JC: What gear do you carry around in your truck these days?
RN: One board, one sail, one mast and one boom. That is all I need on Maui. Sometimes I’ll put a 4.7m in but mostly it is just the 5m and an 80 litre wave board. That is it. I am riding a production thruster. It has been the same for the last two seasons now. We are back to the roots and fortunately everybody seemingly is following us back there. It is such a good all round design.
JC: So you were never into the quad trend?
RN: Nope, never made one. But I watched all my friends ride them and they are all riding better again now! It is good to see. I am not a good trend follower.
JC: Living on Maui – love it or hate it?
RN: Yes! The one good thing about being here is that as long as you are diligent then you can get in the water every day. That little six mile stretch offers something every day. I live a little far out at the moment. I am out on the coast about two miles past Jaws. It did not used to be such a big deal, but the way the traffic has grown in the last 8 years, getting around can be a pain. My daughter is a half an hour drive away now. Just getting down to Ho’okipa now takes me twice as long. It used to be an 8-minute drive and now it is fifteen minutes. Maui is still awesome. I was on Oahu last year, pretty much the whole year dealing with Katie’s health issues. It gave us a chance to live back in Kailua on Oahu. There are some real advantages to living there. There are a lot of good conditions over there too, but the consistency over on Maui is hard to beat.
JC: You sailed pipeline years ago, was that a one off thing?
RN: I never had it side shore again. I went and rode it side onshore. When the wind is south, it is too offshore and then it can really quickly swing to south west. If you happen to be there during that transition, sometimes it clocks slow enough that you can catch the right wind. It’s usually a 45-minute window and you have to be there ready. I just happened to be there at the right place at the right time, rigged and ready. It lasted about an hour. The problem is that you have to be there ready to go. It is usually slightly too onshore to be good. It was unreal, I was on a 23 inch wide board, it was good I would love to go do it again.
