The smokin spring and summer Maliko report

[1paddle2paddle]

Bill, no worries, I primarily paddle SUP.  Truthfully, my posting on this "downwind" forum has me feeling like an impostor - most of my paddling lately has been flatwater practice in the marina on the ACE.  No time for downwind runs and the wind here has not been great lately.  But with spring coming I'm hoping for more wind and longer daylight hours to get me back in the game!

Until then I will be doing downwind runs vicariously through you guys and the Australia crew.  Keep the vids coming.

LPB, one thing I noticed from your videos was that sometimes the nose of the boat seems to submerge.  Is that actually happening or the is the camera angle making it look worse than it is? 

Those K-4s are amazing, but I rather enjoy the C boats - looks so crazy.

[1paddle2paddle]

One thing I forgot - the beauty of the regular V10 is that even though it qualifies as an "elite" ski, it is extremely stable for how fast it is.  When Epic came out with the V10, its main competition was the Fenn Millennium, as very fast ski, but super tippy.  I got on one briefly and said no thanks.  Soon after the V10 came out, Fenn introduced its Mako 6.  An interesting boat, fairly stable, and it had a ton of rocker (in ski terms).  It was a fantastic boat in light downwind conditions, but in bigger bumps it could be a handful.  The V10 is incredibly stable, even in pretty heavy seas.

Also, I will never have a great stroke.  Ski experts would call me a hack, and they would be correct.  It didn't matter, I still had a blast on it (and still do when I pull it out for paddle).

[LaPerouseBay]

The submerging nose is no illusion.  It goes down all too often on a windy day.  Sometimes the boat is really moving.  The spray over my feet is so strong i can taste the sunscreen as it gets blasted off my face. 

Glad to hear the V10 is stable for a 17 incher.  That's going to be my next boat. 

My paddle went down in 1cm increments from 213 to 209 today.  I also added 5 degrees to the feather, to 60.  I like how it feels.  It seems much easier to make quick stabs and to accelerate.  Definitely a big help when downwinding.  I think it will help me control the boat better.  Seems to be easier to rotate too.   

[JonathanC]

Fitted the foam inside the rudder housing today, what a huge difference! Found myself hardly touching the steering and trying to steer by rolling the boat. Also the first few strokes out through the shore break with the feet out are so much easier. Great tip - thank you LPB.

Had a funny experience today, headed up into the wind for a 4 miles before turning for the downwind run home. Wind was 10 to 15 knots and I swear I was actually accelerating down the back of the incoming waves on the way out. Coming from SUP paddling that doesn't make any sense at all, but I like it!

Bought one of the new Garmin 910XT watches and I've been fixing it onto the foot strap, easy to see and great to allow me to track to a destination or follow a course. It has a neat compass face image with a very clear pointer to show heading to the next marked point.

Hmmm faster on a V8, pretty darn sure that would apply to me too, is it ego or ignorance that makes me keep on looking at faster boats about two years before I'm ready??

[1paddle2paddle]

I didn't paddle the V10S enough to remember that.  The XT had a design which shed most of the water which came over the bow, and it did not end up in the cockpit.  I've paddled other boats where the water coming over the top would flood the cockpit.

The V10 has that huge snout, its nearly impossible to sink the nose.  Only once or twice did I ever even have a situation where the nose was being pushed down, on a huge steep bump off of Portlock.  But trying to shove that massive volume under water was not an easy thing to do.

I'd recommend paddling the new Fenn ski(s) when the time to move to the next boat comes around.  I understand that their new boat is very nice as well.

[LaPerouseBay]

I'm anxious to try a V10 one day.  But for now I'd better stick to the 10S.  This past week has been all south shore.  Smaller conditions are great for rotation drills.  With the camera up front facing back - it's obvious that I need the help.   I'll get there, it just takes time and patience.  Well worth it according to the experts.    

Of course when maliko starts cranking it's all about survival.  Form was the last thing on my mind today.  Effective bracing was the name of the game.  

Huge swells and wind from the east today.  Biggest conditions of the year by far.

I'll try to get some clips of the second half of the run tomorrow.  But the camera will have to be on my head.   No way I'm unclipping the leash to reset a cam if the wind is this big.  Fell once during this run - at the end.  It was not easy getting back in.  Wind took my paddle and I had to swim about 10 feet for it.  I tried to swim to it holding the boat, which didn't work.  So I let go of the boat and prayed my leash would hold.  Man, that was scary.  Fun day.  Very, very big out there.  

[LaPerouseBay]

Here is some of the 'second half' of today's run.  E swell is still big. 

My camera angle is low because the hat slides down.  I'll wedge the camera up in the future.

Very happy with the ski.  I chatted with the epic rep from the big island today.  He's been on ski's and outrigger for 33 years.  He only does ski now.  He prefers the fluid motion.  He's also a personal trainer and says the shoulders get a more even workout than outrigger paddling.  I certainly agree.  I think it's great for us older guys. 

 

[LaPerouseBay]

[peterp]

The guys are definitely flying on that surfski! Love the way the spray is torpedoed up past the camera.

Does anyone have other gps data to compare speed coming down a wave - I've heard of speeds of 36km/h riding open ocean swells - do you accelerate that much more when coming down the face of a wave? Phenomenal stuff!

[1paddle2paddle]

Clearly those guys are going super fast, but I have to wonder if 70 kph (around 40 mph) might be a bit of GPS over-exaggeration.  From the video itself, I could easily buy them traveling at 30 mph, but 40 seems a bit over the top.

[LaPerouseBay]

Here's the thread.  The experts will eventually chime in and give their opinion.

http://www.surfski.info/forum/1-general/10565-688kmh-on-a-double-ski.html

Personally,  I'm not a big fan of garmin connect or motionX on the iphone.  The graphs are difficult to zoom in on.  

If I see spikes on my gps chart, I like to unsmooth the data, zoom in on a particular glide and see what's really up.  Garmin training center on a pc makes it easy for a computer novice like me.  

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Re: The smokin spring and summer Maliko report
« Reply #175 on: August 20, 2011, 09:36:37 AM »

Garmin training center will smooth the data on the graph.  I usually look at it smoothed because it is easier to see the big bumps.  

I took a look at the glide at 49 min. unsmoothed to better understand the data.  It looks to me as though there were 5 smaller waves on the face of the larger, faster moving swell.  If the 5 waves were between 48 and 49 min., each 'mini' glide was about 12 seconds.  This jibes well with my memory of a maliko run.  It's a series of small and medium waves, hopefully on the face of a big groundswell.  

Oc-1's are great for this type of action.  Very little effort is needed to maintain hull speed for loooong glides.  In a boat it's mainly just steering.  Get the hull speed up, catch a ride on a big one, hold back, stay high and fly.  Great fun.  







training center on google earth using a pc makes it easy to locate the point in question.  The white dot indicates the time of the big spike. 



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My nikon coolpix rear display is busted, so a gopro2 is probably next.  It has the ability to link garmin gps through dashware.  That may be a great combo.  I'm not a fan of the fisheye lens and the barrel effect - but don't have the cash for a real waterproof cam.        

[1paddle2paddle]

Yeah, I certainly do not qualify as an expert.  I had originally posted some stuff supporting my assertion in the prior post that it couldn't be 40 mph, then realized it was all just conjecture and left only my assertion.

My family had a Ski Nautique competition style water ski boat for a while when I was in my teen years.  At full throttle that boat made a little better than 40 mph.  Knowing how fast that felt, and seeing the video of those guys on the double, my gut reaction was "no way" was that anywhere near 40.

Could I be entirely wrong?  Absolutely.  But my guesstimate is that the balance of that wave those guys caught had them traveling far closer to 30 mph than 40.

[Tom]

When I take my Garmin on snowboard trips, it sometime clocks me at 80 mph. My balls ain't that big.

[PonoBill]

It's certainly possible in a wave that size. Open ocean long period waves in deep water do 30-40 MPH depending on wavelength. If that water was less than 500 feet deep then the speed is more like 20-30mph, but still, they are moving at an angle to the wave--say 20 degrees, so that would be 22-34MPH

[LaPerouseBay]

1P2P, the experts chimed in on surfski.info.  The 68km/hr does not match the location in the video - so the paddlers were just kidding.  Still a freaking fast ride, all in agreement there... 

They were suggesting a speed test at Jaws or Shipstern's.  I'd pay money to see that. 

Big fun on the south shore this afternoon.  The wind was exceptional.