My eldest son will be five next year. I'm wondering if it's old enough to give him a crack at windsurfing?

Interested to hear from any other parents out there with windsurfing kids. How old were they when you got them started, what kit did you buy etc?

I'm aware of the Starboard ProKids range...any other manufacturers with scaled down models?

I figure the sooner I get him interested the less chance I'll be spending my Sundays driving to soccer, footy or cricket games!!

Not sure what levels they are offering, but maybe have a look at this.


www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=33272

Hey Pointman, keep it quiet, but we have just bought our 5 year old an Ezzy kids rig for christmas, so she can have her own gear this summer. She seems to be pretty keen to learn. We have a 2 and a 2.5 mtr sail with boom, mast and base fittings, rigged it up last night while she was asleep, looks awesome!

We will be rigging the kit up and use a carve 122 for her learner until we can buy a cheap second hand learner board. (PS: If anyone has a large floaty wide beginner board, I am very interested)

There is also talk of the same sort of kids club and so on here in SA, lots of windsurfers with kids here, we should be getting together soon to discuss how we do it!

I reckon 5 years old is a great age! How good will it be if both parents get to sail while your little tacker chases you around the lake....give it a few years!

hey pointman,
pryde have got killer kids rigs, by far the best we have tried for our 9 yr old. Really light but stable, which weve found to be a problem with other "kids" rigs. They call it "one" comes with all its own boom and mast ect. Easy for them to rig themselves. Definately worth a look

Started when i was 6. Parents said i had to take swimming lessons and what not before i was allowed to aswell. I just learnt on my dads old gear from 20 years ago. Old TC Beacher with a small 2.0m sail. Started out goin in the mornings to miss the wind, then eventually worked my way up to goin in the afternoon seabreezes and using bigger sails. I just gradually upgraded my gear till now and i have all modern stuff. Just got newer gear, and smaller boards, and bigger sails as the years went on. I always shopped around a lot and quite often went halfs with my parents for christmas and birthday presents. Nothing more stable than the old 260L boards though. Only thing wrong with them is they are heavy. I modified the uni joint as a kid aswell so we can take new sails on it which worked fine.

Bubs

Hey Pointman

I got my daughter a starboard kids rig when she was 8 but the best investment to get her really interested was a steamer wetty. The Swan river jellyfish usually put most kids off but with the longy there's no problems now.