lot of short, quick strokes will give it to you. Long pulls just torque the board.
Once you catch a wave in these conditions you'll often find yourself right at the balance point with the nose hanging out over the abyss but not quite dropping in. The reason is that the swell has round shoulders so the board won't immediately drop. Shift forward a little bit and give a couple of hard, sharp, short strokes and most times you drop right in. Don't freeze like a statue when you do, because the nose will punch into the swell in front of you. Look at the swell, try to find a low point, shift your weight back and aim for the lowest spot. Sometimes you can find a little bump in front of the next swell to guide your nose upwards.
If your board does punch into the next swell don't panic, shift your weight back, or even step back, bend your knees, stay stable and wait. Most times the nose will pop back up, even if it has dug really deep. The push of the swell isn't like a breaking wave jamming a pearled surfboard--it won't necessarily just keep going down until it flips. Most times it will recover if you just keep your cool.
The easiest way to keep from lawn-darting into the swell in front of you is to turn on the swell. Look ahead for downhill spots and turn towards them. The board will accelerate and you'll have time to figure out where to go. Look for low spots in the wave in front of you and steer through those. Reversing direction as you come over the top of the swell in front of you tends to speed up the ride at the same time that it extends the distance and gives you time to think. Most of the time I fall it's because I've rammed over three or four swells in a row, my board is a little out of control and my lizard brain is screaming "you're gonna crash!!!". Think your way through it, stay loose, and you'll do much better.
If you find yourself falling off the back a lot, it's because you're not dropping low enough when you get into the swell. The board will accelerate pretty hard, drop into a low surfing stance and start turning. Wot fun!
A little further on and you should find the big guys. The swell get steep again and there's usually a lot of chop mixed in from reflected waves off the shore or just wind changes. When the wind direction shifts a little the main swell continues in the direction it was headed, and some new swells start getting generated. These swells are easier to catch generally, but the side chop might knock you off. Again, it's wise to do some turning, but it's even more important to read the water and go where you want to. It's also easy to link up swells, running over the top of those in front of you. Weaving through the swells and visualizing them like moguls helps a lot. Wind swells are rarely in a straight line, they rise and fall along their line of travel and have peaks and valleys. Use the valleys to get through and the peaks for the ride.
One of the most useful pieces of advice I've had is to look for the downhill bits. You aren't so much looking for a swell to climb as a hollow to drop into. When you have a lot of whitecaps around you it's very useful to watch the swell right behind a whitecap. For some reason these tend to be steep-faced and smooth. I find pulling in behind a whitecap almost always leads to a rocking good ride.
As you progress in swell riding you'll find it easier to read the water and swell. You start looking for more subtle things, and you have a lot more time to look for them. When you first start everything seems to come at you too fast to make any judgments. After a few rides it starts to get more settled and you have time to observe. When Jeremy Riggs first told me I should be turning on the waves to ride them faster, I thought there was no way I'd ever be doing that. Now it seems like it happens automatically.
On fixed fin boards the ability to turn on swells and ride them at an angle is important--it's how you get back in. Consider that when you're paddling you're going about 4mph, and when you're riding a swell you might be going 15MPH. If you can turn on a swell and ride it towards shore you make up a lot of ground fast. Conversely, if you can't turn on swells and ride them and you are paddling toward somewhat towards shore and catch a swell headed offshore, you'll lose a lot of ground fast. So your only choice is to just slug it out paddling towards shore. It's so much nicer to be able to let the waves do the work.
I'm certain there are a lot of other people with more experience than mine who could add to this article. I welcome your comments and additions. Either add them as comments to this part, or email them to me (bill at kenalu dot com) and I'll put them into Doing downwinders Part three. Next time we'll add some video clips of paddling into swells, and show some great downwind runs.
Until then, have fun, enjoy, Aloha.
[Blog] Doing Downwinders, Part 2: In the last installment of Doing Downwinders on a Stand Up Paddle Board we covere... http://ping.fm/H96v5
[Blog] Doing Downwinders, Part 2: In the last installment of Doing Downwinders on a Stand Up Paddle Board we covered selecting a place, some of the safety aspects and what to ... http://ping.fm/pYOjt
Friday, February 19, 2010
[Blog] : I got a chance to paddle the SIC S-16 Catamaran Stand Up Paddle Board yesterday--I guess I should say I TO... http://ping.fm/ptjma
[Blog] : I got a chance to paddle the SIC S-16 Catamaran Stand Up Paddle Board yesterday--I guess I should say I TOOK a chance to paddle it. Everyone was gone, transferring sh... http://ping.fm/fBCl2
Monday, February 15, 2010
Stand Up Surfing Waimea
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/52ZT1)
Corran Addison is a is a South African slalom canoer, white water kayaker, Stand Up Paddle surfer and surfboard designer, now based in Montreal, Canada. He's in Oahu chasing waves and decided to take on the North Shore's legendary Waimea Bay during a big WNW swell. Here's his story from an email he sent me:
I got to surf Wiamea bay again this morning, Valentines day. This is my second time surfing the wave, and it was generally bigger the last time I surfed it, but the swell was saying 10ft Hawaiian though there were a few rogue sets closer to 12'.
I only got one wave today, an average sized one for the day, but as always it was a thrill. This time I had a 9' Enigma, rather than the 8'5" Cutback that I had last time. The board was better, but the conditions were much harder. Choppy and surgy, it was hard to remain standing while waiting for sets, so I sat down a lot while waiting. This was my first mistake.
After about 30 or 40 mins of waiting for the right wave, suddenly all the surfers started to paddle frantically outside. I jumped up and spotted a huge rogue set coming in. I paddled and paddled as fast as I could, and made it barely over the first wave, a giant monster with a face well over 25ft. Behind it was a bigger one, and it was already jacking up. I paddled and paddled again as hard as I could, wishing I had a longer faster board, and this time right as I was going over the lip it began to break. I dove over the lip as I reached the top, hoping my board would follow. It did. As I broke the surface, my heart sunk as a third even bigger wave was looming towards me. I did what any idiot in my position would do. I dove down as deep as I could, swimming frantically until I got to the end of my 9' leash.
Then there was a massive jerk on my leg as the wave broke right over the board, and felt myself take off backwards underwater like a victim from a Jaws movie. Rag dolled under the water, my leg feeling like it would get ripped off, I began to hope the leash would break or the dual leash plugs would pull out.
I was not so lucky. Eventually the pressure came off, and I swam to the surface, breaking for air just in time to see a wave looming over me. Before I could even react to dive under, it broke almost square on my head, knocking the wind out of me, and once again, the board took off dragging me deeper and deeper. 10 seconds... 15 seconds and finally the pressure backed off, and I swam to the surface, desperate for air.
One big breath, and I began again to turn to dive under as yet another wave broke just outside of where I was. I got one or two kicks under before the wave crashed into my board, and I took off again being drug backwards and down. Why won't you break I thought. Serves me right for making such a strong leash and leash plugs. Finally, I popped up, and looked out.
The set was over, but I could see the next set looming, approaching. I jumped onto the board and began to paddle frantically towards the channel. The first wave was approaching fast, a rider on it already, the inside broken. I knew right then that I would not make the channel, and another beating did not appeal to me. Dropping to my stomach right on the tail of the board, I gripped the paddle, and waited for the impact hoping it would belly surf me out in front. I could not take other set on the head!
Luck was with me, finally. The wave crashed into my back, engulfed me, and then spat me out like a bar of soap. Edging over, I angled for the channel and rode it out as the wave faded. I jumped back up, and paddled as hard as I could until I was well into the channel, where I sat back down, panting, dizzy and humbled. Looking over into the path of the incoming waves I saw the surfer who'd been stuck inside at the same time as me, swimming for the beach, one piece of his shattered board washing into the rocks, the other no where to be seen. I considered going to get him, and then though the better of it. Another beating like that I was afraid I would not survive. I will let you know that he finally made it in.
As I sat recovering, the channel slowly took me back out into the lineup. I sat there a good 20 or 30 minutes, just watching the guys getting waves, good waves, thinking... I don't really want to be out here any more. My board is too short and wide and rockered for this... and I was no longer in the mood to get trounced like that again. So I sat and waited until finally a wave with my name on it appeared. Coming right at me, jacking perfectly for my position, about 10' (close to 20' face), and clean. I jumped up, spun and paddled my ass off onto it, taking the drop, bending my knees with a wide stance, bouncing and jumping across the chop until the left closed out and crashed like thunder next to me. I stayed on, making the drop, and rode it in to the beach, where I began the dicy and technical game of getting in through the famous Wiamea shorebreak.
Another 10 minutes of careful waiting for the perfect moment, and I paddled in, jumped off and ran up the beach before a shore wave took me out.
I had given my camera to this family on the beach and said that if they got a chance, to take a pic of me. They took just one, right as I was paddling onto the wave, before the autofocus went mad and they stopped shooting. That's Ok... they got the shot as I was dropping in. A fair reward for the beating I took.
And that's how I spent Valentines day.
Corran
PS I've also pout in a shot from the Waterman Sunset Beach World Cup
Corran Addison is a is a South African slalom canoer, white water kayaker, Stand Up Paddle surfer and surfboard designer, now based in Montreal, Canada. He's in Oahu chasing waves and decided to take on the North Shore's legendary Waimea Bay during a big WNW swell. Here's his story from an email he sent me:
I got to surf Wiamea bay again this morning, Valentines day. This is my second time surfing the wave, and it was generally bigger the last time I surfed it, but the swell was saying 10ft Hawaiian though there were a few rogue sets closer to 12'.
I only got one wave today, an average sized one for the day, but as always it was a thrill. This time I had a 9' Enigma, rather than the 8'5" Cutback that I had last time. The board was better, but the conditions were much harder. Choppy and surgy, it was hard to remain standing while waiting for sets, so I sat down a lot while waiting. This was my first mistake.
After about 30 or 40 mins of waiting for the right wave, suddenly all the surfers started to paddle frantically outside. I jumped up and spotted a huge rogue set coming in. I paddled and paddled as fast as I could, and made it barely over the first wave, a giant monster with a face well over 25ft. Behind it was a bigger one, and it was already jacking up. I paddled and paddled again as hard as I could, wishing I had a longer faster board, and this time right as I was going over the lip it began to break. I dove over the lip as I reached the top, hoping my board would follow. It did. As I broke the surface, my heart sunk as a third even bigger wave was looming towards me. I did what any idiot in my position would do. I dove down as deep as I could, swimming frantically until I got to the end of my 9' leash.
Then there was a massive jerk on my leg as the wave broke right over the board, and felt myself take off backwards underwater like a victim from a Jaws movie. Rag dolled under the water, my leg feeling like it would get ripped off, I began to hope the leash would break or the dual leash plugs would pull out.
I was not so lucky. Eventually the pressure came off, and I swam to the surface, breaking for air just in time to see a wave looming over me. Before I could even react to dive under, it broke almost square on my head, knocking the wind out of me, and once again, the board took off dragging me deeper and deeper. 10 seconds... 15 seconds and finally the pressure backed off, and I swam to the surface, desperate for air.
One big breath, and I began again to turn to dive under as yet another wave broke just outside of where I was. I got one or two kicks under before the wave crashed into my board, and I took off again being drug backwards and down. Why won't you break I thought. Serves me right for making such a strong leash and leash plugs. Finally, I popped up, and looked out.
The set was over, but I could see the next set looming, approaching. I jumped onto the board and began to paddle frantically towards the channel. The first wave was approaching fast, a rider on it already, the inside broken. I knew right then that I would not make the channel, and another beating did not appeal to me. Dropping to my stomach right on the tail of the board, I gripped the paddle, and waited for the impact hoping it would belly surf me out in front. I could not take other set on the head!
Luck was with me, finally. The wave crashed into my back, engulfed me, and then spat me out like a bar of soap. Edging over, I angled for the channel and rode it out as the wave faded. I jumped back up, and paddled as hard as I could until I was well into the channel, where I sat back down, panting, dizzy and humbled. Looking over into the path of the incoming waves I saw the surfer who'd been stuck inside at the same time as me, swimming for the beach, one piece of his shattered board washing into the rocks, the other no where to be seen. I considered going to get him, and then though the better of it. Another beating like that I was afraid I would not survive. I will let you know that he finally made it in.
As I sat recovering, the channel slowly took me back out into the lineup. I sat there a good 20 or 30 minutes, just watching the guys getting waves, good waves, thinking... I don't really want to be out here any more. My board is too short and wide and rockered for this... and I was no longer in the mood to get trounced like that again. So I sat and waited until finally a wave with my name on it appeared. Coming right at me, jacking perfectly for my position, about 10' (close to 20' face), and clean. I jumped up, spun and paddled my ass off onto it, taking the drop, bending my knees with a wide stance, bouncing and jumping across the chop until the left closed out and crashed like thunder next to me. I stayed on, making the drop, and rode it in to the beach, where I began the dicy and technical game of getting in through the famous Wiamea shorebreak.
Another 10 minutes of careful waiting for the perfect moment, and I paddled in, jumped off and ran up the beach before a shore wave took me out.
I had given my camera to this family on the beach and said that if they got a chance, to take a pic of me. They took just one, right as I was paddling onto the wave, before the autofocus went mad and they stopped shooting. That's Ok... they got the shot as I was dropping in. A fair reward for the beating I took.
And that's how I spent Valentines day.
Corran
PS I've also pout in a shot from the Waterman Sunset Beach World Cup
[Blog] Stand Up Surfing Waimea: Corran Addison is a is a South African slalom canoer, white water kayaker, Stand Up Paddle surfer and surfboard designer, now based in Montreal... http://ping.fm/rYEHO
[Blog] Stand Up Surfing Waimea: Corran Addison is a is a South African slalom canoer, white water kayaker, Stand Up... http://ping.fm/LJZWm
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Doing Downwinders
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/S9DZO)
It's always the blind leading the blind here at Ke Nalu. I continue my long practice at teaching anything--struggle to be one step ahead of the students and grab expertise anywhere I can get it. I've been doing downwind runs about two years, on an accelerated program fed by my insatiable, over the top addiction to the downwind glide. What a rush. So here I'm going to tell you a bit of what I've learned, and a lot of what I've observed even if I can't necessarily DO all of it yet, and I'm going to steal shamelessly from any useful source.
As I said, downwinders and swellriding is very addictive. You can do them anywhere there is wind and water. What you want to look for is a place that is safe and fun.
Wind Direction: You don't want to go hard offshore in a place where the next stop is 3000 miles away, you don't want to be pushed onshore in places you can't land safely. It pays to scout your run carefully. Understand the wind and swell direction, know where you can put in and take out safely, and where you can go if you need to ditch the run. It's a little safer to run along a coastline than point-to-point across an open bay. But in places where there are offshore reefs or seabed topology that can build big waves from groundswell you may have to run miles out at sea to avoid the mackers.
A little offshore wind direction is not such a big deal once you have experience and can drive your board well, especially if you have a foot rudder. Generally a run with some offshore direction is shaped like a triangle--you ride the swells and wind out a ways, and then start aiming every ride towards the shore, working your way inwards at an angle against the wind. Onshore winds tend to be a bigger challenge since they are pushing you where you don't want to go and you have to work against them right from the start.
You want swells to ride. Getting pushed by the wind in flatwater is fine and all that, but riding swells are the addictive part of downwinding. To get good swells you need wind and fetch, fetch being the amount of distance the wind gets to push on the water. Swells take time to build and gain shape. A really strong wind blowing along water for a short distance can toss up a pretty high swell, but the peaks will be close together, choppy, and uneven. When the swell has time to form it will spread out (gain a longer period) get more even, and gain more energy (get thicker). So in a river you want to look for a place where the river direction and the wind direction run parallel for a distance. A small bend won't undo all the good fetch since some energy will make it through, but a couple of right angle turns and the fetch is starting all over.
The southside runs in Maui start at the inside curve of the island, and the wind blows across the island, which means almost no fetch if you are starting at Sugar Beach or the Canoe Hale. That makes the run an almost ideal example of what happens as the fetch length grows. When the wind is brisk (say, 20 kts) you start with little ripples and a lot of push from the wind at your back. After half a mile the ripples have grown to ankle high swells that are enough to push your board if you paddle hard to catch them. Fun practice in reading the water. A mile further and the swells are knee high, and close together. Fun to catch, but your board smacks the backside of the swell in front frequently. Good practice for turning in a swell or railroading over the top of the next one. A few more miles and some bottom features will toss up waist-high stuff while the majority of swells are still knee high but wider apart and more rounded. Both of those characteristics mean there's more energy in the swell, it's thicker on top because it's period is longer and there's more energy. It tosses higher when the water gets shallow because the friction with the bottom slows the leading edge of the wave, piling up the water.
A Maliko run on the North side of Maui displays what a long fetch ride is about. Here the wind has been on the water for hundreds of miles, the wind swells are thick, long period, and very big--sometimes the bottom topology kicks them up to 20 feet from peak to base. When you're in a trough you often can't see your friends, or even the shore. Riding these swells is more like snowboarding down a mountain than surfing--the swells aren't breaking.
Gear
Any board will work for doing downwinders, but they are more fun on specialized downwind or touring boards. If all you have is surfboards choose your longest one and go as narrow as you can comfortably balance for a long while. If you have thrusters, take them off and go with a single fin--you'll gain a lot of glide. Old long windsurfers work. Pretty much anything works. Don't let yourself be denied the fun because your equipment isn't optimal.
If you decide to buy a downwind board, try to demo first. Weight, height, and skill level have a lot to do with the kind of board you'd like. A few days ago I took a friend for his first run and let him try both my SIC F18 and my Foote Maliko 14. He vastly preferred the F18. Easy to see why--the F18 is very stable, catches swells well and gives a great cruising ride. The Foote Maliko 14 is like a little sportscar. It zips into a swell and lets you play with the wave. But its not as stable and comfortable. For me, jumping off the F18 onto the Foote was like getting out of a Corvette and into a Ferrari. Both fast, but the Maliko 14 has a wonderful nimble, pared-down feel.
If the board you use for downwinding is substantially thicker than your surfboard, you'll probably like a longer paddle.
Some very experienced folks jump on a board with no leash, no water, nothing but a paddle and their boardies. I think they are insane. You can get away with that until you don't, and then you'll have a very long afternoon. These boards have thick rails and can blow away from you in a second, and quickly reach speeds you can never match, no matter how well you swim. I always wear a leash. I have a light one made from a boogie board leash for southside and a big, thick one for Maliko. Anywhere you have the potential to be caught in a big, breaking wave you want a stout leash. I got caught inside at Upper Kanaha and turned my coiled boogie board leash into a straight leash the diameter of a shoelace--so lucky it didn't break. That would be at least a one mile swim in heavy surf and current.
A PFD is a good option, especially since some jurisdictions require it and issue citations. The inflatable PFDs can be worn without discomfort or interference. There are both belt type and suspender types. If you get separated from your board and don't have a PFD your camelback can be a lifesaver. Just drink part of the water and then inflate the bladder by blowing in the tube, then reverse the position so you are wearing it on your chest. Don't dump the water unless you need all the floatation--it comes in handy on a long swim in.
If you're going more than a mile or two you should have water. I like a camelback. Dave Kalama sticks water bottles in his pocket--doesn't like sucking on the tube and getting winded. I know exactly what he means, but I don't have his balance to be pulling a bottle out for a drink and hardly missing a beat.
I also carry my iPhone in a waterproof bag, tucked in my camelback. I can operate the phone through the bag and even talk through it. Better yet I can turn on music with the internal speakers and it's loud enough to her pretty well when it's on my bak. No earphones, no wires--a human jukebox. I also use my iPhone to record my trip using it's GPS, and of course it's there as a safety feature in case I encounter serious trouble.
I'm careful not to let myself consume safety margins provided by gear. That is, I don't do things that are more dangerous just because I have some safety equipment. I stay away from offshore reefs when there's groundswell even though I have a leash. I don't ditch the leash because I have a PFD. I don't go out in excessively offshore conditions just because I carry a phone.
Next installment: Catching and Riding Swells
It's always the blind leading the blind here at Ke Nalu. I continue my long practice at teaching anything--struggle to be one step ahead of the students and grab expertise anywhere I can get it. I've been doing downwind runs about two years, on an accelerated program fed by my insatiable, over the top addiction to the downwind glide. What a rush. So here I'm going to tell you a bit of what I've learned, and a lot of what I've observed even if I can't necessarily DO all of it yet, and I'm going to steal shamelessly from any useful source.
As I said, downwinders and swellriding is very addictive. You can do them anywhere there is wind and water. What you want to look for is a place that is safe and fun.
Wind Direction: You don't want to go hard offshore in a place where the next stop is 3000 miles away, you don't want to be pushed onshore in places you can't land safely. It pays to scout your run carefully. Understand the wind and swell direction, know where you can put in and take out safely, and where you can go if you need to ditch the run. It's a little safer to run along a coastline than point-to-point across an open bay. But in places where there are offshore reefs or seabed topology that can build big waves from groundswell you may have to run miles out at sea to avoid the mackers.
A little offshore wind direction is not such a big deal once you have experience and can drive your board well, especially if you have a foot rudder. Generally a run with some offshore direction is shaped like a triangle--you ride the swells and wind out a ways, and then start aiming every ride towards the shore, working your way inwards at an angle against the wind. Onshore winds tend to be a bigger challenge since they are pushing you where you don't want to go and you have to work against them right from the start.
You want swells to ride. Getting pushed by the wind in flatwater is fine and all that, but riding swells are the addictive part of downwinding. To get good swells you need wind and fetch, fetch being the amount of distance the wind gets to push on the water. Swells take time to build and gain shape. A really strong wind blowing along water for a short distance can toss up a pretty high swell, but the peaks will be close together, choppy, and uneven. When the swell has time to form it will spread out (gain a longer period) get more even, and gain more energy (get thicker). So in a river you want to look for a place where the river direction and the wind direction run parallel for a distance. A small bend won't undo all the good fetch since some energy will make it through, but a couple of right angle turns and the fetch is starting all over.
The southside runs in Maui start at the inside curve of the island, and the wind blows across the island, which means almost no fetch if you are starting at Sugar Beach or the Canoe Hale. That makes the run an almost ideal example of what happens as the fetch length grows. When the wind is brisk (say, 20 kts) you start with little ripples and a lot of push from the wind at your back. After half a mile the ripples have grown to ankle high swells that are enough to push your board if you paddle hard to catch them. Fun practice in reading the water. A mile further and the swells are knee high, and close together. Fun to catch, but your board smacks the backside of the swell in front frequently. Good practice for turning in a swell or railroading over the top of the next one. A few more miles and some bottom features will toss up waist-high stuff while the majority of swells are still knee high but wider apart and more rounded. Both of those characteristics mean there's more energy in the swell, it's thicker on top because it's period is longer and there's more energy. It tosses higher when the water gets shallow because the friction with the bottom slows the leading edge of the wave, piling up the water.
A Maliko run on the North side of Maui displays what a long fetch ride is about. Here the wind has been on the water for hundreds of miles, the wind swells are thick, long period, and very big--sometimes the bottom topology kicks them up to 20 feet from peak to base. When you're in a trough you often can't see your friends, or even the shore. Riding these swells is more like snowboarding down a mountain than surfing--the swells aren't breaking.
Gear
Any board will work for doing downwinders, but they are more fun on specialized downwind or touring boards. If all you have is surfboards choose your longest one and go as narrow as you can comfortably balance for a long while. If you have thrusters, take them off and go with a single fin--you'll gain a lot of glide. Old long windsurfers work. Pretty much anything works. Don't let yourself be denied the fun because your equipment isn't optimal.
If you decide to buy a downwind board, try to demo first. Weight, height, and skill level have a lot to do with the kind of board you'd like. A few days ago I took a friend for his first run and let him try both my SIC F18 and my Foote Maliko 14. He vastly preferred the F18. Easy to see why--the F18 is very stable, catches swells well and gives a great cruising ride. The Foote Maliko 14 is like a little sportscar. It zips into a swell and lets you play with the wave. But its not as stable and comfortable. For me, jumping off the F18 onto the Foote was like getting out of a Corvette and into a Ferrari. Both fast, but the Maliko 14 has a wonderful nimble, pared-down feel.
If the board you use for downwinding is substantially thicker than your surfboard, you'll probably like a longer paddle.
Some very experienced folks jump on a board with no leash, no water, nothing but a paddle and their boardies. I think they are insane. You can get away with that until you don't, and then you'll have a very long afternoon. These boards have thick rails and can blow away from you in a second, and quickly reach speeds you can never match, no matter how well you swim. I always wear a leash. I have a light one made from a boogie board leash for southside and a big, thick one for Maliko. Anywhere you have the potential to be caught in a big, breaking wave you want a stout leash. I got caught inside at Upper Kanaha and turned my coiled boogie board leash into a straight leash the diameter of a shoelace--so lucky it didn't break. That would be at least a one mile swim in heavy surf and current.
A PFD is a good option, especially since some jurisdictions require it and issue citations. The inflatable PFDs can be worn without discomfort or interference. There are both belt type and suspender types. If you get separated from your board and don't have a PFD your camelback can be a lifesaver. Just drink part of the water and then inflate the bladder by blowing in the tube, then reverse the position so you are wearing it on your chest. Don't dump the water unless you need all the floatation--it comes in handy on a long swim in.
If you're going more than a mile or two you should have water. I like a camelback. Dave Kalama sticks water bottles in his pocket--doesn't like sucking on the tube and getting winded. I know exactly what he means, but I don't have his balance to be pulling a bottle out for a drink and hardly missing a beat.
I also carry my iPhone in a waterproof bag, tucked in my camelback. I can operate the phone through the bag and even talk through it. Better yet I can turn on music with the internal speakers and it's loud enough to her pretty well when it's on my bak. No earphones, no wires--a human jukebox. I also use my iPhone to record my trip using it's GPS, and of course it's there as a safety feature in case I encounter serious trouble.
I'm careful not to let myself consume safety margins provided by gear. That is, I don't do things that are more dangerous just because I have some safety equipment. I stay away from offshore reefs when there's groundswell even though I have a leash. I don't ditch the leash because I have a PFD. I don't go out in excessively offshore conditions just because I carry a phone.
Next installment: Catching and Riding Swells
[Blog] Doing Downwinders: It's always the blind leading the blind here at Ke Nalu. I continue my long practice at t... http://ping.fm/StpqH
[Blog] Doing Downwinders: It's always the blind leading the blind here at Ke Nalu. I continue my long practice at teaching anything--struggle to be one step ahead of the stude... http://ping.fm/myyoS
Saturday, February 13, 2010
More on the S16
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/RBGu4)
Mark Raaphorst sent me this short movie on the new S16. Very fast. Sustained speed of 6.5 MPH, comparable to a OC1
S16 First Test
Mark Raaphorst sent me this short movie on the new S16. Very fast. Sustained speed of 6.5 MPH, comparable to a OC1
S16 First Test
[Blog] More on the S16: Mark Raaphorst sent me this short movie on the new S16. Very fast. Sustained speed of 6.5 MPH, comparable to a OC1
S16 First Test http://ping.fm/oj2k9
S16 First Test http://ping.fm/oj2k9
[Blog] More on the S16: Mark Raaphorst sent me this short movie on the new S16. Very fast. Sustained speed of 6.5 M... http://ping.fm/2GrGT
Friday, February 12, 2010
New at SIC
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/VHG1a)
I always love dropping by the Ding King/S.I.C. Not only is it one of the coolest buildings around, but there's always something interesting going on. I've been watching Mark and the gang build a set of Stand Up Paddle catamarans for the last few months. Here's the first one, ready for it's trial run.
These are semi-production cats, with the hollow hulls built in a mold. Mark is building them for Ray Phillips and some friends of his. Ray is an ehthusiastic Stand Up Paddler who lives in Wailea. Ray always seems to have a great new toy, these are going to be just spectacular. While I was looking at them I fantasized about building a radio controlled sailing cat with these hulls. What a rocket that would be.
I always love dropping by the Ding King/S.I.C. Not only is it one of the coolest buildings around, but there's always something interesting going on. I've been watching Mark and the gang build a set of Stand Up Paddle catamarans for the last few months. Here's the first one, ready for it's trial run.
These are semi-production cats, with the hollow hulls built in a mold. Mark is building them for Ray Phillips and some friends of his. Ray is an ehthusiastic Stand Up Paddler who lives in Wailea. Ray always seems to have a great new toy, these are going to be just spectacular. While I was looking at them I fantasized about building a radio controlled sailing cat with these hulls. What a rocket that would be.
[Blog] New at SIC: I always love dropping by the Ding King/S.I.C. Not only is it one of the coolest buildings aroun... http://ping.fm/BeLiZ
[Blog] New at SIC: I always love dropping by the Ding King/S.I.C. Not only is it one of the coolest buildings around, but there's always something interesting going on. I've b... http://ping.fm/YCzMb
Lonely Kanaha
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/RnLh1)
There's two words I didn't expect to use together. Went out at Kanaha this morning. The waves looked big, they were closing out decisively in the middle and off to surfer's right, which is always a sign of the WNW swell angle that I don't like. But what the heck, it's surf. I got out to the lineup without much trouble and found two longboarders hanging out, and that was it. Hmmm, I thought, I wonder why. Perhaps it's the GREAT BIG F@#*G HUGE WAVE that's bearing down on us that came out of nowhere!!! I barely made it over the lip, the longboarders disappeared behind a wall of blue and white that fell with a single loud CRUMP. They reappeared shortly looking nonchalant.
I was not fooled.
So that was the deal. Inconsistent. That's the code word for "every time you move inside to grab a wave a huge monster appears and beats the crap out of you". I silenced the little voice in my head that was screaming incoherently at me, squared up and caught a lovely wave with a peeling shoulder that gave me a great ripping ride. When I paddled back out a guy with a french accent and a little Naish SUP board had appeared. Didn't recognize him, but he surfs well. We didn't get to chat beyond exchanging hellos, the surf required concentration. Most of the time when I was catching a wave he was paddling over it frantically, and vice versa. We got a bunch of fine waves, then I paddled outside to catch a breather. He came out too and said "Good waves, I was worried, but it's fun."
"I was kind of nervous too, I thought everyone else knew something that I didn't"
.
He said "I see you out here so I think its okay, but maybe you don't know either, eh?"
Yup.
We kept catching waves for another hour or so, then I got caught inside, bounced hard on the reef and tweaked my left shoulder. Hurt like hell for awhile, but it didn't have the burning ripped sensation of a torn muscle. I'm very familiar with the difference. Still, I paddled to the beach, pulled my board up and took a shower. and watched the waves for awhile, gently flexing my shoulder. It made all it's usual castanet and maraca sounds , but it loosened up some and started to feel better. I thought "there's no one in those waves" and went back out, just as a few more SUP and longboard surfers paddled out. The wind came up a little. The nice Japanese (I think) girl who's a good SUP surfer (you locals know who I mean) caught a nice big monster and rode it very well, going way off to surfers right in the reform. As I was paddling out I thought how impossible this would have been at the beginning of winter. I can punch through some pretty big whitewater these days, and I know the channels at Kanaha well enough to be on unbroken waves when I previously would have been flailing in the soup.
I picked up a few more good waves. Then picked off a real monster that was closing out on the right, but reformed just as things looked bleak. I got a nice top turn off the little foam that was left, got a couple of very nice quicker turns--I'm trying to speed up some turns to slash and dig more and not do all the same slow wig-waggle top and bottom turns. Rode the wave all the way to the laggon and decided "I'm done."
There's two words I didn't expect to use together. Went out at Kanaha this morning. The waves looked big, they were closing out decisively in the middle and off to surfer's right, which is always a sign of the WNW swell angle that I don't like. But what the heck, it's surf. I got out to the lineup without much trouble and found two longboarders hanging out, and that was it. Hmmm, I thought, I wonder why. Perhaps it's the GREAT BIG F@#*G HUGE WAVE that's bearing down on us that came out of nowhere!!! I barely made it over the lip, the longboarders disappeared behind a wall of blue and white that fell with a single loud CRUMP. They reappeared shortly looking nonchalant.
I was not fooled.
So that was the deal. Inconsistent. That's the code word for "every time you move inside to grab a wave a huge monster appears and beats the crap out of you". I silenced the little voice in my head that was screaming incoherently at me, squared up and caught a lovely wave with a peeling shoulder that gave me a great ripping ride. When I paddled back out a guy with a french accent and a little Naish SUP board had appeared. Didn't recognize him, but he surfs well. We didn't get to chat beyond exchanging hellos, the surf required concentration. Most of the time when I was catching a wave he was paddling over it frantically, and vice versa. We got a bunch of fine waves, then I paddled outside to catch a breather. He came out too and said "Good waves, I was worried, but it's fun."
"I was kind of nervous too, I thought everyone else knew something that I didn't"
.
He said "I see you out here so I think its okay, but maybe you don't know either, eh?"
Yup.
We kept catching waves for another hour or so, then I got caught inside, bounced hard on the reef and tweaked my left shoulder. Hurt like hell for awhile, but it didn't have the burning ripped sensation of a torn muscle. I'm very familiar with the difference. Still, I paddled to the beach, pulled my board up and took a shower. and watched the waves for awhile, gently flexing my shoulder. It made all it's usual castanet and maraca sounds , but it loosened up some and started to feel better. I thought "there's no one in those waves" and went back out, just as a few more SUP and longboard surfers paddled out. The wind came up a little. The nice Japanese (I think) girl who's a good SUP surfer (you locals know who I mean) caught a nice big monster and rode it very well, going way off to surfers right in the reform. As I was paddling out I thought how impossible this would have been at the beginning of winter. I can punch through some pretty big whitewater these days, and I know the channels at Kanaha well enough to be on unbroken waves when I previously would have been flailing in the soup.
I picked up a few more good waves. Then picked off a real monster that was closing out on the right, but reformed just as things looked bleak. I got a nice top turn off the little foam that was left, got a couple of very nice quicker turns--I'm trying to speed up some turns to slash and dig more and not do all the same slow wig-waggle top and bottom turns. Rode the wave all the way to the laggon and decided "I'm done."
[Blog] Lonely Kanaha: There's two words I didn't expect to use together. Went out at Kanaha this morning. The waves... http://ping.fm/v109b
[Blog] Lonely Kanaha: There's two words I didn't expect to use together. Went out at Kanaha this morning. The waves looked big, they were closing out decisively in the middle ... http://ping.fm/nBq1G
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Two Malkios
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/9CPFp)
The wind has been howling on Maui's North Shore for the last two days, and the swell from the Northwest has gone down enough to make Maliko runs possible. so naturally we gotta do 'em. Randy called me Wednesday while Diane and I were hanging out in the Department of Motor Vehicle waiting to pay my registration. I've gotten two tickets lately for expired tags--an expensive reminder that when you don't live in a place full time, there are things that slip through the cracks. There was a big group planning to go, and they were going late, which meshed well with my plans. Diane wanted to look at a bicycle, and naturally once she got one she's want to go for a little test ride. So we got all that done, got her a very cool city bike at the shop in Kahalui, and picked up a kid trailer so Sam could go along too. He's about as good in the trailer as he is on my Stand Up Paddle board--he moves around a lot and bails every so often. I'll have to work on that.
Diane was as happy with her new bike as any ten-year old. I think we'll be doing a lot of riding in the near future. For me bikes are kind of utilitarian--a way to do downwinders by myself. But it's a nice adventure for Diane and it's fun to see her enthusiastic. She named the bike Giuseppe. No idea why.
I got to the harbor just as Randy was getting the logistics sorted out. I can tell by his body language that he sucks at that, but everyone expects him to do it for some reason, so he does. With the rigs sorted out we headed for Maliko. Randy and Chan, Devin, Bill Foote, Livio, Donna, and probably others I forgot. I also forgot to take any picture or set up my GPS. Ah, well, I was pretty excited to be doing a Maliko run.
We got to the gulch and started rigging stuff. I got ready pretty quickly so I decided to head straight out since I expected to be slow. I was riding my Foote Maliko 14, and I really haven't gotten the hang of it yet. I've been spoiled by rudder boards and I'm doing a lousy job of steering this board. Sometimes I think I've got it nailed, and then the next time I get on a swell it goes off in some random direction. On the plus side it's super responsive, I can jet into a swell really quickly. Now if I can just stop steering out of them I think I'll be cooking.
I paddled out into the maelstrom, trying to get pretty far out before I let the swells and wind take me. I wanted to pass well out from camp one and upper Kanaha--I have a thing about getting caught inside there. I started getting pretty wobbly, so I decided to settle for angling out, and I turned and took off.
The first swell you catch on a Maliko run is always a revelation. Somehow I had forgotten how powerful and big everything you face there is. My board took off like a rocket, I angled into the swell and got a really great long ride. Then I fell. I said "I'm not doing this dammit, I'm not going to spend half this ride remembering how to stand in these conditions" and then I fell again. Now I've been on some pretty hefty southside runs lately, and in most of them I didn't fall once. I was feeling pretty prepped. This shouldn't be happening. And I fell again.
I finally calmed down and started riding again, getting some good swells. Chan caught up to me at Ho'okipa and passed, then Donna and Devin. Bye ladies. Right about at Baldwin I saw Livio go by on the inside. I started getting more good rides and felt like I was staying with him pretty well. Then I fell. And fell again. Randy came zooming up in his canoe, did a big swinging turn and stopped to talk and wait for Bill Foote who was also in a canoe doing his first OC-1 Maliko run. Bill came up a few moments later. We talked a little while. Randy said that we should head a little further out to avoid the Camp One swells. Bill said "nah, look the reef line is well inside us". They headed off, I headed for the horizon. You only have to say the words "Camp One" with even a little bit of concern to get me headed for open water.
I think I got a little carried away, by the time I was catching swells again I could see the windsurfers at Kanaha--they were tiny sails waaay inside of me. I drew a line on downtown Wailuku and started catching rides. I got a nice little rhythm going, felt pretty good about everything, then two whales popped up about 100 feet away and I fell. Got back up, fell. Damn. Calmed down, caught a few little rides, could finally see the end of the breakwater and aimed for that. Got a few nice rides, getting closer, when I noticed that the entire pier was moving towards me at a pretty good clip. Actually it was a barge being pulled by and ocean tug, but it was huge and headed out through the harbor mouth. I wondered if he realized I have right of way. I slowed enough to let him get well clear, then I slid into the harbor right behind Bill Foote.
Nice run, I was slow--very slow--but steady. I felt like I was doing okay except for all the falls and the far, far outside line.
The forecast for Tuesday didn't sound promising. The wind was supposed to veer a little southwards and drop, and the new WNW swell we are expecting would be hitting in the afternoon. I was over in Kehei, having a little breakfast with Diane after a nice bicycle ride we took when Randy called me. "We're going to go at 12:30". We discussed the forecast. Yeah, but it looks good now and I think we've got a window on the swell". I had no handy excuse--plenty of time to finish breakfast, ride back to the cars with Diane, and do the run.
When we got to the gulch it was howling. Much bigger swells than yesterday. Once again I got into the water first and took off since I expected to be slow again. But I felt more confident after my previous day's slow but steady run. I paddled out as far as I could without dropping down on the board, then turned and was off with a bang. As soon as I turned I caught a big ride that lasted and lasted. I felt great. I caught several more, felt like I was going good, and then the ladies passed me. Ah, well, I'll just tuck right in behind them, and then I fell. No biggie, got up, caught a bunch of good swells. Seemed to be doing okay except the glare off the water was making it hard to see the backs of the swells, and I was puching in a lot. I tried looking in different directions, looking farther ahead, off to the side, but I kept crashing into the backs of the swells. And then I started falling for no reason. I was getting dizzy. By the time I reached Camp One my head was swimming and I was falling every few minutes. I finally dropped to my knees to rest and drink some water. The sun went behind a cloud, I got to my feet and was fine. Then the sun came back out and I started falling again. Frustrating. I won't up paddling on my knees all the way to lower Kanaha. By then the swells had opened up a bit, and my dizziness abated some, so I was able to stand and catch rides.
With about a mile to go, I was settling down and starting to relax again, when a whale breached about 100 feet to my right. Came out of nowhere. I literally felt my cold in the pit of my stomach. Scared the heck out of me. It was so sudden I didn't really know what it was, though I've been around whales enough to know, but it was so..fricking..huge.
I calmed down again and headed for the harbor. Caught a lot of nice runners, missed even more. Bounced around in the reflected waves off the breakwall and fell. Paddled through the entrance on my knees. Ahhh, smooth water.
I have to say the second run wasn't much fun. I spent most of it on my knees with my head swimming. I'm just glad I didn't get seasick. The swells were chopped up enough to be pretty difficult. It should have been a fine run, the conditions were good, I love my board, but it wound up being pretty unpleasant.
Next time will be better. Maybe I'll try sunglasses again.
The wind has been howling on Maui's North Shore for the last two days, and the swell from the Northwest has gone down enough to make Maliko runs possible. so naturally we gotta do 'em. Randy called me Wednesday while Diane and I were hanging out in the Department of Motor Vehicle waiting to pay my registration. I've gotten two tickets lately for expired tags--an expensive reminder that when you don't live in a place full time, there are things that slip through the cracks. There was a big group planning to go, and they were going late, which meshed well with my plans. Diane wanted to look at a bicycle, and naturally once she got one she's want to go for a little test ride. So we got all that done, got her a very cool city bike at the shop in Kahalui, and picked up a kid trailer so Sam could go along too. He's about as good in the trailer as he is on my Stand Up Paddle board--he moves around a lot and bails every so often. I'll have to work on that.
Diane was as happy with her new bike as any ten-year old. I think we'll be doing a lot of riding in the near future. For me bikes are kind of utilitarian--a way to do downwinders by myself. But it's a nice adventure for Diane and it's fun to see her enthusiastic. She named the bike Giuseppe. No idea why.
I got to the harbor just as Randy was getting the logistics sorted out. I can tell by his body language that he sucks at that, but everyone expects him to do it for some reason, so he does. With the rigs sorted out we headed for Maliko. Randy and Chan, Devin, Bill Foote, Livio, Donna, and probably others I forgot. I also forgot to take any picture or set up my GPS. Ah, well, I was pretty excited to be doing a Maliko run.
We got to the gulch and started rigging stuff. I got ready pretty quickly so I decided to head straight out since I expected to be slow. I was riding my Foote Maliko 14, and I really haven't gotten the hang of it yet. I've been spoiled by rudder boards and I'm doing a lousy job of steering this board. Sometimes I think I've got it nailed, and then the next time I get on a swell it goes off in some random direction. On the plus side it's super responsive, I can jet into a swell really quickly. Now if I can just stop steering out of them I think I'll be cooking.
I paddled out into the maelstrom, trying to get pretty far out before I let the swells and wind take me. I wanted to pass well out from camp one and upper Kanaha--I have a thing about getting caught inside there. I started getting pretty wobbly, so I decided to settle for angling out, and I turned and took off.
The first swell you catch on a Maliko run is always a revelation. Somehow I had forgotten how powerful and big everything you face there is. My board took off like a rocket, I angled into the swell and got a really great long ride. Then I fell. I said "I'm not doing this dammit, I'm not going to spend half this ride remembering how to stand in these conditions" and then I fell again. Now I've been on some pretty hefty southside runs lately, and in most of them I didn't fall once. I was feeling pretty prepped. This shouldn't be happening. And I fell again.
I finally calmed down and started riding again, getting some good swells. Chan caught up to me at Ho'okipa and passed, then Donna and Devin. Bye ladies. Right about at Baldwin I saw Livio go by on the inside. I started getting more good rides and felt like I was staying with him pretty well. Then I fell. And fell again. Randy came zooming up in his canoe, did a big swinging turn and stopped to talk and wait for Bill Foote who was also in a canoe doing his first OC-1 Maliko run. Bill came up a few moments later. We talked a little while. Randy said that we should head a little further out to avoid the Camp One swells. Bill said "nah, look the reef line is well inside us". They headed off, I headed for the horizon. You only have to say the words "Camp One" with even a little bit of concern to get me headed for open water.
I think I got a little carried away, by the time I was catching swells again I could see the windsurfers at Kanaha--they were tiny sails waaay inside of me. I drew a line on downtown Wailuku and started catching rides. I got a nice little rhythm going, felt pretty good about everything, then two whales popped up about 100 feet away and I fell. Got back up, fell. Damn. Calmed down, caught a few little rides, could finally see the end of the breakwater and aimed for that. Got a few nice rides, getting closer, when I noticed that the entire pier was moving towards me at a pretty good clip. Actually it was a barge being pulled by and ocean tug, but it was huge and headed out through the harbor mouth. I wondered if he realized I have right of way. I slowed enough to let him get well clear, then I slid into the harbor right behind Bill Foote.
Nice run, I was slow--very slow--but steady. I felt like I was doing okay except for all the falls and the far, far outside line.
The forecast for Tuesday didn't sound promising. The wind was supposed to veer a little southwards and drop, and the new WNW swell we are expecting would be hitting in the afternoon. I was over in Kehei, having a little breakfast with Diane after a nice bicycle ride we took when Randy called me. "We're going to go at 12:30". We discussed the forecast. Yeah, but it looks good now and I think we've got a window on the swell". I had no handy excuse--plenty of time to finish breakfast, ride back to the cars with Diane, and do the run.
When we got to the gulch it was howling. Much bigger swells than yesterday. Once again I got into the water first and took off since I expected to be slow again. But I felt more confident after my previous day's slow but steady run. I paddled out as far as I could without dropping down on the board, then turned and was off with a bang. As soon as I turned I caught a big ride that lasted and lasted. I felt great. I caught several more, felt like I was going good, and then the ladies passed me. Ah, well, I'll just tuck right in behind them, and then I fell. No biggie, got up, caught a bunch of good swells. Seemed to be doing okay except the glare off the water was making it hard to see the backs of the swells, and I was puching in a lot. I tried looking in different directions, looking farther ahead, off to the side, but I kept crashing into the backs of the swells. And then I started falling for no reason. I was getting dizzy. By the time I reached Camp One my head was swimming and I was falling every few minutes. I finally dropped to my knees to rest and drink some water. The sun went behind a cloud, I got to my feet and was fine. Then the sun came back out and I started falling again. Frustrating. I won't up paddling on my knees all the way to lower Kanaha. By then the swells had opened up a bit, and my dizziness abated some, so I was able to stand and catch rides.
With about a mile to go, I was settling down and starting to relax again, when a whale breached about 100 feet to my right. Came out of nowhere. I literally felt my cold in the pit of my stomach. Scared the heck out of me. It was so sudden I didn't really know what it was, though I've been around whales enough to know, but it was so..fricking..huge.
I calmed down again and headed for the harbor. Caught a lot of nice runners, missed even more. Bounced around in the reflected waves off the breakwall and fell. Paddled through the entrance on my knees. Ahhh, smooth water.
I have to say the second run wasn't much fun. I spent most of it on my knees with my head swimming. I'm just glad I didn't get seasick. The swells were chopped up enough to be pretty difficult. It should have been a fine run, the conditions were good, I love my board, but it wound up being pretty unpleasant.
Next time will be better. Maybe I'll try sunglasses again.
[Blog] Two Malkios: The wind has been howling on Maui's North Shore for the last two days, and the swell from the Northwest has gone down enough to make Maliko runs possible. ... http://ping.fm/l8Kfn
[Blog] Two Malkios: The wind has been howling on Maui's North Shore for the last two days, and the swell from the N... http://ping.fm/uAExK
Monday, February 8, 2010
Paddling with Dave
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/gekh0)
So if you wanted to get some paddle coaching for SUP, who would be your absolute, top of the line pick as coach? No question in my mind that my choice would be Dave Kalama, and Dave DOES do one-on-one coaching when he has the time. I figured if I'm going to spend time and money on racing Stand Up Paddle boards that I needed some serious coaching, so I engaged with Dave for a couple of days of training. It's been pretty remarkable.
Some of you might not be familiar with Dave Kalama. Here's a little background;
Dave is credited with the co-development of tow-in surfing, along with Laird Hamilton, Darrick Doerner, and Buzzy Kerbox. They pioneered tow-in surfing and later stand up surfing at Peahi (Jaws).
Kalama and close friend Laird Hamilton essentially reinvented and invigorated stand-up paddling. In October 2006, Dave Kalama and Laird Hamilton, biked and paddled the entire Hawaiian Island chain—more than 450 miles—in a week. The feat was featured on Don King's film A Beautiful Son in support of those afflicted with autism. He appeared in the opening sequence of the James Bond film Die Another Day.
Dave is a descendant from a long line of noteworthy Hawaiian watermen; his grandfather brought outrigger canoe paddling to the mainland U.S., and his father Ilima Kalama was the 1962 world-champion surfer and a lifelong outrigger canoe paddler.
He's fast as hell, can paddle forever (he once did six Maliko runs in a day just to train) and looks like he's effortlessly stroking the water while he disappears on the horizon. I've never heard anyone say a bad thing about him and literally every surfer I know considers him the ultimate waterman.
He's a fine teacher--he's got a real knack for taking complex physical actions apart and showing you how to do each bit. He trained Slater Trout in paddle technique and general physical conditioning. Slater went on to take an upset second place in the Elite category of the 2009 Battle of the Paddle and contended strongly for first.
I guess he's qualified to give me a few pointers.
The good news is that I have been putting the board in the water the right way--the fin does indeed go down. The bad news is that's about it for the parts I've been doing right. The basic stroke Dave taught me is so counter-intuitive, subtle and complicated that I am absolutely certain that you will be totally confused by the time you finish this article.
Let me give you these words of encouragement--the end result of a few hours of coaching with Dave and a couple of days of practice in between session is that a four mile paddle today going as fast as I can for the entire distance left me feeling no fatigue whatever. I'm not going any faster yet--I'm a long, long way from mastering the stroke--but I've already gained a tremendous amount of efficiency
Start by watching this video (shot by Randy Strome of the Standup Zone) through a couple of times. The first stroke he's doing is the Hawaiian stroke, which is a lot more like what I was doing (though Dave is far more fluid). The second stroke is Tahitian, which is the stroke he taught me.
Notice how much power and effort he's putting into the Hawaiian stroke. The paddle is pulled hard all the way to his feet, then he wings out his upper hand just enough to clear the blade from the water, twists the upper hand to feather the blade and clear the water, then swings the blade back forward, raising his upper arm back into position.
Now watch the video from about 1:40 where he start doing the Tahitian stroke. In the end of this stroke he doesn't wing his upper arm at all, rather he pulls the blade up and out of the water like drawing a sword. He breaks the wrist of his lower hand inward and relaxes most of the lower arm, using only minimal effort to push the paddle upwards. The upper hand holds the handle more like a knob than a T handle, with the thumb pointed to the side somewhat to start with. This enables the upper hand to twist the blade to a feathered position without putting a strain on the wrist.
As the blade leaves the water the shoulder, arm and upper torso swing forward in a sort of gentle punch, enabling momentum to stretch the muscles forward and give a longer reach for the catch. The upper arm which has been extended now moves a few inches inward towards the head and the torso rotates to stack the shoulders. At the catch the muscles start to spring back almost by themselves, and a firm torso and shoulder rotation applies power. The upper hand pushes forward and slightly down to aid in the power and position the shaft vertically. Almost as soon as power is applied you relax, and start the withdrawal sequence. The upper arm motion is a fluid rotation, with the hand describing a flattened oval--like an almond. Efficiency is gained by paying attention to when each muscle set can be relaxed. You can literally SEE the relaxation in Dave's body, at the same time that the board is positively flying across the water.
Dave explained the efficiency this way: Properly done, the catch and first bit of pull is 70 percent of the power in any stroke. The energy applied after the catch can aid speed, but only a little bit, and it comes at a large cost. You get both your hands and your torso out of position for the next stroke, and you have to get them back where they belong before you can start again--that takes energy. The Hawaiian technique is fast, but it takes a supremely conditioned athlete to make it work and compensate for the inefficiency.
The Tahitian stroke is constantly lifting the nose of the craft, and it's designed to build momentum. Your hands, torso and shoulders return to position automatically, on a circular, continuous path, and only travel a short distance. To build speed you increase the cadence, and it's a lot easier to do that because the stroke recovery is so much shorter.
The hard part of all this is that every little aspect of the stroke is important, and the subtleties are endless. "Soften your lower hand--you need to relax. You're lifting your upper hand too high. Reach. No, really reach. You need to stack your shoulders more. Your upper hand has to be closer to your head to get the shaft vertical. You're pushing your upper hand too late. More torso rotation. Reach." Good thing this guy is patient.
The format was that Dave taught me the basics for about two hours, then I spent the rest of the day practicing and basically screwing it all up. Then we met for another couple of hours and he got me back on the right path and showed me some of the more subtle stuff I was missing. More practice. Then a hour for a tuneup.
I'm now doing a reasonable facsimile of the Tahitian stroke. I know what I'm doing wrong, and how to fix it. There's about ten things to be thinking about at any one time, and I know what all ten are, but I only get about six right at once. Of course all this has to get into muscle memory, and then I'm going to need another tweak or two.
Dave does this quick but comprehensive and effective program of one-on-one paddle coaching for $1000 and he has other programs that are more intensive and complete, and he also does one-on-one surf coaching. That's comparable to pro coaching in other sports and it's enormously effective. It's a lot like having Babe Ruth teach you to bat. He's not always available--he keeps a pretty busy schedule. But if you're going to be on Maui it's a really worthwhile thing to try add to your vacation and you'll leave a greatly improved SUP paddler.
You can contact Dave through this form, which will be automatically emailed to him:
So if you wanted to get some paddle coaching for SUP, who would be your absolute, top of the line pick as coach? No question in my mind that my choice would be Dave Kalama, and Dave DOES do one-on-one coaching when he has the time. I figured if I'm going to spend time and money on racing Stand Up Paddle boards that I needed some serious coaching, so I engaged with Dave for a couple of days of training. It's been pretty remarkable.
Some of you might not be familiar with Dave Kalama. Here's a little background;
Dave is credited with the co-development of tow-in surfing, along with Laird Hamilton, Darrick Doerner, and Buzzy Kerbox. They pioneered tow-in surfing and later stand up surfing at Peahi (Jaws).
Kalama and close friend Laird Hamilton essentially reinvented and invigorated stand-up paddling. In October 2006, Dave Kalama and Laird Hamilton, biked and paddled the entire Hawaiian Island chain—more than 450 miles—in a week. The feat was featured on Don King's film A Beautiful Son in support of those afflicted with autism. He appeared in the opening sequence of the James Bond film Die Another Day.
Dave is a descendant from a long line of noteworthy Hawaiian watermen; his grandfather brought outrigger canoe paddling to the mainland U.S., and his father Ilima Kalama was the 1962 world-champion surfer and a lifelong outrigger canoe paddler.
He's fast as hell, can paddle forever (he once did six Maliko runs in a day just to train) and looks like he's effortlessly stroking the water while he disappears on the horizon. I've never heard anyone say a bad thing about him and literally every surfer I know considers him the ultimate waterman.
He's a fine teacher--he's got a real knack for taking complex physical actions apart and showing you how to do each bit. He trained Slater Trout in paddle technique and general physical conditioning. Slater went on to take an upset second place in the Elite category of the 2009 Battle of the Paddle and contended strongly for first.
I guess he's qualified to give me a few pointers.
The good news is that I have been putting the board in the water the right way--the fin does indeed go down. The bad news is that's about it for the parts I've been doing right. The basic stroke Dave taught me is so counter-intuitive, subtle and complicated that I am absolutely certain that you will be totally confused by the time you finish this article.
Let me give you these words of encouragement--the end result of a few hours of coaching with Dave and a couple of days of practice in between session is that a four mile paddle today going as fast as I can for the entire distance left me feeling no fatigue whatever. I'm not going any faster yet--I'm a long, long way from mastering the stroke--but I've already gained a tremendous amount of efficiency
Start by watching this video (shot by Randy Strome of the Standup Zone) through a couple of times. The first stroke he's doing is the Hawaiian stroke, which is a lot more like what I was doing (though Dave is far more fluid). The second stroke is Tahitian, which is the stroke he taught me.
Notice how much power and effort he's putting into the Hawaiian stroke. The paddle is pulled hard all the way to his feet, then he wings out his upper hand just enough to clear the blade from the water, twists the upper hand to feather the blade and clear the water, then swings the blade back forward, raising his upper arm back into position.
Now watch the video from about 1:40 where he start doing the Tahitian stroke. In the end of this stroke he doesn't wing his upper arm at all, rather he pulls the blade up and out of the water like drawing a sword. He breaks the wrist of his lower hand inward and relaxes most of the lower arm, using only minimal effort to push the paddle upwards. The upper hand holds the handle more like a knob than a T handle, with the thumb pointed to the side somewhat to start with. This enables the upper hand to twist the blade to a feathered position without putting a strain on the wrist.
As the blade leaves the water the shoulder, arm and upper torso swing forward in a sort of gentle punch, enabling momentum to stretch the muscles forward and give a longer reach for the catch. The upper arm which has been extended now moves a few inches inward towards the head and the torso rotates to stack the shoulders. At the catch the muscles start to spring back almost by themselves, and a firm torso and shoulder rotation applies power. The upper hand pushes forward and slightly down to aid in the power and position the shaft vertically. Almost as soon as power is applied you relax, and start the withdrawal sequence. The upper arm motion is a fluid rotation, with the hand describing a flattened oval--like an almond. Efficiency is gained by paying attention to when each muscle set can be relaxed. You can literally SEE the relaxation in Dave's body, at the same time that the board is positively flying across the water.
Dave explained the efficiency this way: Properly done, the catch and first bit of pull is 70 percent of the power in any stroke. The energy applied after the catch can aid speed, but only a little bit, and it comes at a large cost. You get both your hands and your torso out of position for the next stroke, and you have to get them back where they belong before you can start again--that takes energy. The Hawaiian technique is fast, but it takes a supremely conditioned athlete to make it work and compensate for the inefficiency.
The Tahitian stroke is constantly lifting the nose of the craft, and it's designed to build momentum. Your hands, torso and shoulders return to position automatically, on a circular, continuous path, and only travel a short distance. To build speed you increase the cadence, and it's a lot easier to do that because the stroke recovery is so much shorter.
The hard part of all this is that every little aspect of the stroke is important, and the subtleties are endless. "Soften your lower hand--you need to relax. You're lifting your upper hand too high. Reach. No, really reach. You need to stack your shoulders more. Your upper hand has to be closer to your head to get the shaft vertical. You're pushing your upper hand too late. More torso rotation. Reach." Good thing this guy is patient.
The format was that Dave taught me the basics for about two hours, then I spent the rest of the day practicing and basically screwing it all up. Then we met for another couple of hours and he got me back on the right path and showed me some of the more subtle stuff I was missing. More practice. Then a hour for a tuneup.
I'm now doing a reasonable facsimile of the Tahitian stroke. I know what I'm doing wrong, and how to fix it. There's about ten things to be thinking about at any one time, and I know what all ten are, but I only get about six right at once. Of course all this has to get into muscle memory, and then I'm going to need another tweak or two.
Dave does this quick but comprehensive and effective program of one-on-one paddle coaching for $1000 and he has other programs that are more intensive and complete, and he also does one-on-one surf coaching. That's comparable to pro coaching in other sports and it's enormously effective. It's a lot like having Babe Ruth teach you to bat. He's not always available--he keeps a pretty busy schedule. But if you're going to be on Maui it's a really worthwhile thing to try add to your vacation and you'll leave a greatly improved SUP paddler.
You can contact Dave through this form, which will be automatically emailed to him:
[Blog] Paddling with Dave: So if you wanted to get some paddle coaching for SUP, who would be your absolute, top of... http://ping.fm/Gs4Ti
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Standup TV: Modalities of Stand Up Paddle Surfing Vol 1.2
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/C194r)
Anyone in the sport more than a few days knows that Stand Up Paddling is not just about surfing. Stand Up Paddle boards are probably the most versatile human powered watercraft extant. People surf, tour, fish, sail, race, swellride, kite, run whitewater, camp from, and dream up new things to do every day with stand up paddle boards. In this segment Dan Gavere, Chuck Patterson, Dave Kalama and Rob Rojas explore the equipment and skills in various SUP modalities.
Anyone in the sport more than a few days knows that Stand Up Paddling is not just about surfing. Stand Up Paddle boards are probably the most versatile human powered watercraft extant. People surf, tour, fish, sail, race, swellride, kite, run whitewater, camp from, and dream up new things to do every day with stand up paddle boards. In this segment Dan Gavere, Chuck Patterson, Dave Kalama and Rob Rojas explore the equipment and skills in various SUP modalities.
[Blog] Standup TV: Modalities of Stand Up Paddle Surfing Vol 1.2: Anyone in the sport more than a few days knows that Stand Up Paddling is not just about surfing. Stand Up Pad... http://ping.fm/azFaY
[Blog] Standup TV: Modalities of Stand Up Paddle Surfing Vol 1.2: Anyone in the sport more than a few days knows th... http://ping.fm/rbSBg
Standup TV: Women and Fitness in Stand Up Paddling Vol 1.3
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/j5aXk)
Women are embracing Stand Up Paddling in great numbers. While there are plenty of great women surfers and all-around waterwomen embracing the sport, it has also emeged strongly as a fitness and exercise method that is also a great deal of fun. In this episode Candace Appleby, Gillian Gibree and Rebecca Jakeway talk about the sport and fitness of Stand Up Paddling with a specific emphasis on SUP for women.
Women are embracing Stand Up Paddling in great numbers. While there are plenty of great women surfers and all-around waterwomen embracing the sport, it has also emeged strongly as a fitness and exercise method that is also a great deal of fun. In this episode Candace Appleby, Gillian Gibree and Rebecca Jakeway talk about the sport and fitness of Stand Up Paddling with a specific emphasis on SUP for women.
[Blog] Standup TV: Women and Fitness in Stand Up Paddling Vol 1.3: Women are embracing Stand Up Paddling in great numbers. While there are plenty of great women surfers and al... http://ping.fm/ZGePj
[Blog] Standup TV: Women and Fitness in Stand Up Paddling Vol 1.3: Women are embracing Stand Up Paddling in great n... http://ping.fm/Dtpa5
[Blog] : In this segment Stand Up Paddle industry players like Jim Terrel, Steve Bohne and Charlie Burnwell discuss the growth and impact of SUP on their business and the wate... http://ping.fm/9Q82e
[Blog] : In this segment Stand Up Paddle industry players like Jim Terrel, Steve Bohne and Charlie Burnwell discuss... http://ping.fm/99DEk
Totally Amazing
(My Original Blog Post: http://www.kenalu.com/2010/02/04/totally-amazing/)
The first thing Diane said was "this guy must not be married". That from one of the most tolerant wives on the planet. I have no idea, but I deeply admire not only the craftsmanship, technical artistry, photographic excellence, and imagination involved, but also the degree of focus required to master all these elements at a level so astonishingly high. This has nothing to do with Stand Up Paddle surfing, it's just so very cool. Watch this, be patient--all will be revealed, and enjoy.
The first thing Diane said was "this guy must not be married". That from one of the most tolerant wives on the planet. I have no idea, but I deeply admire not only the craftsmanship, technical artistry, photographic excellence, and imagination involved, but also the degree of focus required to master all these elements at a level so astonishingly high. This has nothing to do with Stand Up Paddle surfing, it's just so very cool. Watch this, be patient--all will be revealed, and enjoy.
[Blog] Totally Amazing: The first thing Diane said was "this guy must not be married". That from one of the most to... http://ping.fm/O6JH6
[Blog] Totally Amazing: The first thing Diane said was "this guy must not be married". That from one of the most tolerant wives on the planet. I have no idea, but I deeply adm... http://ping.fm/OacIC
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Standup TV: The Art Of Stand Up Paddling Vol 2.1
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/oe2Ui)
The art of stand up paddling. a fine session at Oceanside with Noah Shimabukuro, Chuck Patterson, and Colin McPillips.
The art of stand up paddling. a fine session at Oceanside with Noah Shimabukuro, Chuck Patterson, and Colin McPillips.
[Blog] Standup TV: The Art Of Stand Up Paddling Vol 2.1: The art of stand up paddling. a fine session at Oceanside ... http://ping.fm/dAm2T
[Blog] Standup TV: The Art Of Stand Up Paddling Vol 2.1: The art of stand up paddling. a fine session at Oceanside with Noah Shimabukuro, Chuck Patterson, and Colin McPillips.... http://ping.fm/5utkC
Standup TV: Chuck Patterson on Surfing Vol 2.3
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/LCuRs)
Chuck Patterson is one of the most dynamic surfers in Stand Up Paddle surfing, and a powerful racer (winner of the 2009 Battle of the Paddle). In this episode he shares some of his Stand Up Paddle surfing background
Chuck Patterson is one of the most dynamic surfers in Stand Up Paddle surfing, and a powerful racer (winner of the 2009 Battle of the Paddle). In this episode he shares some of his Stand Up Paddle surfing background
[Blog] Standup TV: Chuck Patterson on Surfing Vol 2.3: Chuck Patterson is one of the most dynamic surfers in Stand Up Paddle surfing, and a powerful racer (winner of the 2009 ... http://ping.fm/2M7Ry
[Blog] Standup TV: Chuck Patterson on Surfing Vol 2.3: Chuck Patterson is one of the most dynamic surfers in Stand ... http://ping.fm/NbQdY
Standup TV: Colin McPhillips on Equipment Vol 2.4
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/Q8wYd)
Colin McPhillips is a three times world longboarding champion. He's been hooked on Standup Paddle Surfing for some time. Here he talks about how he started, and the equipment he prefers.
Colin McPhillips is a three times world longboarding champion. He's been hooked on Standup Paddle Surfing for some time. Here he talks about how he started, and the equipment he prefers.
[Blog] Standup TV: Colin McPhillips on Equipment Vol 2.4: Colin McPhillips is a three times world longboarding cham... http://ping.fm/SvtTJ
[Blog] Standup TV: Colin McPhillips on Equipment Vol 2.4: Colin McPhillips is a three times world longboarding champion. He's been hooked on Standup Paddle Surfing for some ti... http://ping.fm/fDLQE
Standup TV: Slater Trout on Racing Vol 3.1
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/GCcfr)
Years ago Mark Raaphorst of S.I.C. said "keep an eye on Slater Trout, he's the future of Stand Up Paddling". How right he was, not only is Slater a talented SUP surfer and all around waterman, but he shocked everyone with his wildcard performance at the Battle of the Paddle Elite race, taking second and strongly contesting for first, leading for much of the race. In this episode Slater gives tips on flat water racing.
Years ago Mark Raaphorst of S.I.C. said "keep an eye on Slater Trout, he's the future of Stand Up Paddling". How right he was, not only is Slater a talented SUP surfer and all around waterman, but he shocked everyone with his wildcard performance at the Battle of the Paddle Elite race, taking second and strongly contesting for first, leading for much of the race. In this episode Slater gives tips on flat water racing.
[Blog] Standup TV: Slater Trout on Racing Vol 3.1: Years ago Mark Raaphorst of S.I.C. said "keep an eye on Slater Trout, he's the future of Stand Up Paddling". How right he wa... http://ping.fm/Nsczv
[Blog] Standup TV: Slater Trout on Racing Vol 3.1: Years ago Mark Raaphorst of S.I.C. said "keep an eye on Slater T... http://ping.fm/tqGyV
Standup TV: Whitewater SUP Vol 3.2
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/nViEu)
Our Hood River buddies Dan Gavere and Nikki Gregg talk about whitewater SUP with some nice footage from the White Salmon river and other whitewater venues
Our Hood River buddies Dan Gavere and Nikki Gregg talk about whitewater SUP with some nice footage from the White Salmon river and other whitewater venues
[Blog] Standup TV: Whitewater SUP Vol 3.2: Our Hood River buddies Dan Gavere and Nikki Gregg talk about whitewater SUP with some nice footage from the White Salmon river and o... http://ping.fm/vA6zP
[Blog] Standup TV: Whitewater SUP Vol 3.2: Our Hood River buddies Dan Gavere and Nikki Gregg talk about whitewater ... http://ping.fm/ivU40
Standup TV: Flat Water Touring Vol 3.3
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/IfUla)
Jeff Warner of Legends Surf Shop talks about flat water paddle touring in Carlsbad Lagoon
Jeff Warner of Legends Surf Shop talks about flat water paddle touring in Carlsbad Lagoon
[Blog] Standup TV: Flat Water Touring Vol 3.3: Jeff Warner of Legends Surf Shop talks about flat water paddle touring in Carlsbad Lagoon http://ping.fm/o9uBZ
[Blog] Standup TV: Flat Water Touring Vol 3.3: Jeff Warner of Legends Surf Shop talks about flat water paddle touri... http://ping.fm/WgnkD
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Standup TV: Gillian Gebree Vol 3.4
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/DxrIk)
Gillian is a lifeguard, surf instructor and fitness expert. In this episode she give great tips on exercises to help you Stand Up Paddle Surf better.
Gillian is a lifeguard, surf instructor and fitness expert. In this episode she give great tips on exercises to help you Stand Up Paddle Surf better.
[Blog] Standup TV: Gillian Gebree Vol 3.4: Gillian is a lifeguard, surf instructor and fitness expert. In this epis... http://ping.fm/m8pPm
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