Fredstem

Despite my injured left foot and the remaining fever and sore throat, I was kiting again today with 30 knots average and gust at 40 with my hydra 7m. I used the upper knot on my back lines to have max depower and I was just fine. At 2pm I counted more turtles than kite on the water, but it was still a good opportunity to better learn the kanaha swell anyway.   

Then I surfed at sunset with Fiona at Kihei Kalama park on our way back to Wailea. 

I have been unfortunately sick as hell those last 3 days and even injured my left foot yesterday landing hard... That's definitively not my week :-(

But I am still kiting as much as I can, trying at least to improve my carving style on the waves with my twintip...

My dear friend Claude is not part of my trip to Maui this time (I still vividly remember the awesome days we had together back in 2005), so I had to find other windsurfers to have fun sharing the waves at Kanaha...

C'est a Maui évidemment...

A suivre...

Thanks to Dimi again, I have a few new pictures of this last Sunday session. Here is a short photo sequence of a Raley to Surface Handle Pass.

Cool hey?

The last 2 weeks I have been playing with my new RL boards; a monster concave twintip 126 and a wave-hybrid 133. So this is finally a quick review of my new toys.

The monster concave 126:
WAOW, that's simply an amazing and awesome freestyle board!!!

• First, the quality is there. Wood-Herex dynamic flex core, full top and bottom carbon, and ABS sidewall
• SUPER HYPER MEGA LIGHT, excellent construction and finish, very nice high-end and comfy footbed pads and straps. The footpads are awesome and not glued so you can change your settings anytime.
• It has an amazing flotation, even more than my old 132 for less volume too! I am very surprised to see how it floats and rides for a 126 cm! And I really like the monster concave and the upwind capability
• It is very flexible and has a very cool and powerful pop to send big jumps... I have now much more fun throwing big air jumps, loading the board at max and popping up like crazy! Last week, Steve Gunn came to me after my sesh and asked me if I changed something in my jumping process or technique. I said no but asked him why he was telling me that... He answered: I never saw you sending as big & high as today...
  It was my first time with the board on the water!!!
• Due do the flotation, the fins and the comfortable straps, I found it very cool and effortless to ride or land toe side
• Landing is very smooth and very comfortable, absorbing the impact very nicely... But I am still adjusting my wake style moves because it is way more responsive and pops out faster than my old board so when I am doing S-bends, I have now a tendency to go for a double s-bend :-)
• I think that this board likes the flat water better than the chops but I didn't have any problem going though the choppy/swelly conditions during flooding days at 3rd

The wave-hybrid 133:

Fun*Fun*Fun! This is a light wind board that I like to use with my 14 when it is very light at 3rd or to have fun with the swells when it is ebbing in our beloved channel.

• Same quality than the twintip, same flex and wood/carbon construction, and amazingly almost as light
• Same fine footpads and straps
• It comes with 3 big fins so you can truly go easily upwind or smash the swells carving hard; and thanks to those large 2.5 inches fins, you can do really smooth powered toe side turns
• On the regular stance, it is very effortless, smooth, fast and fun to ride. It has also a lot of pop. The front middle fin is not even coming in the way
• Riding fakie requires more back leg to make sure the front of the board is not catching the chops but after awhile, you don't even think about it. And if you ride it powered, edging hard, you don't even need to adjust the back leg pressure, riding it like you ride a twintip
• The board is so light and so easy to ride than you can do some old school freestyle moves with it (big air, back/front rolls etc). When riding fakie, it is like jumping with a twintip; but you don't want to put too much pressure on the front leg before popping out to make sure you don't send the board under water and it is better to land toeside
• You can ride toe side if you don't want to ride fakie. The board is very fast this way and soft to handle. It is better to pop up when you switch from fakie to toe side to make sure you clear the front middle fin