surf-matic

Welcome to 2012. I’m sitting in an office in Soho, New York with fellow pro windsurfer Florian Jung. It is cold and windy– an unridable wind, unfortunately. But plans are coming together for trips over the next months. More info coming soon! Until then have some random pics.

Here is the caption for the last one in case you missed it or had trouble reading it:

The Silence of the Sirens
by Franz Kafka

Proof that inadequate, even childish measures, may serve to rescue one from peril.

To protect himself from the Sirens Ulysses stopped his ears with wax and had himself bound to the mast of his ship. Naturally any and every traveller before him could have done the same, except those whom the Sirens allured even from a great distance; but it was known to all the world that such things were of no help whatever. The song of the Sirens could pierce through everything, and the longing of those they seduced would have broken far stronger bonds than chains and masts. But Ulysses did not think of that, although he had probably heard of it. He trusted absolutely to his handful of wax and his fathom of chain, and in innocent elation over his little stratagem sailed out to meet the Sirens.

Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing has never happened, still it is conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never. Against the feeling of having triumphed over them by one’s own strength, and the consequent exaltation that bears down everything before it, no earthly powers could have remained intact.

And when Ulysses approached them the potent songstresses actually did not sing, whether because they thought that this enemy could be vanquished only by their silence, or because of the look of bliss on the face of Ulysses, who was thinking of nothing but his wax and his chains, made them forget their singing.

But Ulysses, if one may so express it, did not hear their silence; he thought they were singing and that he alone did not hear them. For a fleeting moment he saw their throats rising and falling, their breasts lifting, their eyes filled with tears, their lips half-parted, but believed that these were accompaniments to the airs which died unheard around him. Soon, however, all this faded from his sight as he fixed his gaze on the distance, the Sirens literally vanished before his resolution, and at the very moment when they were nearest to him he knew of them no longer.

But they–lovelier than ever–stretched their necks and turned, let their cold hair flutter free in the wind, and forgetting everything clung with their claws to the rocks. They no longer had any desire to allure; all that they wanted was to hold as long as they could the radiance that fell from Ulysses’ great eyes.

If the Sirens had posessed consciousness they would have been annihilated at that moment. But they remained as they had been; all that had happened was that Ulysses had escaped them.

A codicil to the foregoing has also been handed down. Ulysses, it is said, was so full of guile, was such a fox, that not even the goddess of fate could pierce his armor. Perhaps he had really noticed, although here the human understanding is beyond its depths, that the Sirens were silent, and opposed the afore-mentioned pretense to them and the gods merely as a sort of shield.

Happy new year!

The back is better and I’m getting ready to head off the maui rock. I’m leaving sooner than I originally thought in order to give myself enough time on the east coast to regroup before heading off in search of some big waves. No plans are set in stone, but I will most definitely spend the next couple months looking for foreign waves– Ireland and Cabo Verde are definitely on the docket.

Here’s a little sneak peak at what’s to come for 2012:

Posts will be sporadic until the new year. Take care!

We’ve arrived at the last maui monday of the year! On the island, the wind has been gusty but strong and the waves are big but stormy. Perfectly fun conditions– not many people on the water, funky, and rippable. I’m sure you’re all busy, and so am I, so this report will be cut short. More coming this week along with some revelations for next years projects. Happy holidays!

(The next post will be “foto friday” on friday.)

I’m still resting my spine and Maui still suffers from monsoons, so there’s not much windsurfing for me to miss.

Here’s a funny thought: it seems some of the major English language mags are closing (boards and windsurfing). There still is a very viable market for a windsurfing magazine in the internet age. BUT it’s not going to be filled with board tests (as those are the most time sensitive of all articles). Rather, a sustainable mag would be full of good photos and interesting, timeless articles printed on high quality paper. The world’s always changing and we all have to run just to stay in the same place (enter red queen, fall down rabbit hole).

Explore the archives or put in requests for surf-matic. Take care, -G

Kelvin-Helmholtz waves in Saturn's surface. Waves are everywhere!

I’m still resting my back, so I don’t have any new windsurfing photos, though I think there was some fun jumping at Hookipa. But before moving on from yesterday, I think it’s funny how the sail in the post’s photo from 1983 is a 4 batten with an outline similar to some seen on the water nowadays. Ha!

There were some interesting wave clouds seen over the weekend. It seems they’re already all over the internet, but I thought I might as well post them.

But first, here is the wiki entry:

Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, after Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz, can occur when velocity shear is present within a continuous fluid, or when there is sufficient velocity difference across the interface between two fluids. One example is wind blowing over a water surface, where the wind causes the relative motion between the stratified layers (i.e., water and air). The instability will manifest itself in the form of waves being generated on the water surface. The waves can appear in numerous fluids and have been spotted in clouds, Saturn’s bands, waves in the ocean, and in the sun’s corona. The theory can be used to predict the onset of instability and transition to turbulent flow in fluids of different densities moving at various speeds. Helmholtz studied the dynamics of two fluids of different densities when a small disturbance such as a wave is introduced at the boundary connecting the fluids.

Now, here are the photos:

Another interesting note on shapes:

I met with an old friend, Micah Nelson, and now he lives as an artist in California. Check out his work here. But I mention him with respect to waves because he’s lately been using cymatics (the study of visible sound and vibration) to display the shapes and patterns that music makes when resonating through water. Check the video below and the other videos on his channel (make sure you check out the amazing variety of forms the sounds takes in the water):

Oh, and there is an interview with me on Zakel Windsurfing.

An old pic of my dad David Ezzy from 1983 courtesy of French WIND. Check the fins!

Ah windsurfing! How you tease and tantalize! A good forecast came out too messy on Friday for it to be any fun at Hookipa. Instead, I spent the day doing a free ride, flat water sail photoshoot at Kanaha with Kevin Pritchard and my father. It was surprisingly fun to go fast.

Saturday Hookipa was still big and messy. But there seemed to be a decent wave every once in a while. When I pulled up to the beach, no windsurfers were out, only Skylar Haywood sitting on the guardrail with half a sail rigged on the grass. He lamented to me that he’d forgotten his harness. I rigged up a 5.0 and in that time a kind japanese tourist lent Skylar a much needed harness.

We launched and it was just the two of us. Ezzy and Haywood. It’s funny, that could have been a day from 25 years ago in the mid 80’s with our fathers (David and Fred). Some things stay the same even as they change!

I had so much fun! Carving on these messy walls of water and going for some big splattering lips. I had a few big ones that I hit and had to bail resulting in long swims. But I got in a really fun groove. Unfortunatly, I went for a 360 on a section that was not a 360 section at all– it was just a energized mast-high ball of foam. It whipped me around really fast and I was in the perfect position to pull it, except that somehow the power of the wave folded my back in half backwards (hyperextended). I heard a loud crack and let go of my equipment instinctually (I knew it wasn’t going to go on the rocks as I was in middles). After surfacing, I saw that I could move my legs and therefore guessed that my back was not broken. I swam to my gear and sailed into the beach, not wanting to risk it.

On Sunday, the pain/stiffness was still there. Not anything bad, but enough to make me conscious of it. I’ve never had any problems with my back. My spine et al have been healthy and happy. And it makes me so angry to think that I may have just injured it! So I took Sunday off from sailing– even though it looked epic (the logic being I have many trips planned in the next months and I don’t want to jeopardize them for one day of sailing). Still, it appears only Levi sailed at Hookipa.

The worse part though is not the pain– rather, it’s the not knowing. I hate not knowing whether I’ll injure it more by going on the water. I hate not knowing whether I just tweaked the muscles or did something more serious. The uncertainty kills. All I want is a personal MRI machine so that I can know what– if anything– is the matter.

Adding to the frustration is windsurfing’s amazing ability to be inconsistent. How long will it be till the next good day? Truly good days are so rare that missing one seems like travesty.

These random rewards are one way that our sport keeps us keenly addicted.There was a study done on rats to test reward schedules. Rat A was fed a pellet of food every time it pressed a button, rat B was fed every 5 times it pressed a button, and rat C was given food pellets every x number of times it pressed a button, where x was random. After a certain period of time, the experimenters stopped the food delivery, so the rats could still press the button but nothing would happen. Rat A stopped pressing it almost immediately after the food stopped, rat B stopped but only after pressing the button many times, and rat C never stopped. We are rat C.

And I love it. In windsurfing, we deal with randomness and random rewards daily, keeping us addicted. “Addicted” can have negative connotations, but I don’t mean anything negative here. Rather we are possessed and passionate in the most alive way possible. To be any other way, for us, would be to become zombies.

This is what I need!