Jonathan Weston is a key personality in the history of windsurfing.
Between 1982-99, his life revolved around taking photos, shooting windsurfing movies, and later, releasing kiteboarding's first videos.
Weston has always been an active sportsman. He got into windsurfing, skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, scuba diving, and sailing.
But he also likes to write and to leave a fingerprint in all things windsurfing. Why? Because he really has insightful stories and surprising testimonies to share with all of us.
"Maui Glory Days: Return to the Impact Zone" is a fundamental book on the early days of windsurfing in the Hawaiian islands, and in the capital of wind sports, in particular, Maui.
It traces the wild beginnings of the sport, the birth of professional water photography, windsurfing's heydays, the rise of the action sports movie industry, and the stagnation of the sport.
His early memories of windsurfing are delicious and a critical piece of history.
"I was fourteen. Though the 12-foot long One Design Windsurfer had been around since 1968, no redneck had ever stepped foot on one. I figured it out all right. It sure beat fishing," Jonathan Weston reveals in his book.
"Besides being a novice surfer and budding sailor, one of the reasons I had been drawn to windsurfing was that I was a nature boy, attracted to the communion with Earth's two finest elements, wind, and water."
Never-Seen-Before Photos
"Maui Glory Days" captures the island's golden era of windsurfing from the early pioneering days of Kailua to the big waves at Jaws and Hookipa.
The book tells the story of the legends of the sport as it evolved from longboards to high-performances in challenging surf conditions.
There are dozens of never-seen-before photos shot by Weston, but also by other relevant names in the industry.
Let's not forget that the author won the 1990 NPPA Sports Photo of the Year awarded by Canon, Sports Illustrated and Kodak.
Fictional dialogue accompanies remarkable true events of survival, from near-drownings to helicopter crashes.
"Maui Glory Days" is a must-have book for those who practice and seek to learn more about the origins of a sport that changed sailing and wave sports forever.
