Hey Matt,
If I were a master, I would have popped right back up, but I’ve taken my licks and hopefully learned from it. I’ll try to add a little color to my post.
My M2O experience involved 3 hours of negotiating chop, currents, and, worst of all, boat wakes. The Kaiwi Channel is always challenging. It’s the World Championship for a reason. There are usually three distinct phases in the crossing—beginning, middle, and end—all very different.
This year’s race started really well. We were in the bumps, and the boats were supposed to hold back, but more on that in a minute. Then the middle had a serious current running, making the bumps stand up nicely, but they were also coming from three different swell directions. It was easy to breach a tail wind or hit the tail of your board on an unexpected swell. Finally, about 5 miles off Oahu, you start to feel the reverb bouncing back at you from the island, and this is where the water really gets rough.
All of this is completely normal, but the “safety” boat situation was untenable for the future of the sport. About 100 boats raced out to find their athletes, and let’s be honest, filming is a major concern here. They left about 5 minutes after the start, and I had at least 30 boats race past me, with another 20 staying with me for the next 2 hours. It was absolute chaos and VERY unsafe.
The good news is that the organizers seem willing to change it, as everyone (except the top 10) had a rough go with the boats. I fell twice at the beginning because of boat wakes, but I was able to get up and go fairly easily. However, at around the 32-mile mark, 2 miles outside of China Walls, I fell in and didn’t get up for 32 minutes. The water was so rough that I actually tipped off my board twice just sitting on it. The board I was using was a 9ft x 17" Barracuda. I’m very comfortable on it, but my legs were cooked. Remember, we did 27 miles 2 days before, and now I’m 32 miles in, having already fallen twice. I would have been able to get up on Maliko in the same situation easily, but the water at this point of the race was as tough as I’ve seen.
After 32 painstaking, mentally anguishing minutes, I managed to find enough forward momentum and manage the side chop to the point where I could get lifted. I then made it the remaining 8 miles without coming down, even though some boats ignored the exclusion zone and passed me going the opposite way to get back to the harbor. The remaining 8 miles are the Hawaii Kai run, Oahu’s version of the Maliko run, and it was the best Hawaii Kai I’ve done. Nice groomed Southeast swell pushed us all the way to the finish, and I made it to 100 yards of the finish before I came down and had to paddle across the line.
So, what did I learn to answer your questions? I think I had the perfect board to manage the conditions. Sure, I could probably have gone a bit wider, but the long waterline got me moving forward faster, and moving forward is more important for stability than an inch wider board, in my opinion. I was running the Florence 130X matched with the 21 tail. I should have used the 20 carve tail instead of the Florence 21. The carve is a shorter fuse and has upturned tips that hold the line well. All three of my falls happened because the tail came out of the water. The 20 being shorter may have stayed in, and the flat 21 slipped, whereas the 20 carve probably would have held. I ran the 20 carve in M2M, so why didn’t I run it in M2O? Well, the 21 pumps better, and I came down 300 yards short of the finish in M2M, and 9 people passed me, so I wanted to pump to the finish, and I went with what I thought was the safe bet. Given the race day conditions, I probably should have gone with the 20. The short fuse lifts easily too. I didn’t think I was going to fall once, let alone three times.
Technique-wise, I use the OnoAva 105, and I like the big powerful blade for how quickly it gets me to lifting speeds. This was the right call; I’ve struggled with little blades getting out of the water.
Please ask questions! At the end of the day, I think I was just too tired to manage everything in that particular spot. I’m going to work harder on endurance and cardio next year. That is probably the most important part, along with proper hydration.
Hope this helps!
well done! No idea how you stayed on foil after that considering how your legs must have been finished