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Club Paradise: Tuesday, October 5
Sam Moses, American Windsurfer Senior Editor
The Wind and Tide Are on Our Side
Although Saturday was the first official day of the test, yesterday (Monday) was the first day that the guest testers evaluated equipment. After breakfast, Mark Archer gave his morning clinic-tacking, primarily-and then I sat down with the testers to explain the magazine's specific objectives and the procedures we've designed to achieve them. In a nutshell, the approach this year might be described as Less is More.
More precision and fairness, to help windsurfers make better equipment-buying decisions. We're after quality of input from the testers, not quantity. Which is nice for them, because it frees them to sail, sail, sail. And they did.
The wind arrived on schedule, at about 11 a.m., and mid-sized guys wentout on 6-meter sails and 100-liter boards or bigger. It slowly strengthened, and for a couple of hours in the middle of the afternoon those same sailors were looking at 5.0s and shorter boards. At one point virtually everyone wason the water tearing it up, and there were sometimes traffic jams in thefavorite jibing spots. Sometimes there was a wide gap in the break, and many of the sailors were skimming over the reef, skipping through the modest waves, and heading into open water.
I got out there myself, riding a 262 HiFly Freeride with a camless 6.0 Stealth, by Hot Sails Maui (my interview for later today is with Hot Sails' Jeff Henderson, and I'll relay some of his views here tomorrow). Yesterday, at least, it was quite mellow and unthreatening out there, with consistent humps like gentle moguls in the water, not rolling swells. I wanted to just keep sailing north, for the sheer exhiliration of it. From way out on the water, the view of Maui's North Shore, especially those shapely green mountains that locals call "up country," is gorgeous. We 're all lucky to be here.
The equipment is still arriving. So far we've got 22 boards and 28 sails, but that's only about half of it; most of the rest is scheduled to come on Wednesday. Some of the smaller manufacturers have been scrambling to gather and ship it all, because the stuff is so new that their own supplies aren't built up yet. Among others, we've got a stack of RRDs by Roberto Ricci, four choice new HiFlys, a few Kinetics, and the full new Randy French line, which is exciting because this is the first time the highly-regarded designer, after a sterling career with Seatrend, has gone out on his own. A big bunch of Starboards, Tigas, Bic, North Shore Maui and AHD are coming next.
For sails, we have much of the cream of the crop already, including Sailworks, Windwings, Hot Sails Maui, Neil Pryde, Aerotechs and the new Loft sails by Monty Spindler, who for many years designed the ART sails. The Simmers will soon be here.
Our test format for the magazine this year includes extensive information about and from the manufacturers. I interviewed Bruce Peterson, the dynamic owner and designer of Sailworks sails, at length yesterday, and tomorrow I' ll provide a glimpse of his ideas.
In yesterday's Postcard from the Water's Edge I promised further introductions to American Windsurfer's staff for the test. Glenn Fuller, our test manager, is a guy you gotta meet. Nothing, meaning no amount of stress (and despite the location here in Paradise, there's plenty of it for staff, coming from the ambition of the mission and the work load demanded by correct equipment analysis), can wipe that smile off Glenn's face. You see, Glenn is a freshly liberated man. No, he didn't just get a divorce, unless you consider his connection to the family convenience store in New Hampshire a marriage. But he has just resigned, and came to Maui basically on a one-way ticket. After the test he plans to stay.
It's no wonder his father didn't want to lose him at the store. Glenn is one of those guys you can't do without: a workhorse who never complains, never gets moody, and not only doesn't have an ounce of attitude in him, but remains unaffected when it comes from others-in fact he's so pure he's almost oblivious to it. He spends his day from 8 to 4 shuffling and maintaining rigs, and if he doesn't get on the water himself until late afternoon, well, that's OK. I guess he figures that he has the rest of his life to sail on Maui, now that he's going to stay.
Tomorrow, in addition to insights from Jeff Henderson, we'll meet our first guest tester, Ted Halkusis. He's a 50-ish Toronto pharmacist born in Turkey to Greek parents, who says his wife tells him he looks like a terrorist or a drug dealer. He's literally the first tester, having arrived three days early, so he knows all the staff's secrets. That's why I've got to be real nice to him. I'd say he looks, distinguished.
"I didn't ding that board!" Glenn Fuller
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