First race series of the Summer 2012 and the turn out was the best it has been in five years.  Lots of new racers and lots of old racers we hadn't seen in a while.  With the last two weeks being semi nuclear winds in Maui, for me 6.3 full survival mode, it was nice to see a mellower more normal Maui day.  Although there was one slightly abnormal thing about the day, a north swell with double overhead sets hitting the upper reef at Kanaha made for some very exciting starts.  There were also some 2 foot sets breaking in the middle of the course, and they were sneakers so they would pop up out of no where in front of you so you would have to slow down or do a major course change.  Gybing on the outside was also very interesting, timing was everything, getting on that swell was critical.

We started out the day with age group racing and all the groups were very competitive.  My group was the 40-49 and I had some good battles with Peter Slate who had some really good starts.  My first two heats I was on my 7.0 and just a little underpowered but very comfortable, I had some good battles at the starts with Peter's team mate but managed to get through unscathed but Peter still managed a better start and held me off on all the gybes to take bullets in the first two heats.  The next two heats the wind came up a bit more and I was feeling better on my 7.0 TR-8 and my 59 JP, as I saw how it was going to be in the first two starts I decided it was time to get a bit more aggressive.  Peter still had a better start and held me till the third mark where we were neck and neck, I gybed around the outside of him and we came out even and battled all the way to the last mark.  Not sure what happened there, I guess Peter either lost sight of me or lost control as he gybed straight into me and went over the handlebars.  His boom smashed the nose of my board and went flying, I somehow made it through that and managed to stay upright around the turn to take the bullet.  In race four I finally had a good start and lead from first mark to the finish to win my age group with two bullets and two seconds.  In second was Peter Slate and third was MauiSails team mate and Maui resident Elon Wong.

In the other groups, 19-39 Dan Ellis was recovering from and over early in the first heat to follow it up with two bullets and a second to win his age group followed by Pieter Bijl on JP and Isaac Devries in third.  In the 50-59 group Mike Yasik team MauiSails was dominating with three bullets and a second, in second place Sam Bockius team MauiSails and third Jeff Henderson.  In the old guys or the 60-69 group it was new Maui Sail team mate Todd Macfarlane with total domination and four bullets followed by Szabolcs Maguranyi in second and Capt. Gregg Thomas in third.  Last but certainly not least are the women and again team MauiSails Tamara Bockius won all four of her races to win, Argentina Jiminez Bonilla was second and in her first ever race Sam Bittner was third.

In the afternoon things got a little more heated up with the pro's, semi-pro, advanced and novice fleets going at it.  The wind had picked up a little more and I was at the top end of my 7.0 but still very comfortable and in control.  Still more battling on the line but with some more good guys on the line in this group it was easier to not get sat taon to badly.  Still not managing to get the best start though I was able to squeeze through at the first mark and take the lead and a bullet in the first race of the Pro.  In the second race I again had a deep start and was fifth at the first mark but with a quick gybe I came out in second but had a ways to go to catch Peter who had a great start.  It came down to a photo finish and I thought I had done enough to get him but not so.  With the wind still building slightly I decided to go down to my 6.6 and see how that was going.  Seemed like it was going quite well because I finally got on the line at go and took two bullets in the last two races to take the pro division as well.  Peter Slate had done enough to take second for the second time of the day with Pieter Bijl rounding out the top three.

All in all it was a really fun day, some great training and some really good serious racing.  The only thing that would have made it better is to have Phil out there to do some battling with the other team out there and to push things a bit harder but he was on the big Island doing a tough windy half ironman.  He will be back to fly the MauiSails flag in the second Maui race series while I am in Costa Brava, Spain for the PWA slalom.

Aloha,
Micah Buzianis

Event results available at mauiraceseries.com
Photos by Tom CUDA Cooper (Nani Loa Photography) and Jeff Bennett