The first stop on the ITSA's World Tandem Tour (WTT) was held on the north shore of Maui at Ho'okipa, a renowned windsurfing spot, in conjunction with the Tropical Energy Ocean Games. After receiving many surf reports from friends via phone, we flew into Kahului anticipating big, ugly surf and intimidating conditions. The reports were right. There were shifty peaks, overhead windswell and steep takeoffs to deal with not to mention the periodic gusts of sideshores mixed in with pelting rain.
Saturday was spent taking in the conditions and strategizing the handful of lifts that would work in the difficult conditions. Big drops and bumpy rides are hard enough to deal with solo, but this was going to be tricky to tandem! On Sunday, several of the teams ventured out into the stormy surf to practice after finding out that the contest was postponed yet another day. A group lift session followed with the teams working on new lifts and helping each other out.
Monday was the big day with the semi finals being held early in the morning. Surf was still as stormy as ever and the contest ended up cancelling the canoe surfing event due to unsafe conditions. But for tandem, the show must go on and the contest director agreed to proceed on the condition that jetskis and water patrol would be provided for the female tandem partners who got separated from their boards and partners.
We were seeded into our semi final heat with Archie Kalepa & Jamie Hidano, Jason Lusk & Jasmine (last name unknown), and Kalani Vierra & Blanche Yoshida. We put together one good wave, faded out on another wave and then only partially completed the third wave to place us 3rd in the heat and 4th overall. Due to what the WTT director later admitted was a mistake in seeding, we didn't advance to the finals and instead finished 5th overall. Not bad overall though!
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