The smokin spring and summer Maliko report

[PonoBill]

I bought my Quadcopter an early birthday present--a GoPro Black. Yes, I know, I said they'd never get my money again, but the little bastard wanted one, and he promised not to use it to spy on me ("just the neighbors, I swear" says he). I don't completely trust him, but I have to say the pictures are damned good. The stability control eliminates most of the "jello" I've been getting. If I wasn't so lazy I'd do a better job of balancing the props and motors to eliminate the problem at it's source. But when you're breaking props by the gross, it feels like a wasted exercise.

Biggest problem with the black so far is that the batteries are usually drained when I want to use it. I haven't figured out how to turn everything really OFF I guess. Leaving it connected to charge makes the bugger warm to the touch, which isn't great for electronics. LiPo batteries shouldn't get hot when they charge anyway. Only during discharge.

[headmount]

And the waterproof housing I presume.  Let's use it on a run and see how it works.  Wow the black.  Cool.

[LaPerouseBay]

The sharpness and clarity is really good I think./

I agree.  Gopro made a good compromise with this lens regarding wide angle and fisheye distortion.

It's a shame the file that comes out of the memory chip looks better before I run it through youtube.  My guess is that they need to compress the big files - which degrades the image.  Oh well, its free and good enough for me. 

I need to put something on my lens, maybe rain x, to keep it clear and free of water droplets.

Gopro recommends rainX and it works for me.  The original version in the yellow bottle.

New cam works good but seemed a bit darker than old one.  Did you think so?

Gopro has a free video editor called cineform.  I tried it today for the first time.  It has a few adjustments, simple to apply.  I was concerned about time needed to process the changes, but it was very fast.  I'm suspicious that they compress the file too. 

It looks brighter. Maybe a tad too bright with the glowing hat, but I didn't spend much time on it.

[LaPerouseBay]

Very windy south shore run from KCC to the cove. 

[Maui-belle]

Great info on this thread for a novice, thank you!!!...  anyone thinking of doing a Kihei run today?

[headmount]

Wow conditions were epic for you guys.  

My only input on the vid is to angle the cam off to one side or another so that you're on the side of the frame rather than center.  That way when someone like Mike comes into the frame, we can see more of him.  You have a dedicated side to keep other people on and it works well.  

Huge troughs for you guys.  We chose wrong by going on north side.  Full-on  grind by comparison.

[covesurfer]

Yep, that looked pretty darn sweet. Looked like some amazing glides and some nice waves as you started to head in. Love watching these vid's and reading the stories.

It's either nuking and so freezing a downwinder is foolish or awesome glass race practice paddling here in Hood River lately. Hope we can come over to Maui soon!

[LaPerouseBay]

 
My only input on the vid is to angle the cam off to one side or another so that you're on the side of the frame rather than center. /

I like the side angle too.  The mount is a work in progress.  It is currently set up with only the gopro plate - which allows only pitch adjustment.  I'll add a ram ball to it for a swivel mount.

More fun on the south shore Saturday.  It's been very good late afternoons this week.  But the timing window is short.  It's usually offshore but this day was very onshore.  I had a tough time linkng glides to stay out.  Tricky to fit a big boat across the tight swells.  Super fun.



   

[ericspin]

LPB, so damn glad you replaced your GoPro. If you lose this one give me a shout and ill send you another. Love the ski vids and your conditions. I like to watch your vids and often think that on the west coast of FL we see what I would call _conditions_ only a few times a year. And then read in your posts how you just head out for a casual afternoon downwinder. Keep 'em coming.

[LaPerouseBay]

Thanks Eric, glad you like the videos. 

Here's a good one from my heroes down south.  The water is cold, the put ins and take outs are rugged and the wildlife is terrifying.  These guys have the safety gear dialed. 
 

[LaPerouseBay]

Relaxed south shore run, medium winds.  Vince's new oc-1 is super light.  The hull only weighs 15 pounds.  The entire boat is under 19.   

[ericspin]

Another great vid. There you are paddling your V10 which is a boat I really want to add to my quiver. Waiting for the new hull design to surface. And your friend Vince is paddling the same OC1 that I have, the Storm. Don't know if its just the camera angle but looks like he's cheating the ama pretty heavily. I think you must have to be a very experienced and confident outrigger paddler to handle the Storm as the ama weighs NOTHING. Seriously, by the time I feel the ama getting light it's gone. As we've discussed on PM's the V10 is so much more balanced. So much easier when you brace not to have the momentum of the ama potentially overpowering the hull. Anyway, after a gray and snowy day in the east TN mtns watching your video in the warm water and the sound of the water in the background is pretty healing for me. Counting the days until I get my ass back home to FL. Maybe no downwind opportunities like yours but at least it's warm.....er.

[LaPerouseBay]

Congrats on owning a storm.  Incredibly light.  It looked very responsive.  

He's only had the boat a few months and this was his first downwinder.  He's a very experienced paddler.  Vince is good friends with Mike Giblin, so he's getting the best advice on the subtle tricks of the boat.  He was leaning on the ama, but he's been working crazy long hours.  His balance will come around when he gets some time on the water.  I'll try to get some video of him later in the summer.  He was really glad to get that run in.

I don't miss the outrigger.  I broke 2 paddles bracing on the right.  Never did an ama down pile in, but I remember coming close.  It was a miracle the ama didn't tear off.  Oc-1's take some serious gas when an idiot like me is at the controls.  

18 months in ski and I've only fallen to the right maybe 3 times.  Less than one percent.  I always fall on the left.  That's from cheating on the ama.        

I'm anxious to see a new V-10.  I'd like to have one of those new bailers every time I make a big mistake!

3 of my outrigger friends have owned my old V-10 sport.  One of them has moved into an elite ski and is really flying.  They are all primarily outrigger paddlers.  They do ski just for cross training.  They all rave about it.  Great way to have fun on "flat" water.

[LaPerouseBay]

Vince was curious about the speed in that last video.

So I sent him this pic.  It's a screen shot grabbed from Garmin's Training Center.  I like the ability to zoom.  It also has a nice smoothing feature to make the graph more legible.

The video had two clips in it, which are marked on the graph.  The 'high tempo' is a section where I zoomed ahead for a few minutes.  The efforts were just a bit higher.  Also, I charted my own course, rather than shadowing Vince.  

Shooting video of another paddler often has me missing glides (to keep someone in frame).  It was ok to fall off glides on this day (those are the big dips in the speed chart).  Vince was going easy, finding the balance point of his new boat.  So, it was relatively easy to build some speed and catch up.  Shadowing someone like Jeremy is crazy hard.  One missed glide and he's gone - no chance of catching up.  He does a lot of waiting with us average paddlers.      

Speed graphs and video are invaluable to me.  The south shore is very consistent in sections.  Very helpful for experimenting.  I like to see the numbers, because seat of the pants can be deceiving.    

[LaPerouseBay]

Here are some google earth pictures of the 3-5-13 run.  Garmin training center overlays in google earth.  The yellow lines are locations in the video.      

Boardwalk to Sarento's



Zoomed in - same yellow line (clip 1).  
  


I started the camera and the gps at the same time, 5pm.  Now we have 2 files, video and gps.  I match them up the old fashioned way, with a few notes.  That's how I edit most of my videos - scan the graph, note the fast sections and skip right to them in the video.    

Locating a section on the red line is done with the "time slider."  The "time slider dot" moves on the red line as you slide the pointer (in the box).  The pointer has the time of day on it.  

On the time slider the pointer starts at 5:00:00 pm.
On the garmin graph: clip 1 begins at 00:37:30 and ends at 00:39:00.
Next, move the time slider pointer to: 5:37:30 and 5:39:00.

Now, the dot shows where clip 1 begins - or in this case, ends.

The yellow line is created with the "add path" feature.  Start and stop the yellow line - near the positions of the "time slider dot".  The pointer is shown at 5:39:00 - the dot and yellow line mark the end of clip 1.