Is Windsurfing Still in Decline

Out of interest Greeny, how many beginners; that aren't sons and daughters of existing customers; or aren't revisiting their youth; come through your doors wanting to buy their very first board and rig? For these guys, what's their expectations of budget required to get a beginner board with a basic rig?

Just imagine that there was footy, cricket, bike riding, boy scouts, girl guides and shortboards at the points...far canal and it sort of became almost mainstream in the eighties but never really got media attention....imagine Fred Hayward riding the biggest wave in the world today at Hookipa and the worlds media being uninterested

Last weekend here in the U.S. was what we call "Labor Day" weekend, which amounts to a 3 day weekend. Where I windsurf on the coast of central California, it's usually only us locals, between 5 and 10, depending on who shows up. Last weekend we had 21 windsurfers out there on the water, with us regulars standing there wondering who let the dogs out? It was crowded, hard to find a place to park, and a place to rig up, most were from out of the area. So part of me really does wish it was really dying, we have been getting very spoiled not having to share the waves with anyone.
Shrinking, yes, dying, definitely not.

No worries about collisions in Edinburgh - I don't think its in decline its been pretty stable for a while here although we could definitely do with new blood as some of us will start to die of old age

When the gales arrive everyone comes out of the woodwork

I do think its going through a transition into an established sport. When I started out everyone was the same age there is more variety now. And windsurfing IS the best sport in the world. But I look at sailing in boats and I just think wow imagine I was a moth sailor or something if I was lucky I might get to sail with someone once a decade.

A look at Google search volume for the keyword "windsurfing" from 2004 - present day. Ouch.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=windsurfing

(or maybe we all know how to do it, so we don't look it up online as much anymore?).

Belly, you're dead right that we should all enjoy the stoke. With respect, what you're missing is that 360's attitude is exactly the opposite. He throws hate, contempt and insults at anyone who dares to like boards he dislikes. He will walk up to you on the beach and sling **** at your gear - he's done it to me just because I happen to sail lots of different types of craft and couldn't be bothered buying new wave gear because I don't use it often enough. He throws abuse at those who dare to have a different stoke, or a bunch of different stokes.

Kids don't actually all have an insatiable need for dopamine hits. Kids actually like to be sociable and to have laid back fun. Most kids don't do extreme sports. Smart, highly trained, highly motivated people have been finding out what kids really like for years, and most of them aren't actually into extreme stuff. Just look at what really kids do. They play soccer and similar games. Only a minority surf or do "extreme" sports. More kids sail Optis and Laser 4.7s than freestyle or shortboards. If kids were into extreme sailing, that wouldn't be true.

It's not "inevitable that people will gravitate towards latest designs and technologies". Most sailors don't sail foilers, catamarans or canting keel yachts. Almost no cyclists ride streamlined recumbent bicycles despite the fact that they are much faster than a normal road bike.

People do move to gear that allows "easier access", but you don't get easier access by sailing boards that only really work on the minority of the time and places where you get medium to strong winds. And finally, the "greater rewards" are completely relative, subjective and personal. Put me back on a slalom board and I'm bored ****less within 30 minutes most of the time although I may be going twice as fast. When I've done foiling I haven't felt the rewards were greater - just different. Other people love slalom and foiling and good on them, but the point is that different people have different ways of experiencing "greater rewards".

With respect you're wrong about the claim that windsurfing is the only sport that promotes vintage classes. Sailing promotes classes like the Opti (a 1947 design, I think), the Flying 11 (designed about 1965), the Cadet (also 1947), the Laser (1969-ish) as well as the more modern but low-tech Bic. Cycling, the most popular gear-intensive sport, promotes what is basically a 1934 design in essence. Windsurfing has been promoting new gear for years and the sport in Australia has declined dramatically.

What kids look at has very little to do with what they actually get into. Sure, kids may look at a quick bit of kit. Kids looked at me when I was on a Div 2 board in 1983 - the class died. Kids looked at me on a raceboard in 1985 - the class crashed in numbers. When I sailed my International Canoe, kids love it - but none of them sail them. The kids love our fast racing cats - but almost no kids actually sail them. Kids look at me and you when we get on shortboards - the sport is now about 5% as big as it used to be. The lesson is that we can't learn much from what kids just LOOK at. We need to learn from what they DO, and the sailing they normally do is not extreme.

The big issue that no one seems to really address (and by 'really address', I mean by showing anything other than personal opinion) is why, if the "extreme shortboarding" way was the best way for windsurfing, it is now about 1/20th as big as it used to be. We have been trying that way for 30 years, and it hasn't worked. Why believe it will suddenly start working now?

Belly, I've had kids of my own for most of the last 30 years. One of them is a massive gamer, another worked for Google and then moved into robotics and now another job in Silicon Valley. My wife and I ran a successful University windsurfing club a few years back. I also sail the most popular youth class in the world (Laser Radial) and was studying a PhD in technology and its effect on sports participation. You can't call that being naive about kids!

As already noted, in sailing most people DON'T gravitate to new stuff. Thousands of people DO basically go to the shops every year and say "please sell me 1940s, 1960s or 1970s version of this product (Optimist, Laser, Hobie 16) I prefer old school technologies". It's the same in other sports. In surfing, lots of people sail mals. The standard road bike is designed to a rules created in 1935 and tightened since then in the Lugarno Charter etc. Old games like cricket, running and football are still enormously popular.

None of us have ever tried to stop anyone shortboarding. The mainstays of the Windsurfer One Design class over the past decade or so have sailed shortboards to World Cup and world championship level (and victories), they've boardsurfed on the national master's team, they've won the 18 Foot Skiffs and sailed high performance boats and boards - we're not ignorant of shortboarding and high performance. When I first kicked off the Junior One Design, the written concept specifically included getting kids into shortboarding, and I lent out my own shortboards to the kids.

When there were some of us promoting the juniors in One Design we had a fleet comparable in size to that of the Techno. The Windsurfer Class Association is not putting down the Techno, Sup-sailing, slalom, foiling, waves, or anything else to do with windsurfing - they are all fantastic. All we are asking for is to basically be allowed to do our own thing without people telling us we don't know what we are doing.

One thing that's really interesting, if you actually research participation factors, is that the experts these days are computer game designers and they DON'T diss old games - in fact that respect them and try to learn why Chess, Go and similar games have lasted so well. They don't have a negative attitude towards old stuff, and they are booming while we are shrinking. If they are doing better than us than surely we should learn from them!

The other thing is that most modern windsurfers are actually a lot slower in light and fluky winds than the old boards, so in some ways windsurfing has gone backwards. An RSX, Formula board or Techno is slower most days in the places many of us sail. If high performance is good, why should some of us go slower most of the time?

Sure, lots of people sail in places and at time when shortboards are faster. Cool - go and have fun. Please just don't sling **** at the way we have fun.

Just had a Weekend Comp and gathering at our home spot with 30/40 other sailors. It was a change from the week before's event at Jervis Bay with 8 sailors.
The sport is still in decline and without direction from our TWO governing bodies, AWA and YA.
Despite this we put through 10/20 kids and a few adults in a 2 hr Come n Try session. Ran a bit of fun racing on the Saturday with wave\freestyle against slalom boards. Great fun , but there was no great appetite for serious racing . Bit crowded on the water with all the sails .
As I have said in this thread unless we fix the issue of having a divided sport then it's dead as WV is in Victoria