It's not Nintendo
It's the though of Hardie cracking a 40
Once that happens you won't be able to get anywhere near the water because of his ever expanding fan club.
How can us mere mortals compete with that
I'm a new windsurfer, and at 22 I reckon I'm probably in this age category NP talks about.
So why do I windsurf:
-Parents got me into sport
-Friend got me into sailing
-Did a few state/national campaigns in FlyingEleven class boat (youth skiff)
-Needed something to keep me sailing after high school
-It's an awesome sport, fast, adrenaline-pumping, colourful, hard to be good at but easy to learn
-No need for crew
-Less gear then sailing
-Easier to lug around
I've tried to teach a few mates, problems with windsurfing image (people think its):
-Too expensive
-Hard to learn
-Overly dangerous
To revive windsurfing for younger people:
-Cheaper gear
-Teach more people to sail, then then will filter into either dingy, yacht or sailboard
-Introductions to the sport
-Media (get in on telly, movies, etc - people have asked me if i'm kiteboarding before, because this is out there in the public more)
I agree with whoever mention cost of the sport, i'm just progressing to 100L short boards from 120L, but all the old gear that is decent costs ~$400 (thats alot when your at uni - the age where alot of windsurfers could be recruited)
So it was me after all
I think DISM has pretty much hit the nail on the head. The thing I have noticed in Tassy is that it seems there are more kids surfing than ever before. In particular there are lots of girls. This is no doubt due to easier to use kit. i.e. softdeck min-mals, etc. Kids can go along to one of the learn to surf days, etc and catch some whitewater and stand up first day. I remember back in the 80s you couldn't get a mal and people had to learn on a shortboard. As has been indicated earlier in the thread in the boom days pretty much everyone who windsurfed had a longboard which you could also learn or teach people on.
yea mr pryde could sell kids rigs for zero profit, but he wont!!, the uk has a strong generation of young windsurfers, and many get into it thru sailing clubs and team15, i met the lady who runs rya windsurfing, basically it gets kids racing with any equipment, and they join a team which competes against other teams, sorta the same as surf clubs... it wouldnt work in aus, whos guna start it anyway?? not me im goin windsurfin!!
"The biggest threat to Windsurfing is......."
INDIFFERENCE.
Sorry.
Do you remember the original source of the stoke ?
No ?
Why windsurfing years ago was proclaimed totally fken awesome ?
I'll tell you why.
Two reasons.
1.
You could ride a board without the need of a wave.
That single fact alone transformed and opened up kilometres of surfless, sh1tfull coastline and created numerous 'surfspots'.
and
2.
You could jump a board.
Get air.
Aerial surfing hadn't been developed or recognised at that point in time.
Windsurfing is all too familiar now.
The wow-factor has fizzled over time.
It's sad I know.
What about windsurfing computer games? It would probably be the only way i'd ever be able to do a forward or a spock
Yeah cost and transporting gear around is a killer Mr Pryde - plus your RSX board is a pig 
I was lucky my parents bought a Tandy TRS80 computer when I was a grom. For me to play a game a had to type in program codes for about two hours just to get a stick figure to walk across the screen. I only dreamed of a commodore 64! So I wasn't going to get a windsurfer either, I did have a skate board and a surfboard which eventually led me to my now favourite past time addiction of windsurfing.
I don't think windsurfing is under threat from computers, it's just not the everyday accessible sport. A lot of people take up kiting these days so we'd be losing a few numbers there unfortunately. I like the fact that not every one can windsurf or we might end up like surfing with over crowded good spots.
Lot of replies here, good to see so many care about getting more young people into the sport. We run a school and basically have a policy of approaching 1 school per week to try and drum up business, we have just 3 schools on the books for this semester and that is after canvassing for literally hundreds of man hours, and that includes us doing schools down in Safety Bay and driving all the way up to Perth and setting up on the river near the schools.
We have never been able to get the work at a good rate that makes a viable business, it's basically a charity job. The gear is just to bulky, just think 8 wide boards, 12 rigs, a boat and then you can service what? 1/3 of the normal class size. All the kids are learning to surf, surfing wa at trigg does 1200 school lessons per week, and this is in a town where the windsurfing conditions are world class and the surf practically non-existent.
Staff is such an issue, you really need like a set up like a yacht club where a few old dogs run the show and have young enthusiastic helpers that don't get paid very much (who also receive lots of excellent training). But when somebody has to drive a huge 4WD and massive trailer, you quickly come unstuck.
We operate in a fantastic area with a brilliant local crew, but... I have approached numerous people to help out on the 'charity job' school lessons or act as mentors to some of the young people coming through, but nobody has turned up yet to say "sure I have a few hours free I'd love to get more young people into the sport (they would get paid $30 per hour)". And even if they did, then its get qualified if there is ever a course on, working with children check, first aid certs, in house training, these peoples kids have grown old and died by this stage.
Nearly every week somebody approaches me to say hey I'd like to become an instructor, looks cool, I e-mail them off the info and never hear from them again. (I do admit though it's real chicken and the egg stuff, I don't have steady work to dole out due to the forementioned problems, sorry Niels).
BUT... Next season will be different, I can feel it, we have planted a seed with the cold calling, people will read this and say 'hey I can help' our Instructor Michael will become Australia's youngest Master Instructor and we will be able to train in house, all the windsurfing schools will work together to pool resources, the club will make training young people a priority, people/schools will actually turn up for lessons they have booked, I will find time to apply for some type of government grant to make it within reach of the schools budgets, someone will give me some of those BICS from New Zealand, I won't eat as much.
It can't really be that hard can it?
AND WINDSURFING WILL BE ENJOYED BY YOUNG AND OLD.
Phil Mercer
wa surf pty ltd
windsurfing is big pimping y0!
all my friends wanna try it hehe after i talk to them when i'm massively stoked after a good session. i guess the availbility of more cheap hire beginner gear would really help thou, i got heaps of friends i would love to intro into the sport, but i just don't have the beginner gear to intro them, and some hire gear is just too expensive :(
Yes to blame it all on Computer games is way too simplistic, and most people have covered the multiple reasons why kids don't take up w/s, and yes Mr Pryde could do something himself!!!!!!
I think the sport is coming back. There's a widespread recognition of the damage that just concentrating on one aspect of the sport (experts in high winds) has done.
Neil Pryde's comment that the gear is too complex is interesting - it sounds like he's finally realised that not everyone wants 50 battens and 15kg of carbon. Sure, that stuff is fantastic but what we need to do is to offer alternatives; simple gear, cruising gear, light wind gear etc.
It's poignant that the machinery and some staff from the original Windsurfer factory in California was sold to kayak builders when windsurfers went "high tech". Now simple cheap heavy poly canoes are selling in their gazillions, while windsurfers are much less popular.
The GPS speed challenge is an excellent idea. We have also got kids sailing at several sailing clubs on longboards. We get up to 16 for races and the kids love it so much that they have to get dragged off the water half the time.
Several of the kids tried Bic Techno 293s, but in light winds (which is what kids normally get since they can't easily get down to the water when it's windy) they are much slower than a longboard despite having much bigger rigs.
Wally's (are) is not a visually exciting part of the sport.
I spent 10 years in the media. Art directors, who are specialists trained in the visually exciting, love bright colourful sails and hate monofilm. That's why you so often see '80s sails in ads for TVs and other things, as people often complain about.
On the typical day in most places, the wind is light so longboards are actually often moving faster. They don't look as exciting in good winds in many ways, but I do notice that they look a lot more accessible. I get many more people asking about windsurfing when I'm sailing my Wallly than I do when I'm on any other sort of board.
When it comes to what is visually exciting, I'll go with the people who earn their living working it out, and they like bright colourful sails and don't give a rat's about how new it is and how fast it planes.
It has been there from the start and has done nothing to improve numbers on the water
Sorry, but when the emphasis was on cheap simple longboards we sold 25,000 boards per year in Australia. That did one hell of a lot to improve numbers on the water.
Yes, that part of the sport faded, largely because manufacturers specifically attacked them in their marketing so that they could create artificial obsolescence. Other dickheads used to call them "goat boats" and the original boards were not easy to sail in strong winds. Now those dickheads are out of the windsurfing business.
I wonder if there's any more active group of windusrfers outside of WA than the main longboard fleet in Sydney, which gets about 30 sailors each Wednesday in summer and 15-20 each Saturday, plus getting out when there's a good wind. That's not bad numbers for one little corner, twice a week.
To prove a point, many schools in Brisbane have a longboard and rig stored away somewhere including the school I went to but they are seldom if ever used.
That doesn't prove the point; many schools and unis have Lasers which are never used but the Laser class is at record levels around the world and in Oz. Many, many, houses also have a shortboard that is never used - that doesn't prove that shortboards are crap.
Many of the old longboards were not all that well designed and most rigs were bad. All you need to get those boards out is someone with a positive attitude and good sails.
I spent more years on slalom, wave and raceboards than on Wallies, but longboards are a vital part of the sport and the kid's programme on Wallies is doing okay. If you can do a better job another way, please do so.
From what I understand Neil Pryde does not own Neil Pryde Sails. I believe NP Sails is owned by a Hong Kong company, the same company that owns JP Australia and Cabrina kites. It probably owns other companies too. So Mr Pryde can't really lease or give gear away to beginners.
Its difficult to say what the future of windsurfing is. Even in places that are windy many people don't like it. For example I once had a holiday to the Colombia River gorge. Most people there could not care less about windsurfing, even though there was great windsurfing on the river.
There is no one answer to getting windsurfing popular. Having cheaper gear is all well and good but if a whole setup cost me $300 but I never use it, then its poor value for money compared to a $3000 setup I use every weekend. Its value for money which is the key. If people are perceiving they are getting good value then they will enjoy it.
Competition is part of the problem and solution. However I feel with formula boards and GPS sailing, competition is much stronger now than it has been for a long time. Now we are able to compete in marginal winds and also compete no matter where you are. This compares well to traditional competetion which used to require at least 15 knots wind and for everyone to be in the same place.
On the east coast of Australia at least, the conditions are not there for windsurfing ever to be much more than a niche sport, unless we can use gear to get our thrills in light winds under 12 knots. However this gear costs a fair bit of cash and takes up a lot of room. Is it good value to spend $5000 on a setup to allow you to get planing and comfortable in winds between 5 and 25 knots?
As Sydney becomes more urbanised, more and more people will live in flats. Flats often do not have the room to store 3 meter boards and huge sails that have a boom lenght of 4 meters. Compare the number of new houses being built now to the number of units, especially around the eastern areas.
So I think part of the solution is for people to be able to store their gear somewhere for a reasonable cost, similar to how they do it in Hong Kong and Singapore.
I work in a school, currently in a non teaching capacity. If I get back into teaching I will definately want to get a sailing program going as part of outdoor education. Windsurfing would be part of it. I am pretty sure it would be popular and there would be a group who would really get keen.
I fully agree with most that's been said, but just to add an opinion a bit right-field, I reckon the actual weather has alot to do with it (stay with me here!).... starting at an older age, I thought it'd be good to get the family to the beach, the missus was for it, so I got a board/rig started going to the beach on a regular basis.....great when starting out...now, I go to the beach alone, because the family (wife, 4yo, 2yo) don't particularly like being sandblasted by 30kt winds, and these are the days when I prefer to be doing nothing BUT w/surfing.
It's a tough one to crack, but comfort-wise windsurfing (speaking about victorian weather mainly) is best done in s___ty weather conditions, when the trees are bending at right angles....most people would prefer to avoid the coastline!
Perhaps on the mild days, when most people want to go to the beach, we should take our big gear, and invite some friends/family to 'have a go'. Instead, the days when there's little wind, the beaches are packed, people sitting on the sand, bored, wanting something to occupy them.....we're all somewhere else, looking for that 20-30kts, or working on substituting these days working for windier days later in the week/month.....
Don't know if there's an answer, but cheaper gear (yes), commercial advertising (yes), easier way of transporting gear (yes), but personally, I think the climate that suits the sport is something that we have no control over, and unless we can encourage people outside and to the beach on those days that WE dream of....I don't think there'll be a large growth of popularity for the sport!
hopefully I'm wrong!
I thought NPs comment regarding Nintendo was tongue in cheek
I means of supporting his argument regarding instant gratification
However, it is difficult to be sure of intending meaning in the context in which it now appears!
If folk go through life and miss out on windsurfing... too bad... I'll have their share
A most entertaining thread. But I still don't see what the urgency is about promoting windsurfing. If everyone quit windsurfing tomorrow (as long as they all didn't buy kites) I would have the water to myself!! I do enjoy the comradery but if the wind picks up and I am the first one out with the whole place to myself it's great. The outcome of windsurfing becoming a hugely popular sport again would make it seem feel the safety bay lagoon on race day. Windsurfing is not a team sport, you don't need 17 other guys with 4 on the interchange to participate! (although if you guys all quit this would be a boring forum)
Couple of comments:
> I would have the water to myself!
That's nice and social, but me not. 3 reasons. First is economical: the more people sail, the less expensive the gear is, and the more choices. Selffish, huh?
Second: I like windsurfing, and I like my fellow peers enjoy something like that. Perhaps it's my altrustic side. I like teaching (hand-picked) newbees once in a while. I charge beer too for it.
Lastly: I've known the era of crowded lakes and clubs and lotsa people, and I've competed in well attended regattas, and it was one hell of a party. That's my social side.
Sometimes I feel asocial and wanna be by myself - water or home. But usually I enjoy company and sharing and lending and borrowing, etc. That's me. Your way is equally respected here, mate. Tell me where you sail and I won't go ;-)
> Longboards the answer
Donno if Chris said that, and I wouldn't share if he did. However at the other extreme, at least 90% of the guys I've seen teaching in the last 15 years have done it on too short boards, failing pretty much all the time. One wonders if they really wanted the newbee to learn, he? (Sometimes their own GF...)
Larger or wider gear and better conditions are required to teach, else don't bother. That's why by the way teaching used to have at least a 95% success rate in the 80s: everyone that would pick it up would learn. That's why it was so crowded.
Once people learn, they can choose the short-only gear, mixed gear, "I'm too good for below-20 knots" approach, quiver equipment, matching bathing suit and sail colour, whatever.
But larger gear of sorts must be used for teaching.
For those who decide he/she doesn't wanna sail alone all the time.
