Biggest thorn in the side of windsurfing is ..... the wind.

You need decent warm weather, safe water, and of course some wind. Pretty much 3 things that need to come together. Great, so once a week you might get the 3 things together at the same place and time. You spend 45 minutes packing all your gear.... 2 boards, 3 masts, 5 sails, 2 booms, UJ's wetsuits, harness and you're off. Get to the spot and rig up... wind dies........ or you get the spot and its nukin'....****, left my wave gear at home. Those that don't have oodles of super expensive gear just give up because an old 6.5m2 in 30 knots just ain't manageable.


Besides the specific weather requirements....

Windsurfing just ain't easy, its SUPER expensive, its really hard to learn, you need tons of heavy gear, a big car/trailer and it can get pretty dangerous at times.

Now take cycling..... you can go from home in a matter of minutes, it takes a while (an hour or 2) but you get a smashing workout, you can chat to your mates while you ride and the best thing is you can do it almost every day (time permitting) in almost any conditions. You don't need specific weather conditions (to a large extent). Best of all, you only really need one bike.

Its sad but what makes windsurfing so amazing is it relies so much on the elements... sun wind and water. When it all comes together however, its almost untouchable as a recreational sport.

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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.

So well put. Massive sup... 4WD ...a ladder!

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Dar said..
Biggest thorn in the side of windsurfing is ..... the wind.

You need decent warm weather, safe water, and of course some wind. Pretty much 3 things that need to come together. Great, so once a week you might get the 3 things together at the same place and time. You spend 45 minutes packing all your gear.... 2 boards, 3 masts, 5 sails, 2 booms, UJ's wetsuits, harness and you're off. Get to the spot and rig up... wind dies........ or you get the spot and its nukin'....****, left my wave gear at home. Those that don't have oodles of super expensive gear just give up because an old 6.5m2 in 30 knots just ain't manageable.

Its sad but what makes windsurfing so amazing is it relies so much on the elements... sun wind and water. When it all comes together however, its almost untouchable as a recreational sport.

You clearly don't live in WA then.

I used to teach sailing for a living, on 3 continents. Old type sailing in boats, slow mostly non planing. The laser was about the most exciting thing about the sport to come along during my time, it **** all over the mirror dingy, or even the fireball. I was lucky and got to crew on some whizz bang boats and did some 470 europeans etc. Ultimately dingy sailing was an evolving game, new boats turned up, old one went out of fashion. When Windsurfing turned up I was unimpressed but when short boards came on my radar I was hooked. Years later almost all of those older dingies are still around. People still love fireflies as a team racing boat, mirrors are still popular, 420's still sell in good numbers, lasers are back bigger than ever, the old heavy dog of a thing - the Heron is still around. New boats have come along 49'ers, skiffs, new foiling moths they have all added to the pantheon that is dingy sailing. Big boat sailing is similar Benetau, Jenneau, Bavaria etc bring out new models every year. None of these "KILLS" the old gear. Mostly it gets passed down. Down to kids, down to people who buy second hand who could not afford new gear, down to kids, relatives hell even our wives!!!! New vs old is a bit of a BS argument in my opinion, what ever floats your boat....or board....or foil...or even kite. Too much navel gazing. No sport will ever match its novelty peek - they all die back, frisbee, skateboarding, fidget spinners, things get popular then they die back leaving a hard core of lovers....thats us all.
I grew up in Dublin Ireland the home of the first ever one design dingy , they still race, every week in an antiquated, uncomfortable slow, wet cold awarkward slow un manoverable dingy called "The Wag" and have been since about 1887!!! They are even building new ones. New gear has not killed their popularity , its just added to the broad canvas or watercraft.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Wag

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Dar said..
Biggest thorn in the side of windsurfing is ..... the wind.

You need decent warm weather, safe water, and of course some wind. Pretty much 3 things that need to come together. Great, so once a week you might get the 3 things together at the same place and time. You spend 45 minutes packing all your gear.... 2 boards, 3 masts, 5 sails, 2 booms, UJ's wetsuits, harness and you're off. Get to the spot and rig up... wind dies........ or you get the spot and its nukin'....****, left my wave gear at home. Those that don't have oodles of super expensive gear just give up because an old 6.5m2 in 30 knots just ain't manageable.


Besides the specific weather requirements....

Windsurfing just ain't easy, its SUPER expensive, its really hard to learn, you need tons of heavy gear, a big car/trailer and it can get pretty dangerous at times.

Now take cycling..... you can go from home in a matter of minutes, it takes a while (an hour or 2) but you get a smashing workout, you can chat to your mates while you ride and the best thing is you can do it almost every day (time permitting) in almost any conditions. You don't need specific weather conditions (to a large extent). Best of all, you only really need one bike.

Its sad but what makes windsurfing so amazing is it relies so much on the elements... sun wind and water. When it all comes together however, its almost untouchable as a recreational sport.

One thing is, though, that we often compare windsurfing in a way that makes it look bad. If we look at it the way people look at road cycling, many of those issues fall away.

For example, a windsurfer doesn't need to wait for wind; the right windsurfer is about as quick as a comparable dinghy in light winds and about as much fun. Dinghy sailors don't let light winds put them off. You don't need two boards and five sails any more than a road cyclist needs a tt bike, a disc wheel, an aero road bike and a climbing bike; sure a specialist board is good but specialist bikes are good too and I've never heard a roadie say they need them.

The road bikes you seem to love are dog slow compared to the fastest bikes, or even to a tt bike. The rules that keep them dog slow also make it possible for them to be convenient and sociable, as you say. If we accepted the same style of design goals with windsurfing, the sport would be much more convenient. So it's not just the nature of the sports, but the fact that the popular one compromises speed for convenience and windsurfing doesn't. The report outlines the problem with our approach.

It's the same with the conditions. Sure, it's great to have 20 knots but we don't need it any more than a roadie needs a country road with no traffic, stunning scenery and a perfect set of hairpin bends to ride. Just as most roadies spend their time riding city streets in traffic but still love it because they use gear that suits the real world and is convenient. If we took that approach more, our sport could also grow.

No one is dissing short boards like some shortboarders have abused longboards. The report is just saying that the sport made itself too restrictive.

By the way, I'm writing this after a day cycling through one of the world's greatest cycling areas, the Dolomites, after coming from the place that has more windsurfers than anywhere else. The cyclists use gear that works every day in the real world and the sport is huge. Our sport uses gear that often doesn't go really well on a typical day even in a legendary place and it's not doing well. It's not disrespectful to say we could do better in terms of making the sport more popular

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peterowensbabs said..
I used to teach sailing for a living, on 3 continents. Old type sailing in boats, slow mostly non planing. The laser was about the most exciting thing about the sport to come along during my time, it **** all over the mirror dingy, or even the fireball. I was lucky and got to crew on some whizz bang boats and did some 470 europeans etc. Ultimately dingy sailing was an evolving game, new boats turned up, old one went out of fashion. When Windsurfing turned up I was unimpressed but when short boards came on my radar I was hooked. Years later almost all of those older dingies are still around. People still love fireflies as a team racing boat, mirrors are still popular, 420's still sell in good numbers, lasers are back bigger than ever, the old heavy dog of a thing - the Heron is still around. New boats have come along 49'ers, skiffs, new foiling moths they have all added to the pantheon that is dingy sailing. Big boat sailing is similar Benetau, Jenneau, Bavaria etc bring out new models every year. None of these "KILLS" the old gear. Mostly it gets passed down. Down to kids, down to people who buy second hand who could not afford new gear, down to kids, relatives hell even our wives!!!! New vs old is a bit of a BS argument in my opinion, what ever floats your boat....or board....or foil...or even kite. Too much navel gazing. No sport will ever match its novelty peek - they all die back, frisbee, skateboarding, fidget spinners, things get popular then they die back leaving a hard core of lovers....thats us all.
I grew up in Dublin Ireland the home of the first ever one design dingy , they still race, every week in an antiquated, uncomfortable slow, wet cold awarkward slow un manoverable dingy called "The Wag" and have been since about 1887!!! They are even building new ones. New gear has not killed their popularity , its just added to the broad canvas or watercraft.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Wag

Sure, but sailing has had a stronger structure with more attention paid to boats like the Water Wag and Laser, and much less abuse of them. You mentioned yachts but missed mentioning that older classes are enormously popular, well supported and respected in yachts- in windsurfing they were abused and dumped. The worlds biggest races can be won by little old boats- it's not the same in boards.

WhAt happened In windsurfing was like sailing trying to kill off all the lasers, beneteaus, wags and herons and getting everyone to sail moths. They are great- I had three- but they cannot be the foundation of a strong sport.

Its great that you got turned on by shortboards; they are great. But the fact that any one person loves (for example) going back and forth on slalom kit is as irrelevant as the fact that it bores some of us ****less (no disrespect to slalom or those who love it). Our individual choices are not relevant to the wider questions about the future of the sport

Unfortunately this mind set is common in our sport