Is Windsurfing Still in Decline

Check this thread on Seabreeze from 2 weeks a go, a typical Saturday Morning session at RQYS.

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Queensland/Windsurfing-at-RQYS?page=1#4

There is actually 3 seperate programs all going on at once
Learn to Windsurf Course Level 1
Club Windsurfing (Free) Progression sessions where people come to socialise and progress with support, tips and advice from more advanced sailors
Advanced Coaching for the racing squad on techno, RSX and Raceboards

We run them all together so the learners can see where to next when their 5 week course is finished

Club Racing then happens in the afternoon with 2 Races

Sailquik your are correct when you said its the smiles that count.

I will post some pic from our "Discover Windsurfing" day next weekend

Lucky we all go windsurfing for fun hey

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Rob11 said..

kato said.


Never seen a Techno, sailed a RSX for a bit and a saw the Q Nats at Burrum a few yrs ago. There were 6 wallys on the water competing. The RSXs were so successful down here there still sitting in storage. Make an offer. Nice board but the rigs were horrible.
No racing anywhere in Vic or Sa but lots of sailing for fun.
And yes we do see good numbers for the come and try days but how many continue after???
Good luck pushing a broken structure without any long term planning or objectives.

+1, well said.
Cant see any future knowing the age group of these different classes.

I think debating this stuff is really good, it raises awareness, shares idea's, gets passion's going etc. Whilst all opinions are valid it would be good to back them up with some sort of evidence or logic.

Why would you see a problem with different age groups sailing together, I think the opposite. I think its great. 5 years ago at the 2013 Down Under Pro my then 15yo son did a Techno Nationals and then straight after competed in the Formula National's I remember watching him walk down the beach having a conversation with the oldest guy in the fleet. The youngest and oldest in the fleet, over 50years between them finding friendship in a common interest. The friendship between them still exist's and they catch up every year at different events.

This year at the Formula Nationals a group of the techno kids, having just completed their Nationals entered into the Formula Nationals and competed with all the adults, it was fantastic, a whole new generation of windsurfers are joining the fun and racing.

How can you not see any future in that, they are the future, did you look at the photo's from the RQ thread I posted, did you see the instructors in the red shirts, they were racing techno's a few years ago now they are stepping up as leader's in the sport, organising events, organising courses and programs.

The future of this sport is with the kids not the blokes wearing "Old Guys Rule" t-shirts

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sailquik said..

cammd said..
The future of this sport is with the kids not the blokes wearing "Old Guys Rule" t-shirts

Maybe? I sure hope so, but I have seen no evidence of that in the many years I have been watching it. Kids don't have money to spend on expensive gear and they change to other activities as they get past the teen years and the Mums and Dad's sponsorship dries up. Seen it happen with almost every Kid around here in the last 30 years.

Surprisingly, the growth in the sport is actually seems to be coming from the middle aged to older guys and girls who are getting back into it, or having another try at it. They have the freedom and money to invest in it, and the attitudes of the past to activity. On the plus side, perhaps some of these kids in the OD programs will eventually come back to windsurfing in 10-20 years time after 95%+ of them inevitably give up on organised racing in a couple of years.

Every sport has that problem, people drop out as they get older and get busy with other stuff. The only solution is to keep feeding new blood in at the junior level. AFl knows it, NRL knows it, Cricket knows it. They all spend significant resources on junior programs,

Windsurfing is no different, at RQYS they put through approx. 1000 kids a year through tackers to get hopefully 50 to stick and start dingy sailing as a sport, by the time they get to their late teens probably 5% of that 50 are still sailing competitively. We don't put a 1000 through windsurfing but we probably get the same 5% stick result.

Its a numbers game for all sports, the important thing is to have the mechanism to keep feeding the sport. In our little course racing part of the windsurfing world we tried to create that mechanism. I encourage other clubs and other disciplines to do the same, without it the sport will inevitably decline.

The Discover Windsurfing session at RQYS today saw 104 participants have a go at windsurfing over a 4 hour period.

A big turnout of interested people, usually discover sailing days at the club attract approx 50 people. The session today was by far the biggest "Discover Sailing" day and it was all windsurfing

Hard to see it all at once but three simulators working flat our and not sure how many boards at once on the water but approx 25 rigged for learners.

www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/Queensland/Discover-Windsurfing-day-RQYS?page=1#4

Been following this thread. Heres my 2c. Im on board with Cammd, we need to promote our sport to the young. I sailed my teen years 1985 thru to 1990. Drifted away from the sport. Returned late 2016 to find the sport had changed. Kicking myself i ever quit this awesome sport. Where i sail im one of the youngest. Seems the majority of interest is with middle aged guys. Disposable income is a HUGE restrictor to the sport. All the latest gear is expensive. Kids dont have that income. So they may not take up sailing again until later in life. But the point is, once youve windsurfed at a competent level eg planing gybing tacking youve been bitten by a bug that will never let you see or hear the wind without knowing you MUST be part of it. There are so many different specialized facets to windsurfing that ALL need promoting.The reintroduction of the Wally may just take it to the masses again. A CRUISEY cost effective easy to ride FUN board. Most people baulk when i say im cranking my Raceboard at 48kmh let alone blastin along at 80kmh. For many top speed isnt the winning drawcard. Dunno what's wrong with em??!! But we have to cater for the average ability sailor. The FUNBOARD is what grew the sport in its early days. We have LOST that type of board. To be replaced by the poorer cousin Wind SUP??
Finally, i do see the sport increasing in participants. If only from the 6 people ive introduced to the sport in the last year of sailing. If we all actively promote our own facet of windsurfing itll be fine. Bcoz its that UNIQUE feeling of flying across the water that REALLY is the "FIX" that hooks you for life. So go on guys SHARE the buzz around. Addict someone else. At a grassroots level it can happen.

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kato said..
Spent some time involved with Auskick, Cricket and Basketball and there uptake is much better than windsurfing. A lot more money goes into these programs and its structured , well planned and resources. BUT don't compare us with them because it's apples n oranges. Most of the above sports players might get to play into their 30s then retire never to return to the sport that they love ??
Windsurfing .... we get a chance of having a 60 yr run at a sport that we love. So saying that we need youth to ensure that our sport survives is very short sighted. Most youth have limited,money, no car. Don't discount the middle aged who may be cashed up, have a car and are looking for that physical challenge that the establishment sports can no longer offer. They still can have a 30 yr career despite a later start

I would agree with all of that, except for the part about being shortsighted, the programs at RQ were set up in the beginning to create a feeder for the techno class that would then flow onto RSX and the other classes.

From the beginning we have had interest from of all ages male and female, kids and adults and many of the mature people we have trained have continued on. Check the photos from yesterday more adults than kids came. We don't discriminate, they are all welcome.

Whilst many of the adults we have trained continue to come and sail and be a part of the club its the kids that take up the competitive side more readily and get into the racing. That just an observation, it is neither here nor there, RQ is a racing focused club but it caters for many different forms of sailing. Participation and recreational sailing is equally important and in that respect windsurfing could be said to be leading the way.

Back to the original comments that I disagreed with about racing contributing little to the sport I think there is plenty of evidence both here and overseas that organised racing is a big part of the sport and a part that actively promotes and brings new people.

Agree, Jeff has had a few guys come up and sail Sandstone that he has met at the RQ sailing programs and they weren't juniors, they were adults who wanted to learn to sail and they could afford good equipment.

Cost and versatility are the biggest factor for families, especially if there's the chance that you could spend a heap of the family savings on a board and then the family doesn't use it, it's a very risky purchase because you will lose money if this happens. This is where the humble windSUP is marketing gold, it is the true multi purpose water toy and lowers the risk of not being used, simply because it can be used for more activities by more people. Sure Olskool, it's the poor cousin if you compare it to a dedicated windsurf board in terms of pure performance. But selling performance at a price premium to families has been shown to be a failure (ie the modern shortboard). The plan has to be to attract families to windsurfing with a low cost, mass production, multi purpose board that does everything ok (sailing, flat water SUP, surf SUP) at a compromise to performance for all of these uses. Then we want them to get hooked. Maybe they will have to buy another of these cheap boards because everyone's fighting over it because it's so much fun. Maybe they have to buy the wife a dedicated SUP because she hated sailing but loved paddling; maybe you have to buy yourself a better windsurfing board because that's what you've got hooked on. Can you see that the key is not about performance when you want to sell to the mainstream, it's about entry level price point and ease of learning with a view to progression. Progression is where the industry makes money and gets a return because people are willing to pay for performance.

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sailquik said..

cammd said..
The future of this sport is with the kids not the blokes wearing "Old Guys Rule" t-shirts

Maybe? I sure hope so, but I have seen no evidence of that in the many years I have been watching it. Kids don't have money to spend on expensive gear and they change to other activities as they get past the teen years and the Mums and Dad's 'sponsorship' dries up. Seen it happen with almost every Kid around here in the last 30 years.

Surprisingly, the 'growth', or at least the survival of the sport is actually seems to be coming from the middle aged to older guys and girls who are getting back into it, or having another try at it. They have the freedom, time and money to invest in it, and perhaps some of the attitudes of the past to to value and enjoyment of physical activity. On the plus side, perhaps some of these kids in the OD programs will eventually come back to windsurfing in 10-20 years time after 95-99% of them inevitably give up on organised racing in a couple of years..

My experience with getting used gear as a young learner have been fine so far, you can find great deals on used gear on gumtree if you know where to look, does require a bit of patience and luck though, is possible. Hoping me and my mates stick with it. Though do agree that community engagement is key RQ is doing great stuff.

Everyone is pretty much spot on. What RQ are doing is fantastic and essential. Amazing participation numbers.
And Paddle's just described the perfect board as the new Wally LT, but you can also add cheap, affordable one design racing for all ages, weights and ability's to that. I've always thought the SUP explosion has added a little, with SUP sellers now having learners rig's as "add-on sales".
All these thing's together add up to "more sails on the water". It needs to be seen by people. It would be great if we could bring the audience closer to event's, or other way around, but we all know how hard that is to do. In my experience lately, there are more enquiries for lesson's
in the areas most populated with windsurfers. I've found this the case at our dramatically expanded Sandstone population. Also Caloundra, and Jinxy said he's had more lesson's this year too.
When people see people having fun. They want to do it too. It has to be affordable though.

Great to see so many kids and adults showing an interest and having a go! Fantastic! Well done Queenslanders. Will have to organise a few of these early next Summer all round Australia. Maybe one day we can start a State of Origin windsurfing comp!

Brilliant stuff, Cammd!

It seems to me that in the past, stakeholders in the sport of windsurfing naturally stood to gain by carving up the market. The more equipment a manufacturer offered, the more potential sales, with the extreme edge of the sport used to market a whole product line. The result was that the sport became associated with that extreme, and so not only alienated those windsurfers who weren't jumping waves in Hawaii, but also failed to attract new participants who would never consider doing so. In it's infancy, windsurfing was a form of sailing for the everyman - but with no snobbery, no bull****. It's great that it became something else too - or many things, with wave sailing, freestyle, now foiling, etc. - but it adopted the snobbery and bull**** pretty quickly. There's plenty of that on display in this thread.
The Windsurfer LT looks great. Someone pointed out that the sport needs a funboard - I think that is just what this is. How it will compare to the Kona One (definitely a funboard) will be interesting, but at first blush it seems cleaner (will be interested in it's top speed, very impressed with Kona in that regard, thought this board will almost certainly trounce the Kona sub-planing). I know shorter/wider still has its promoters, but a BIC Techno will never be comparatively fun when the wind is light (most places in the world). Aspect ratio for a gliding board is critical, just no getting around it.
Why do people care if it can be used for SUP-ing? This is some of that same snobbery. I have a Mistral Pacifico (among many longboards) - one of the very first production SUP boards. It's brilliant for flat water paddling, and brilliant as a windsurfer - because it has almost no rocker (NO tail rocker). SUP boards that are designed for wave surfing make poor windsurfers, sure - but rocker in a SUP is a severe handicap in the flat water where, what, 90% of SUPers spend their time?
So yes, for it's lost broad appeal, windsurfing has to go back to the future, in a way. Looks like could be where it's headed, finally.

Just got back from a couple of fun windsurfing events in the US. The Nationals last week had more than 50 competitors and was tons of fun, but the event was dwarfed by the OBX-Wind long distance race the week before with more than 200 racers, plus freestyle and slalom competitions. Here's an event video:

Looks like it is the best selling board this year anyway.

It doesn't matter what kit you are using as long as you are having fun