JC: How do you think they are going to judge at the Aloha?
LS: It seems like they judge tricks and airs pretty high anyways. It seems like every time a rider does a 360 or goiter, there’s a washout effect.
There’s a cool part of doing contests for wave sailing and also a sad part about them. It’s rad everybody coming together to push each other, but in some ways, it’s sad to see how they have to judge it on such a flat rate.
There are so many different approaches to wave riding it’s a hard thing to judge. At the end of the day it comes down to preference of what the judges like.
It’s cool, but at the same time can be really hard. When you nail a trick like a goiter or a ‘3’ you’ll be able to hear ‘The Hill’ get excited because a guy did a flip back into the wave.
A tourist can know that. In reality, if you do a full rail turn, it’s actually harder to do that well than a trick. I could sail Ho’okipa for an hour do a few 360s and a few goiters, but I might only have one turn that I’m really satisfied with because it’s that difficult to do.
It just shows the technicality is really in the turns, but they’re not so rewarded because they don’t have the wow factor of the tricks.
The old dogs are going to have to go out there and start throwing themselves around. I like to mix it up anyways. If it turns into that, I’ll just go out there and do tricks, but I feel we shouldn’t lose our surfing direction.
Windsurfing is an extension of surfing. That’s the fun part, riding the wave!