Quatro Maui Pro
The first five-star wave event of the 2026 season is officially underway with sailors registering for the Quatro Maui Pro taking place on Sunday evening in Hawaii. The Quatro Maui Pro runs between 30th March until the 4th April, but with only three official competition days possible from the five day event window tomorrow (30th March) has already been called as a lay day. Ahead of the start of the event we caught up with Marc Paré (Simmer / Simmer Sails / MFC), who is set to start his world title defence, and Morgan Noireaux (JP / NeilPryde / Black Project Fins), who won the Aloha Classic in October and will be hoping to make the most of another event in his backyard as the 31-year-old looks to mount a title charge.
Hi Marc, how are you feeling ahead of the start of your world title defence?
“I’m feeling good, excited to reset and start all over again. It’s going to be an exciting season ahead.”
What have you been up to over the winter months?
“I have been mainly working a lot at Simmer and focusing a lot on product development and learning the ropes of sail design, and also designing my first full sail range. Also been to China, at the factory where we produce all our sails and components, which has been a really cool experience and learned a lot from it! It’s been a little different preseason, with less time on the water and more on the development side of things, but I was happy to spend a few weeks of training on Gran Canaria after finishing development on the new Evoq sail range.”
This is the first 5-star wave event held in Maui for over two decades - what are the key differences between say the conditions at the Aloha Classic in October versus the upcoming spring conditions?
“In theory, spring conditions tend to be a little windier and offer better chance for jumps, but it’s been a weird season and forecast looks pretty much like some of the conditions we got some years back in some of the Aloha Classics, with more side on winds and bigger lumpy messy swell. Ho'okipa is always hard to predict and sometimes can just offer gold from an average forecast. But as of now, it doesn’t look like we are going to get the conditions that this event was intended for.”
What’s in your quiver for this event?
“I took all the sizes from 5.3 to 4.2 Blacktip TC with some spare sizes in between and mainly 90l boards, with some of the shapes being what we have been working on for the next generation of production boards.”
Awesome, thanks Marc. Best of luck for the contest.
Hey Morgan, you won the Aloha Classic last October - this event obviously takes place in spring in likely quite different conditions - which conditions (Autumn vs Spring) do you favour, if either and why?
“Normally both seasons are pretty different but this spring has been really strange. Tons of rain with the wind essentially doing circles meaning lots of kona winds and onshore days. It's calmed down a bit and the trade winds are back but I don't think we will be getting your standard sunny windy spring conditions. Looking at the forecast I think the first day will probably be pretty tough. Side onshore with some good size north swell means it will likely be pretty messy. The following days the wind seems to turn a bit more side which should help things. I'm hoping we will get a bit lucky and that we maybe get a bit of rain during the day. That sounds a bit weird but a quick squall might help the wind turn a bit more side off. Either way it looks like we have opportunity all five days which is all we can ask for!”
What have you been up to over the close season?
“I stayed on Maui for the winter. The last few winters I was in Guadeloupe with Coco [Foveau] so it was nice to have a winter at home again. I wanted to go to Chile but since this event was confirmed I figured it made sense for me to stay here and honestly it was nice to be in one place for a bit and get a good training routine leading into this event and the rest of the season. The weather has been strange for a few months now which has led to us getting a lot of different conditions. I've never sailed port tack on Maui as much as I have these past few months so that was quite fun.”
What are your goals for the upcoming season and are you looking forward to competing again?
“I want to have a shot at the World title going into the last event in Chile. Looking at the calendar I know I can put myself in that conversation this year so that's my goal! It's honestly a bit funny having back to back events at Ho’okipa, but I think it's helped keep some of that pressure away so I'm actually really looking forward to getting the event started.”
Great, thanks a lot Morgan and good luck for the contest.