2008 Board and Paddle Showcase–Huge Success

Fifty two boards, thirty five riders (growing to fifty by day’s end) knee to waist high waves, sunshine, and lots of aloha. It was as close to being a perfect day as anyone could ask for. All our testers did a superb job, with most evaluating twenty boards apiece (we assigned ten). Zane Schweitzer, Slater Trout (pictured going tandem here), and Conner Baxter our youngest testers, hit the water running and never slowed all day. You could power a small city on their energy.

Connor upholds the honor of little brothers everywhere by helping Ashley into the drink. Ashley wasn’t feeling well but still gamely tested her ten assigned boards and then paddled tandem with Connor. I met their dad on Saturday, surfing at Kanaha and asked if he was Connor and Ashley’s dad–he said “Yes, I no longer have a first name.” Spectacular kids, and a pleasure to be around, all four of them.

Sol Morey delivers a runaway board back to Evan Leong

Sol (son of Tom Morey, the inventor of the foam boogie board) is a soulful surfer with incredible balance. He perfected the forward kick turn to a spectacular degree during the course of the testing, spinning the board from the nose 180 degrees instantly in a single movement. Sol teaches surfing in Maui, I can’t imagine anyone better to learn from.

Not all waves were this crowded. I was trying to shove Slater into his dad, Casey Trout, but it’s not wise to mess with a kid that surfs fifty times better than me (or his dad who’s even bigger than me)

Diane shot over 1200 spectacular photos, Karen Giordano shot just about as many (we can’t wait to see them, Karen), we have nearly 1000 evaluation sheets to distill into helpful information. we’re going to be hard-pressed to make our launch deadline of February 25th (especially if the nice waves at Kanaha continue). But we’re committed to that date. There will be an overabundance of content in this first issue. some technical articles, some fun stuff (like how to get a date if you’re a surfer dude), and of course the results, photos and videos from the 2008 Maui Board and Paddle Showcase.

Thank you so much to all our testers, but thank you especially to our volunteers, who kept the event organized and running smoothly with a firm hand tempered with amazing grace.