riders.dk/2019/07/10/storhed-og-fald-for-windsurfing/

(apology if this has been posted before)

The problem is that longboarding in 10kts = fun, while short boarding in 25kts = fun x 20.

That link takes us to a long read and of course it's meant to be academic. I'm not sure you can apply academic views to windsurfing or to people behaviour with much success.

But the thing is that many of us here have been windsurfing a long time and that means we know what we like and we may also be stuck on our ways or else we might look on the past with nostalgia. We might also appreciate the gradual gear changes - mostly improvments - that have moved along with us

I can only speak for myself, and I think that old style longboards still have their place - flat water, lighter winds, simple rigging, stability for beginners etc. But I also know what fun shortboards offer across a range of specialist uses - and I have a load of them, matched with different sail sizes. I could pick just one of those hi-tech shortboards and it would still be a better option for me and for the local conditions we get here than any longboard.

The longboard HAS returned to our beaches but in the more adaptable guise of an SUP. The SUP works for a plaything on hot summer days, then to paddle about on flat water, or to catch waves with if you are good enough. If the wind picks up a bit then we can stick a sail on it. Some are even now adding a foil to theirs, again for light wind use.

But when the wind blows, we are back on short boards.

it's also worth looking at consumer spending on leisure products in terms of fashion and trends. Foiling is the thing now, and SUPs boomed before that. Before that it was kiting that was new.
There's now room for all of these sports, and it's naive to think we'll ever go back to the days of mass sales for basic longboards. When the original windsurfer came out it was a new and unique thing that had no real competition as a beach toy.

Did evolutionary dynamics ruin windsurfing? Not for me.

Thanks for the interesting post, provides some perspective to what I've seen over 35 yrs in the sport.

Joseph Schumpeter seem like an interesting bloke too - Schumpeter claimed that he had set himself three goals in life:
- to be the greatest economist in the world
- to be the best horseman in all of Austria
- and the greatest lover in all of Vienna.
He said he had reached two of his goals, but he never said which two, although he is reported to have said that there were too many fine horsemen in Austria for him to succeed in all his aspirations.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

Also didn't know 'Rodeo Kayaking' was a thing, and Mistral was a molder of plastic buckets, bins and brooms before it became a manufacturer of sailboards!

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Schumpeterian competition ....LOL

1 Windsurfing was the cat meme of its day.
2 For a brief period all you had to do was buy a windsurfer to be part of the meme regardless your like or dislike of cats.
3 Having been part of the meme once most people didn't feel the need to repeat except those that really loved windsurfing ...
4..all the producers of cat memes and windsurfer wish more people needed cat memes and windsurfers more.
5 people who like windsurfers and cats don't really care about popularity that much.
6 Expecting my PHD in the post any day.


Everything sounds more academic in Danish.....





Schumpeterian konkurrence ...... ..LOL
1 Windsurfing var katten meme af sin dag.
2 I en kort periode var alt hvad du skulle g?re, k?be en windsurfer til at v?re en del af meme, uanset om du kan lide eller ikke lide katte.
3 Efter at have v?ret en del af meme, havde de fleste mennesker ikke behov for at gentage, undtagen dem, der virkelig elskede windsurfing ... . 4 .. alle producenter af kattemembraner og windsurfer ?nsker flere mennesker brug for cat memes og windsurfere mere.
5 personer, der kan lide windsurfere og katte, bryr sig ikke rigtig meget om popularitet s? meget.
6 Forventer min PHD i stillingen nogen dag.

Interesting article, thanks for posting. Some if this rings true; for many years, having a large board or large sail was totally uncool, and standing on the beach complaining about "no wind" was the "better" thing to do.

It will be interesting how this plays out in windfoiling. It almost seems to be going the opposite way, with very expensive gear that required high skills initially, and cheaper gear that's more suitable for beginners coming later. Although at one PWA foil event, they already talked about how slalom-courses would be more interesting to watch, but require completely different gear... here we go again?

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Shifu said..
The problem is that longboarding in 10kts = fun, while short boarding in 25kts = fun x 20.

Well, that's personal. The other side of the equation is the hassle factor. So one form of sailing can be high in fun but even higher in hassle, whereas another may be lower in fun but very low in hassle. It's just down to personal taste.

For example, I get frustrated or bored on a shortboard in 10 knots, frustrated waiting for 25 knots, and a bit bored on a shortboard in 25 knots. On a longboard I'm happy in just about anything and never frustrated. To each their own.

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Basher said..
That link takes us to a long read and of course it's meant to be academic. I'm not sure you can apply academic views to windsurfing or to people behaviour with much success.

But the thing is that many of us here have been windsurfing a long time and that means we know what we like and we may also be stuck on our ways or else we might look on the past with nostalgia. We might also appreciate the gradual gear changes - mostly improvments - that have moved along with us

I can only speak for myself, and I think that old style longboards still have their place - flat water, lighter winds, simple rigging, stability for beginners etc. But I also know what fun shortboards offer across a range of specialist uses - and I have a load of them, matched with different sail sizes. I could pick just one of those hi-tech shortboards and it would still be a better option for me and for the local conditions we get here than any longboard.

The longboard HAS returned to our beaches but in the more adaptable guise of an SUP. The SUP works for a plaything on hot summer days, then to paddle about on flat water, or to catch waves with if you are good enough. If the wind picks up a bit then we can stick a sail on it. Some are even now adding a foil to theirs, again for light wind use.

But when the wind blows, we are back on short boards.

it's also worth looking at consumer spending on leisure products in terms of fashion and trends. Foiling is the thing now, and SUPs boomed before that. Before that it was kiting that was new.
There's now room for all of these sports, and it's naive to think we'll ever go back to the days of mass sales for basic longboards. When the original windsurfer came out it was a new and unique thing that had no real competition as a beach toy.

Did evolutionary dynamics ruin windsurfing? Not for me.

Actually, there's a huge amount of work that has gone into researching "people behaviour" with enormous success. Ask the guys who create ads or poker machines. Social pyschologists, economists etc are not all morons, y'know. They haven't actually spent their entire working life on something that does not exist, nor do successful companies pay vast amounts to use the knowledge that has been gained into "people behaviour" for no reason.

The fact that SUP has been such a success proves that (1) longboards are not logistically impractical as some people used to claim and (2) the market is not so crowded as to prevent a new or revived form of board coming along and thriving and (3) most people aren't that much into going fast. The Malibu surfboard proved some of the same things earlier. Its revival took place during a time when there was more competition for "beach toys" than ever before and yet the Mal exploded in popularity. Same with kiting - the presence of an increasing number of beach sports did not prevent it from becoming popular. There are many examples that indicate that the leisure marketplace doesn't suffer that much from overcrowding. Windsurfing itself boomed about the same time as MTB and squash. There are always other sports coming and going. This isn't even a new trend - the massive "dinghy boom" of the 1950s and 60s occurred about the same time as the rise in leisure driving. Decades before that, the first boom in small boat sailing occurred at about the same time as the huge boom in early cycling. There seems to be no real evidence for the "overcrowded market" theory.

As someone who was active in defending longboards in the times when some idiots went so far as to threaten violence against anyone who sailed a longboard or a hybrid, and who was told many times that longboards were dead, it's interesting to note that the WIndsurfer LT is now allegedly the world's top selling windsurfer. It's nice to have been proven right so effectively. :-)

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boardsurfr said..
Interesting article, thanks for posting. Some if this rings true; for many years, having a large board or large sail was totally uncool, and standing on the beach complaining about "no wind" was the "better" thing to do.

It will be interesting how this plays out in windfoiling. It almost seems to be going the opposite way, with very expensive gear that required high skills initially, and cheaper gear that's more suitable for beginners coming later. Although at one PWA foil event, they already talked about how slalom-courses would be more interesting to watch, but require completely different gear... here we go again?

Yes, it's interesting to see that foil fans can now see the good side of some parts of the sport that they formerly ignored. Plenty of people used to say that you just shouldn't both sailing in light winds, and plenty of them just reached around and ignored the fact that being able to point high or go low gave an extra dimension to the sport. Now, light winds and going upwind are being promoted by some almost as if they were something wonderful no one could do before.

It reminds me of the way people used to say that no one would be interested in a sport that involved long boards and light winds. SUPping proved that was as wrong as could be.

None of the above is an attack on foiling, which is a great part of the sport. It's more about the way that we can look at things in a different light, and see the good points of things that were once derided.

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Chris249 said..

boardsurfr said..
Interesting article, thanks for posting. Some if this rings true; for many years, having a large board or large sail was totally uncool, and standing on the beach complaining about "no wind" was the "better" thing to do.

It will be interesting how this plays out in windfoiling. It almost seems to be going the opposite way, with very expensive gear that required high skills initially, and cheaper gear that's more suitable for beginners coming later. Although at one PWA foil event, they already talked about how slalom-courses would be more interesting to watch, but require completely different gear... here we go again?

Yes, it's interesting to see that foil fans can now see the good side of some parts of the sport that they formerly ignored. Plenty of people used to say that you just shouldn't both sailing in light winds, and plenty of them just reached around and ignored the fact that being able to point high or go low gave an extra dimension to the sport. Now, light winds and going upwind are being promoted by some almost as if they were something wonderful no one could do before.

It reminds me of the way people used to say that no one would be interested in a sport that involved long boards and light winds. SUPping proved that was as wrong as could be.

None of the above is an attack on foiling, which is a great part of the sport. It's more about the way that we can look at things in a different light, and see the good points of things that were once derided.

We didn't ignore it. It's just that I can do the same thing with a 6.5 that formerly required a 9.5. Eliminating the need for a $1200 rig I think is a pretty big deal. The guys foiling 4.5s and 5.5s in the ocean are riding stuff that was almost impossible to access before.

It's amazing how we bond with some equipment and not with other gear. I guess that's something to do with what suits our local sailing conditions.
But once you're hooked, you're like a pop fan, and you react strongly when someone questions your choices.

Me, I don't really care what other people sail - just like I don't mind what music others choose to listen to.

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Basher said..
That link takes us to a long read and of course it's meant to be academic. I'm not sure you can apply academic views to windsurfing or to people behaviour with much success.

But the thing is that many of us here have been windsurfing a long time and that means we know what we like and we may also be stuck on our ways or else we might look on the past with nostalgia. We might also appreciate the gradual gear changes - mostly improvments - that have moved along with us

I can only speak for myself, and I think that old style longboards still have their place - flat water, lighter winds, simple rigging, stability for beginners etc. But I also know what fun shortboards offer across a range of specialist uses - and I have a load of them, matched with different sail sizes. I could pick just one of those hi-tech shortboards and it would still be a better option for me and for the local conditions we get here than any longboard.

The longboard HAS returned to our beaches but in the more adaptable guise of an SUP. The SUP works for a plaything on hot summer days, then to paddle about on flat water, or to catch waves with if you are good enough. If the wind picks up a bit then we can stick a sail on it. Some are even now adding a foil to theirs, again for light wind use.

But when the wind blows, we are back on short boards.

it's also worth looking at consumer spending on leisure products in terms of fashion and trends. Foiling is the thing now, and SUPs boomed before that. Before that it was kiting that was new.
There's now room for all of these sports, and it's naive to think we'll ever go back to the days of mass sales for basic longboards. When the original windsurfer came out it was a new and unique thing that had no real competition as a beach toy.

Did evolutionary dynamics ruin windsurfing? Not for me.

well written

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Basher said..
That link takes us to a long read and of course it's meant to be academic. I'm not sure you can apply academic views to windsurfing or to people behaviour with much success.

But the thing is that many of us here have been windsurfing a long time and that means we know what we like and we may also be stuck on our ways or else we might look on the past with nostalgia. We might also appreciate the gradual gear changes - mostly improvments - that have moved along with us

I can only speak for myself, and I think that old style longboards still have their place - flat water, lighter winds, simple rigging, stability for beginners etc. But I also know what fun shortboards offer across a range of specialist uses - and I have a load of them, matched with different sail sizes. I could pick just one of those hi-tech shortboards and it would still be a better option for me and for the local conditions we get here than any longboard.

The longboard HAS returned to our beaches but in the more adaptable guise of an SUP. The SUP works for a plaything on hot summer days, then to paddle about on flat water, or to catch waves with if you are good enough. If the wind picks up a bit then we can stick a sail on it. Some are even now adding a foil to theirs, again for light wind use.

But when the wind blows, we are back on short boards.

it's also worth looking at consumer spending on leisure products in terms of fashion and trends. Foiling is the thing now, and SUPs boomed before that. Before that it was kiting that was new.
There's now room for all of these sports, and it's naive to think we'll ever go back to the days of mass sales for basic longboards. When the original windsurfer came out it was a new and unique thing that had no real competition as a beach toy.

Did evolutionary dynamics ruin windsurfing? Not for me.

What he said.

The evolution of the foil is is being touted by many as the salivation of windsurfing.( I didn't bring it up first on this here thread) I have yet to have any urge to try.
The best thing for me is that a Foiling section exists here.

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forceten said..
The evolution of the foil is is being touted by many as the salivation of windsurfing.( I didn't bring it up first on this here thread) I have yet to have any urge to try.
The best thing for me is that a Foiling section exists here.

Im really liking the foiling, but i don't know that i'd call it a saviour. its more or less another outlet, a new different skill set to learn, and a brand new way to end up in hospital.

You've really gotta have some background in normal windsurfing before foiling. Formula perhaps delivered the same thing as foil racing from a realistic point of view. Similar angles and speeds. Same but different. Keen to try Azymuths style of foilng next. Downwind cruisey cruisin'

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Subsonic said..

forceten said..
The evolution of the foil is is being touted by many as the salivation of windsurfing.( I didn't bring it up first on this here thread) I have yet to have any urge to try.
The best thing for me is that a Foiling section exists here.

Im really liking the foiling, but i don't know that i'd call it a saviour. its more or less another outlet, a new different skill set to learn, and a brand new way to end up in hospital.

You've really gotta have some background in normal windsurfing before foiling. Formula perhaps delivered the same thing as foil racing from a realistic point of view. Similar angles and speeds. Same but different. Keen to try Azymuths style of foilng next. Downwind cruisey cruisin'

Thank you for a very civil response.
my outlet is a Windsup, I find it relaxing to just glide around without expecting planing, and on those occasions that the wind is up, my Sea Lion is gobs of fun. Each their own.

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Basher said..
It's amazing how we bond with some equipment and not with other gear. I guess that's something to do with what suits our local sailing conditions.
But once you're hooked, you're like a pop fan, and you react strongly when someone questions your choices.

Me, I don't really care what other people sail - just like I don't mind what music others choose to listen to.

On the other hand, there are those of us who sail just about everything, like just about everything, and can't understand it when people cannot respect the fact that everyone has their own preference.

I must admit, I find it hard to discuss things with someone who can state " I'm not sure you can apply academic views to windsurfing or to people behaviour with much success." That is an absolutely weird claim. There are hundreds of thousands of people, many of them highly intelligent, working in fields that DO apply academic views to people behaviour with success. These fields include psychiatry, sports administration, psychology, marketing, sociology, business, anthropology, and history. They include people who study how to keep people addicted to gambling, how to help cure addictions, how to create advertisements that work, and why sports have grown or declined.

To effectively say that these people are not successfully applying academic views to human behaviour is simply not true. It is effectively saying that you know more than all of them do, and all of those who pay them or listen to them. Such a claim is bizarre. Wouldn't it be more logical and sensible to say "there are hundreds of thousands of highly intelligent people working in these fields, they have spent a vast amount of time learning what motivates people, and therefore I could respect them and try to learn from them"?

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Paducah said..

Chris249 said..

boardsurfr said..
Interesting article, thanks for posting. Some if this rings true; for many years, having a large board or large sail was totally uncool, and standing on the beach complaining about "no wind" was the "better" thing to do.

It will be interesting how this plays out in windfoiling. It almost seems to be going the opposite way, with very expensive gear that required high skills initially, and cheaper gear that's more suitable for beginners coming later. Although at one PWA foil event, they already talked about how slalom-courses would be more interesting to watch, but require completely different gear... here we go again?

Yes, it's interesting to see that foil fans can now see the good side of some parts of the sport that they formerly ignored. Plenty of people used to say that you just shouldn't both sailing in light winds, and plenty of them just reached around and ignored the fact that being able to point high or go low gave an extra dimension to the sport. Now, light winds and going upwind are being promoted by some almost as if they were something wonderful no one could do before.

It reminds me of the way people used to say that no one would be interested in a sport that involved long boards and light winds. SUPping proved that was as wrong as could be.

None of the above is an attack on foiling, which is a great part of the sport. It's more about the way that we can look at things in a different light, and see the good points of things that were once derided.

We didn't ignore it. It's just that I can do the same thing with a 6.5 that formerly required a 9.5. Eliminating the need for a $1200 rig I think is a pretty big deal. The guys foiling 4.5s and 5.5s in the ocean are riding stuff that was almost impossible to access before.

I didn't say that everyone who now sails foils ignored, for example, light winds and upwind sailing. It's apparent from some things that have been written that some of them did.

I just like sailing. Don't care if the board is long or short as long as I get wet. Not interested in the up wind/ down wind racing that some think will save the sport.

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Chris249 said..

I didn't say that everyone who now sails foils ignored, for example, light winds and upwind sailing. It's apparent from some things that have been written that some of them did.

Chris249 had previously said..

"Yes, it's interesting to see that foil fans can now see the good side of some parts of the sport that they formerly ignored. Plenty of people used to say that you just shouldn't both sailing in light winds, and plenty of them just reached around and ignored the fact that being able to point high or go low gave an extra dimension to the sport. Now, light winds and going upwind are being promoted by some almost as if they were something wonderful no one could do before."

o_0

How were we "foil fans" supposed to read that? You painted with quite a broad brush - typically your comments are more measured. Many early adapters came from an upwind/downwind background or experience (Formula, RX:X, longboards, etc). Where do you think we got all those wide boards to start on?)

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Subsonic said..
Keen to try Azymuths style of foilng next. Downwind cruisey cruisin'

I'd encourage everyone to try foiling downwind carving the wind-swells.
There's a bunch of us out there frothing - Simon, Jesper, Peter, Jonah, Mark and Lao and Jamie when they're in town.

A subset of a subset of windsurfing for sure, but I reckon a new experience in our sport - and awesome fun

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Paducah said..

Chris249 said..

I didn't say that everyone who now sails foils ignored, for example, light winds and upwind sailing. It's apparent from some things that have been written that some of them did.

Chris249 had previously said..

"Yes, it's interesting to see that foil fans can now see the good side of some parts of the sport that they formerly ignored. Plenty of people used to say that you just shouldn't both sailing in light winds, and plenty of them just reached around and ignored the fact that being able to point high or go low gave an extra dimension to the sport. Now, light winds and going upwind are being promoted by some almost as if they were something wonderful no one could do before."

o_0

How were we "foil fans" supposed to read that? You painted with quite a broad brush - typically your comments are more measured. Many early adapters came from an upwind/downwind background or experience (Formula, RX:X, longboards, etc). Where do you think we got all those wide boards to start on?)

Fair call. What I was eluding to was that there's a lot of subjectivity in what we find exciting or enjoyable. We may largely ignore (or even denigrate) one part of the sport for years and then suddenly become open to its joys.

To give another example, I used to hate light winds a lot of the time; now I quite enjoy just gliding along glassy water. The wind, water and gear haven't changed - only my approach to them. So we can't just say that a certain type of sailing or certain conditions are boring as if that was a fact - it's subjective and can change.

I think it's a case of causation fallacy. Numbers have dropped while gear specialisation has increased, so someone has tied the two together, but I'd say it's just a coincidence. The gear has steadily improved for decades as numbers have both gone up and down. There's plenty of wide and long boards available, as well as forgiving rigs, for those that want to learn or take it easy on the water.

The real culprit is our modern work culture that has reduced the amount of free time people have, and the fact is that sailing requires several hours of free time that few people have now. Internet and smart phones haven't helped either as young people manage to effectively whittle away any spare time or curiosity they may have had to try the sport.

I first learnt to sail with the local sea scouts when I was 12, but they've shut down due to lack of interest and difficulties finding people that have time to be leaders.

IMO the five knot foil down wind slalom isn't going to attract to many people !

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Harrow said..
I think it's a case of causation fallacy. Numbers have dropped while gear specialisation has increased, so someone has tied the two together, but I'd say it's just a coincidence. The gear has steadily improved for decades as numbers have both gone up and down. There's plenty of wide and long boards available, as well as forgiving rigs, for those that want to learn or take it easy on the water.

The real culprit is our modern work culture that has reduced the amount of free time people have, and the fact is that sailing requires several hours of free time that few people have now. Internet and smart phones haven't helped either as young people manage to effectively whittle away any spare time or curiosity they may have had to try the sport.

I first learnt to sail with the local sea scouts when I was 12, but they've shut down due to lack of interest and difficulties finding people that have time to be leaders.

But the thing is, this has been repeated in sailing of many types since the 1880s. If it was just a coincidence, the same story would not have occurred time and time again.

If it was all down to phones and time, why has SUPping done so well? Why has road cycling boomed in many places? Why are plastic sit-on-top kayaks selling in big numbers? The fact is that many other sports are doing very well in this climate, so that cannot be the whole problem.

Whether the gear has "improved" for the person who can only find time to sail from 12 to 3 on Sundays is a very significant question. The average peak windspeed for many places is about 8 knots. In that sort of windspeed, a lot of the gear has not improved in many ways over the past few decades. Sure, increasing working hours are a factor - but should we just sit back and accept it, or respect those parts of the sport that fit in well with reduced leisure hours?

One thing is sure - basically almost no one in this thread has anything like the amount of detailed knowledge of the sport as many of the people who were interviewed as part of the report.

Windsurfing was so huge back in the day because it was something new and the list of competing past times was vastly smaller. That is simply not the case today, i'd say most people here started because they were introduced to it by their parents or a friend. The number of people who would have started just because they saw one 'out in the wild', I imagine, would be tiny.

I'd argue it has never been easier to learn with the modern gear available but it's still a frightfully difficult sport to master, in today's world it's a rare thing to find someone with the patience to persist at it. Riding a SUP, a bike or paddling a canoe are just entirely different past times from a 'skill barrier to entry' point of view.

I discovered it at my local sailing club when myself and a bunch of the juniors found a wally in the boat shed. We dusted it off and had a crack at it. How many kids do you see at a local sailing club these days? Compared to when I was a junior in the 90's it's tiny.

I'd agree that the sport is way more fragmented because of the variety of equipment that's available compared to early on but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Personally i'm more interested in the high performance end of the sport so things like a Wally or Windsurfer LT I just have absolutely zero interest in. That's not to say that others might not find them the ultimate way to enjoy our sport. Foiling won't be the savior either because it's an absolute arms race at the moment if you're racing and if you're just doing it for fun, to get the most out of it, personally I think you have to already be at a pretty high skill level. If we didn't have the variety of equipment available to cover all interests I think the sport would be way smaller.

Development is also a natural path for a sport where it's a possibility, does anyone think that if development just stopped at the wally the sport would be thriving? Look at Bicycles these days, riding a current mountain bike or road bike compared to even a 10 years old one is night and day; the new stuff is just way better, way faster, way easier to use and way more expensive....it's booming. That's not to say, like our Windsurfer LT friends, people still don't muck around in Penny Farthings. I jest

It's easy to jump on an SUP or kayak for an hour, I do it myself all the time. You can also go for an hour cycle, but who goes sailing for an hour? You'd use almost all of that rigging, derigging, washing, packing, etc. A lot of my friends used to sail, now they are all cycling or paddling because it is something they can do for an hour. When I see them at a barbeque and ask them about coming out for a sail, I get dagger eyes from their wives because they know how much time it takes.

They miss out on the fundamental point. Not many people will ever windsurf. It's too hard. Too expensive. Takes up too much time. The various booms are aberrations.

If windsurfing had not gone down the technical development path then it would have died out much quicker. The equipment was too big, too heavy and way too clunky.

Once the novelty wore off then they disappeared down the side of the holiday house only to reappear on a hard rubbish collection 20-30 years later. It's only by appealing to the core enthusiasts that the companies stayed in business.

The same sort of applies to kitesurfing and definitely to SUP. Ever tried to lift a full size SUP onto the roof of your car, or paddle one into the wind? Great fun isn't it? I love to wash salt water and sand off my car after a paddle at sub-walking pace.

But for the enthusiast these sports are an endless source of fun and enjoyment. We endlessly study the latest equipment and try to make sensible decisions about what we want to buy. We're the ones keeping the companies in business. It's obviously working. They're still there bringing out more and more product. We're still buying stuff.

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Gorgo said..
If windsurfing had not gone down the technical development path then it would have died out much quicker. The equipment was too big, too heavy and way too clunky.

Once the novelty wore off then they disappeared down the side of the holiday house only to reappear on a hard rubbish collection 20-30 years later. It's only by appealing to the core enthusiasts that the companies stayed in business.

The same sort of applies to kitesurfing and definitely to SUP. Ever tried to lift a full size SUP onto the roof of your car, or paddle one into the wind? Great fun isn't it? I love to wash salt water and sand off my car after a paddle at sub-walking pace.

But for the enthusiast these sports are an endless source of fun and enjoyment. We endlessly study the latest equipment and try to make sensible decisions about what we want to buy. We're the ones keeping the companies in business. It's obviously working. They're still there bringing out more and more product. We're still buying stuff.

I agree. The reason I returned was because I saw a guy sailing on Swan Lake at Cudmirrah with a modern Starboard. At the time I had an old Bombora, and his board was exactly what I had always imagined in mind. I went to WindSurfnSnow the following week and bought a Tabou Rocket.

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Gorgo said..
They miss out on the fundamental point. Not many people will ever windsurf. It's too hard. Too expensive. Takes up too much time. The various booms are aberrations.

If windsurfing had not gone down the technical development path then it would have died out much quicker. The equipment was too big, too heavy and way too clunky.

Once the novelty wore off then they disappeared down the side of the holiday house only to reappear on a hard rubbish collection 20-30 years later. It's only by appealing to the core enthusiasts that the companies stayed in business.

The same sort of applies to kitesurfing and definitely to SUP. Ever tried to lift a full size SUP onto the roof of your car, or paddle one into the wind? Great fun isn't it? I love to wash salt water and sand off my car after a paddle at sub-walking pace.

But for the enthusiast these sports are an endless source of fun and enjoyment. We endlessly study the latest equipment and try to make sensible decisions about what we want to buy. We're the ones keeping the companies in business. It's obviously working. They're still there bringing out more and more product. We're still buying stuff.

+1 Totally agree. In fact both Kite & now SUP have peaked & plateaued here in the US for same reasons. Don't get me wrong they are both established sports & will continue IMO to have a market, but actually the rise & fall of SUP is alarmingly quick really.

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CJW said..
Windsurfing was so huge back in the day because it was something new and the list of competing past times was vastly smaller. That is simply not the case today, i'd say most people here started because they were introduced to it by their parents or a friend. The number of people who would have started just because they saw one 'out in the wild', I imagine, would be tiny.

I'd argue it has never been easier to learn with the modern gear available but it's still a frightfully difficult sport to master, in today's world it's a rare thing to find someone with the patience to persist at it. Riding a SUP, a bike or paddling a canoe are just entirely different past times from a 'skill barrier to entry' point of view.

I discovered it at my local sailing club when myself and a bunch of the juniors found a wally in the boat shed. We dusted it off and had a crack at it. How many kids do you see at a local sailing club these days? Compared to when I was a junior in the 90's it's tiny.

I'd agree that the sport is way more fragmented because of the variety of equipment that's available compared to early on but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Personally i'm more interested in the high performance end of the sport so things like a Wally or Windsurfer LT I just have absolutely zero interest in. That's not to say that others might not find them the ultimate way to enjoy our sport. Foiling won't be the savior either because it's an absolute arms race at the moment if you're racing and if you're just doing it for fun, to get the most out of it, personally I think you have to already be at a pretty high skill level. If we didn't have the variety of equipment available to cover all interests I think the sport would be way smaller.

Development is also a natural path for a sport where it's a possibility, does anyone think that if development just stopped at the wally the sport would be thriving? Look at Bicycles these days, riding a current mountain bike or road bike compared to even a 10 years old one is night and day; the new stuff is just way better, way faster, way easier to use and way more expensive....it's booming. That's not to say, like our Windsurfer LT friends, people still don't muck around in Penny Farthings. I jest

But again, if competition from other pastimes is preventing people from taking up windsurfing, why didn't the same thing stop people from taking up supping?? When windsurfing was booming, mtbs were also hot. So was squash. BoAt sailing was at a peak. Some of those have declined so there are people who used to do them who could have taken up windsurfing.

Road bikes are interesting because they are incredibly restricted and slow due to uci rules, but because it's all comparative people find the tiny changes are exciting. And many of the changes are tiny in fact- look at the test results of the 2017 cervelo compared to the kestrel talon, the first production aero bike, and there is no real difference in head on drag. Standard road bikes are slow compared to the streamliners but because they are convenient and feel good we love them.

You also said that there are fewer kids at sailing clubs than in the 90s. During the same period the most promoted junior boat in many ways has gone from being laser and 420 to foiler and 29er. If high performance attracted lots of people then more kids would be sailing now, not fewer.

No one says the sport should not have developed- it's just the path it could have taken