Maui First race event of the year took place last Saturday in strong trade winds at Kanaha beach park. Age group races took place in the morning while skill level races in the afternoon.

Micah Buzianis was on Maui after a trip to Spain for the first PWA world cup of the year where he placed 5^th. He had a couple of days to get over my jet lag and get ready for the first Maui Race Series of the year.  We all knew it was going to be windy so we had to switch to high wind Maui mode.  A few good days on my new TRX 6.3, 6.6 and 7.0 and my JP slalom 59 but I knew it would take a little adjusting since Spain was all on my bigger gear.

Race day it was already windy at the 10am skippers meeting and looked to be a typical Maui trade wind day. Micah rigged up his 6.6 and 7.0 and got a few good warm up runs on the 6.6 before we started with the age groups in the morning round of racing.  Four heats in the 40-49 was scheduled and Micah was plenty powered on his 6.6 and 59 JP.  Micah nailed his starts and had plenty of speed. Micah managed to win all four of the morning and had some very good practice in this higher wind racing to get ready for Fuerte in July.  Fellow Maui Sails racers also cleaned up the morning age groups with Phil McGain winning his 50-59 age group with four bullets and Todd MacFarlane winning his class with two bullets and two seconds.   Tamara Bockius sailed well to place second in the womens division and young sailor Bockius nailed her heats to clean up in the juniors.

In the afternoon it was the ability classes pro, semipro and expert.  In the pro it was a tight battle between Micah, Phil McGain and Peter Slate.  The wind had increased slightly for the afternoon but had also gone a bit more east so was gustier and the chop was also pretty good size with a nice wind swell coming in with the inside current and chop at upper Kanaha, made for some fun reaches and tough gybes.  Micah was again on his TRX 6.6 and JP59 and in the end hemanaged to win three out of the four heats to take the win followed by Peter Slate who took one bullet and third was Phil McGain. 

Micah commented after winning both divisions - "I had really good speed out there today. I felt like I could pass anyone without too much trouble, but I got good starts and then stretched out my lead. Overall I’m stoked about the way the smaller slalom sails are feeling".

All in all it was another great day of racing at Kanaha, the volunteer group of race crew did an exceptional job setting up the course, keeping the scores and keeping it interesting on the beach.   We are all looking forward to the next one in two weeks!!

Photos by Harry Wiewel