Molokai Holokai - the M2M recap
So much going on this month in the world of downwind foiling 🤙
Another busy few weeks, what looks like a great M2M this past weekend. It is a busy task to track down, digest and condense all the content that blasts out into the world, but I’m grateful to a few people who help track it down, and to the likes of James Casey and Josh Ku who do an impressive job of taking us along for the ride. Can we crowdfund a drone to live stream?
In trying to keep up on the actual water, after seeing the various kites, hand paddles, parachutes and other novel ways of getting a foil going, I’ve found an old sail… let us see where that goes. Necessary as I keep pinging my shoulder overdoing it with the SUP paddle.
In growth news, we now have 105 subscribers and 2k views, it seems like there are a few people interested in anything to do with foiling, even this. Welcome everyone, and thanks!
Events, races etc
Recap - Molokai Holokai (M2M)
An impressive 88 foil entries, an even split between SUP and wing. It looked like an epic race, with a very close finish, top 3 within about 1-2 minutes of each other and coming down to the wire. This video has an incredible drone sequence of the start, recommend if you skip everything else, have a look at this clip from 7 minutes in.
SUP Open
I’ll do a top 5, some big names!
Kane De Wilde - 1:39:44 - KDMaui
Andrew Gibbons - 1:40:22 - Lift
Edoardo Tanas - 1:41:01 - Axis
James Casey - 1:43:41 - Code
Kai Lenny - 1:43:54 - Phantom
Debrief from James Casey below - who along with Kai Lenny took the straighter “SUP” line, which is the straightest line to avoid the current, but concedes that the deeper route into the channel with bigger bumps was faster. Inside was relatively flat and they were doing up and overs along the coast. Kai on possibly too small a foil.
Glassy bumps and cross wind into the finish leading to James passing Kai across the line and Kane beating Andrew. Finishing tactics lost Kai two positions according to James. Josh Ku describes the course here.
Check a very vibey video from Josh Ku, and another good one from Dylan.
SUP Women
Great to see 5 women competing and a very competitive finish, under 2 minutes between 1st and 3rd.
Annie Reickert - 2:02:02 - Lift
Olivia Piana - 2:02:11 - Axis
Gabriella Bella - 2:04:38 - GoFoil
Wing
The wing was less competitive with a very big gap to third. It seems Zane Schweitzer was under-foiled and struggled along the last stretch to finish 30 minutes behind 1st place. Great ride-along commentary from Giampaolo Cammarota, who reckons it was kinda light conditions. Is this Finn Spencer in the first clip of this video? Explains the lead. Serious power to weight ratio.
Finn Spencer - 1:14:44
Anderson Gallagher - 1:16:38
Livio Menelau - 1:33:15
Stats
Some random stats from the full results. The finishing of the top 25% of SUP Foil was pretty close, with a few groups forming.
Median age for SUP was 34, wing was 46. Judging from the below, the younger riders performed slightly better
Foil Championships
Round two completed and so now we can calculate some points. Lift with a lead. Kane ahead and Andrew well within reach!
The formula is as follows: Points for top 5 x Distance x number of entrants.
As you’ll note, there is no comments section on the standings list, as in life (there is commentary, however).
As you can see the number of entrants and the race distance impacts the weighting significantly. Impressive is that if we did a constructors championship for tails, Kane’s Marlin would probably already have won, even Kai Lenny was riding one. Kane rode his own foil on the M2O which I’ll describe as KDFoils until I get better info!
I’d like to do this for more events, more riders (maybe top 10) and more categories (wing, women) but honestly it is too time consuming to extend. 2024 will go big.
Rad People
On the back of the M2M, here are some completely unfounded and entirely irrelevant emoji based observations for the rest of the races.
Andrew Gibbon. Kane De Wild 👌
Dave Kalama, James Casey, Josh Ku, Olivia Piana 🤙
Oskar Johansson, Kai Lenny, Tomoyasu Murabayashi 🤔
Preview - The Rest of July
The Gorge Challenge has 25 entrants listed as starting this weekend on the US mainland. Supposedly quite a bit of travelling to get there and then back to Hawaii for the M2O. Kane is apparently heading over.
Great Barrier Reef Ocean Challenge in Australia joins DW month in July. Reported to have 15+ foilers racing in the Mini-G, 5 taking on the GBROC. James Casey was the only one to do the GBROC last year. Seems like a professionally organised event, lots of support craft and infrastructure. More details in the Casey Catchup.
Paddle Imua and then M2O to round out July. 43 entrants to the SUP Foil category of the M20, and a longer distance so more points available.
Foam Hits
When I named this section, I didn’t expect to see an actual frontside ollie on a downwind setup. kpfoils busts the first I’ve seen.
Another recap of the WetFeet Voyager race, this one showing the start.
A dangerous looking pair of sunglasses encounter an even more dangerous looking shark off Oahu. I didn’t know these prone senders had sharks to deal with.
Josh Ku surfing his new surf-rescue craft down the famous Maliko run. Classic style.
Wing or SUP
In the early days of this page I will try to cover both as much as possible, at least until some direction appears. I’ve surfed my entire life, and also kited back in the day and sailed offshore a lot, even recently learned to windsurf, I must be honest and say that while I’m slowly getting into wingding aka wang aka wind wing, I’m generally more interested in the wingless-downwind, primarily because I find the wing turns the bumps into moguls instead of the actual source of energy, but that is most likely because I can’t wing that well.
Bay runs
James makes an interesting point on bay runs, the favourite starting point for beginners. Obviously, but maybe not that obviously, if the wind dies, the bumps die instantly. Having never found any suitable bays on the North coast of Cornwall I’ve not managed any bay runs anyway, but I’m sure the bay-blessed among you may find this interesting.
Map contributions
Greece - 3 fun looking runs from Dimitris Komninos around Athens. Having spent a bit of time sailing around Greece I am glad to hear there are some downwind routes being scouted. An abundance of islands, ferries, summer wind as well as being an incredibly appealing place to visit makes this a compelling stop on the Euro-tour in my mind.
Australia - Some details on what must be one of the main Aussie downwind runs - Perth. Works most days in summer. Clean wind bumps with minimal groundswell. Stay inside the shark buoys. Greece first then 🦈
What did you think of this issue?
Prefer less click through links? Less instagram? More pictures? Feedback below please!
ps - I found out how to ride switch
wicked analysis. nice work