Maui Vmax Speed Meeting 6 October 19th.

The last speed meeting of the year was held Sunday and proved the deciding factor in the Speed Series title. The tide was perfect staying around 1 foot all afternoon allowing for the potential of some good flat water (kind of). The wind even looked promising early in the day but proved inconsistent. First at the beach (before the event organiser) was Alex Aguera, who by 10:55am had rigged two sails.

Alex was determined to make no mistakes as he had to win the day to have any chance of taking the series. The last few Speed Meetings had seen the best winds right at noon when the course opened and Alex was determined not to miss it.When the course opened Alex had it to himself for about 15 minutes before Tom Hammerton joined him on the water.The wind was teasing with good whitecaps on the outside but patchy gusty wind on the course. Both sailors were determined to get some good runs in just in case the wind backed off all together.

Finally the wind started to fill in at about 1pm increasing from 20 to 25 knots, but there was only one open class sailor on the water. Where was Tom? After half an hour that question was answered as he appeared carrying his equipment. At the completion of his first decent run his boom had broken and he had come in downwind around the point. This left Alex to rack up the runs. Tom had no spare and was parked in so could not go and get one. His fiance Anne showed up later with a replacement that allowed him to sail the last hour. The wave class competitors made the most of the increasing wind as a squall moved through.

Also ripping it up was Carine Camboulives with a brand new 5.0 prototype (with no rigging numbers – complicating rigging). She had only a wave board, but was persuded to borrowed an F2 Missile which proved to be a good combination for her. Despite having very limited experience with this kind of equipment Carine gave it her best shot logging a 28.7 knot best run with a 28.2 knot average. This is by far the fastest speed in the Womens division this year.

Peter John was a latecomer, but still determined to defend his lead in the speed series and not let Alex run away with it. Jacque Pauvert sailed up from Kanaha to put some runs in. Tom now had another boom and was back on the water giving the boys some healthy competition. Unfortunately Jacque had forgotten to charge his GPS and missed some runs when the unit ran out of power. He managed to log one nice 33.4 knot run and surely would have scored more in that range or higher. Disaster then struck Peter John who nose-dived and got launched into his rig tearing the top of the sail in half. That was game over for him and his series championship hopes. Luckily he got off with nothing more than a few bruises and some scrapes.

At 4pm the course was closed and the results tallied. To no-ones surprise Alex Aguera had won the day. This put him on equal points with Peter John in the Open division, both having won 2 days and scored second on 2 days. The tie-breaker is the higest average speed scored out of those 4 days. This came down to the August 24th Speed Meeting: Alex 37.5 kn, Peter 37.0 kn. So Alex took the series in a tie-breaker with Peter settling for an extremely close second. Jacque had done enough to secure third place in the series finishing third on the day. The wave crown went to Carl Grundy as he again set the pace winning the day for the third straight meeting. Consistency paid dividends to Tom James (absent) who clinched second place in the series. A rivalry was brewing between Sven Zedlick and Maui Ultra Fins Olaf Sutor. Olaf had the best peak speed – but we don’t count that, and Sven edged him over the 100m for second place on the day with Olaf taking third. Chris McNeil’s fourth place 1/10th behind put him third in the series.
So that was 2008. A year that will be remembered for the lack of wind, but also some very tight competition. Although the Speed Series is over the Speed Ladder keeps going. So we might yet see some 40 knot speeds this year. There are favourable tides next month and strong winds are not unheard of in November. If really good conditions do occur a notice will be put out for an unofficial Speed Meeting to contest the speed ladder.
Special thanks to Dane Dingerson whose help was greatly appreciated.

Maui Vmax 2008 Speed Meeting October 19th
Sailor Info
Name Class Time Out Time In Best Speed Average Points
1 Alex Aguera Open 36.2 35.7 34.7 35.5 15
2 Tom Hammerton Open 34.4 33.2 31.8 33.1 11
3 Jacques Pauvert Open 33.4 32.1 31.8 32.4 9
4 Peter John Open 32.3 32.3 31.6 32.1 7
1 Carl Grundy Wave 29.7 28.8 28.6 29.0 15
2 Sven Zedlick Wave 29.1 28.9 28.7 28.9 11
3 Olaf Sutor Wave 28.7 28.6 28.4 28.6 9
4 Chris McNeil Wave 29.2 28.4 28.0 28.5 7
1 Carine Camboulives Women 28.7 27.9 27.8 28.1 15

Maui Vmax 2008 Speed Meeting Series Points
Name Class Meeting 1 Points Meeting 2 Points Meeting 3 Points Meeting 4 Points Meeting 5 Points Meeting 6 Points Overall Points (1 discard)
1 Alex Aguera Open 15 11 0 11 11 15 52
2 Peter John Open 11 15 11 7 15 7 52
3 Jacques Pauvert Open 0 0 7 15 7 9 38
4 Tom Hammerton Open 9 7 5 6 9 11 36
5 Chris Lockwood Open 0 0 15 0 0 0 15
6 Erik Beale Open 0 0 6 9 0 0 15
7 Matt Daniels Open 0 9 0 0 6 0 15
8 Chris Adamson Open 0 6 4 0 0 0 10
9 John Smalley Open 0 0 9 0 0 0 9
10 Mark Nelson Open 7 0 0 0 0 0 7
11 Craig Mann Open 0 5 0 0 0 0 5
1 Carl Grundy Wave 11 0 11 15 15 15 56
2 Tom James Wave 9 0 0 11 9 0 29
3 Chris McNeil Wave 15 0 0 0 0 7 22
4 Olaf Sutor Wave 0 0 0 0 11 9 20
5 Erik Lawrence Wave 0 0 15 0 0 0 15
6 Sven Zedlick Wave 0 0 0 0 0 11 11
7 Ugo Ginanni Wave 0 0 0 9 0 0 9
1 Erin Iberg Women 0 15 0 15 0 0 30
2 Carine Camboulives Women 0 0 0 0 0 15 15
3 Kristen Women 0 11 0 0 0 0 11