Sjanne (my girlfriend) and me are in Maui for just about a weeek now. We're staying at Erik Beale's wonderful house. Erik and Caroline have invited us to come over. It's great and they are such nice people. We've totally enjoyed the stay up till now.

Of course Erik and me have been sailing a couple of times. We didn't get the big tradewinds yet but we hope we're going to get a nice day of sailing in before we have to leave. Finian has arrived as well and tonight Erik is throwing a party at his house in honor of Finians record. Looking forward to that! I hope we can have a full throttle day together so that we're able to post some nice speeds.

Up till now we've both been racing the 5.0. We were both underpowered but we want to get some data for the next MOS period this fall. We're trying to organise a meeting with Nils and the three of us to discuss next years racing sails.

Erik has explained to me it's really hard to get decent 10 second runs in at sprecks, and after having sailed there once I can imagine why. You can look for flat patches, bear of an really go for it, but all of a sudden a ground swell is building just in front of your nose. Erik has reported 43 knot peak speeds over there. His trick is to bear of for 2-4 seconds and immediately go upowind again to avoid a major crash at that speeds.

It will be fun to watch the Sprecks master since I don't expect to have the guts (or the local knowledge and skill) to do the same. Anyway, we'll see. Once I see the others flying I want to give it a try at least. Finian has lived on Maui for a longer period so it will be interesting to see what the champ is capable of when we get the "big" winds.

We've had three days of sailing up till now. Erik has beaten me twice. Game on!