A great article by Izaak in the Redsurfbus speed sailing site.
www.redsurfbus.com/2012/01/izaak-perkins-joins-40knot-5x10-club.html

Great article. Well done Izaak...you have a great future ahead of you

Unreal Izaak

Cheers guys!!!

That is a great read man, good stuff.

Great article,
Not only can you out sail us, your also a great writer.

Can't wait for the next edition Izaak

Great article Izaak. Your story is inspirational and you deserve every bit of credit for what you have achieved. Well done!!

Well done Izaak, great story

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houston said...

Well done Izaak, great story

+1 (first time i've actually agreed with Houston )

I have to say it was really well constructed and very well written, and a real honour to publish it. Thanks Izaak, you are always welcome to send stuff to publish, it has had a lot of interest and it will inspire more youngsters to have a go, my other regular young writer Tom is no where near your level so you will really complement each other in terms of providing great reading for others. (and us old farts)

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redsurfbus said...

I have to say it was really well constructed and very well written, and a real honour to publish it. Thanks Izaak, you are always welcome to send stuff to publish, it has had a lot of interest and it will inspire more youngsters to have a go, my other regular young writer Tom is no where near your level so you will really complement each other in terms of providing great reading for others. (and us old farts)

Thanks Lea, next epic speed session we have here in Tas. I will get something together.

Congratulations Isaac, inspirational article, you are a fantastic role model for all budding young windsurfers. It is also really nice to see you have a great father son relationship happening - mutual respect for one another.
Nice work.

I tell you what would make a great read, how you work so well as a team. The Portland Pirates are a large team now but still its the same 5 or 6 of us out all the time posting, and then its usually 2 to 4 that get the majority of the results. This last month for us just shows how the lesser skilled (myself) can get a few categories by chance due to flukey wind, while the big hitters disappeared to West Kirby I was on my own at Portland and managed to get a few of the 'medals' for the month due to this.

What I notice from your team is how well you co-ordinate yourselves, with a range of sailors hitting the different categories. We try to do this but again its still only a few who actually put the effort in for the hour and nautical mile (bloody difficult at Portland Harbour due to holes in the wind at either end and chop in the middle).

It would be great if you could get some quotes together from your whole team about how well you work together. I am still learning how to write good articles, and think there is a formula to it now, and its the same as the news on TV, tell em what you are going to tell em, tell em, and tell em what you told em........The middle bit is basically a collection of quotes with a good inspiring start and a round up at the end.

One day I hope I will be able to travel with my computer and kit and come and meet a lot of the friends I have made online through redsurfbus (and its growing bigger and faster than I ever imagined thanks to the input from the likes of Izaak), and windsurf with you all, would love to visit Tasmania, and have a lot of school friends from the UK who keep inviting me to Australia where they have now settled and started families (but some of them are kitesurfers )

Thanks again Izaak, it has been a very popular article with over 1000 individual hits now, a real credit to your skills both on the windsurfer and with your keyboard. I was up for some flak for pimping my site on here in the GPS/speed thread but I only do it to try to help others like yourself get some recognition and help them get as addicted to the sport as I am.

Lea, great to hear a voice from the other side of the world, we can thank Izaak for starting this off.
We're having a resurgence in windsurfing activity in Tassie, in the last couple of years the number of sailors on the water would have doubled. It probably comes down to mainly 3 factors.

GPSChallenge:
This is so competitive without being overwhelming. It doesn't scare off any newcomers as they are out for pb's, the mid range like me are out to get up the ladder and help the top sailors and the team against the rest of Aus and the world.
We encourage everyone to join and it's added a new dimension to sailing. It's pretty cool and is dragging a few young ones into windsurfing.

Seabreeze website:
This has brought the whole state together. We post the forecast and suggest the best spot to sail, whether it be flat water or waves, on a certain day. This allows new people to find out where the rest of us are going.
Tassie is now like one big club.
Also people that are interested in the sport but don't know how to get into it can see the action. Posting photos is always a good thing because they can see the action, not just read about it.
What we need to do is encourage more people to post on the forum and go out of their way to include newcomers.

Learner days and club boards:
Windsurfing Tas has 6 boards in the state which we lend to any newcomers for a small fee. This allows them to try out the sport before committing to buying the gear, which we know is not cheap.
We also hold learn to windsurf days which are pretty low key, heaps of fun for the beginners and we usually find most of the local sailors turn up to help or just have a good sail.

We'd be interested to know what is happening to windsurfing in the UK, are the number of sailors increasing, what you do to get more people into the sport?
In other states of Aus we hear kiting is dragging young people away from windsurfing because it's "cool". In Tassie we're not trying to compete with kiting we're just making windsurfing more accessible.

Good to hear your thoughts on how to promote and get more people into windsurfing.

Totally agree with your comments Houston. Its amazing how many people are getting back into the sport up here, but they are all hiding and waiting for a nice 20knot north wester on the sandbar. In the past 3 months dad has been guiding at least 6 people that have asked for some secondhand gear. They have brought some off seabreeze and now getting parts off dad like a boom or extension ect. Also James brient has been getting out a few of our mates that are really keen and have picked it up very quickly. They are starting to get some gear and keen as!!

Thats a tricky question. I started about 7 years ago but didnt get out much for the first 3 (ex gf was the controlling type.....), and this seemed to coincide with a wind drought. I have heard from a few of the die hard long term speedies that they were getting frustrated for a few years. Now this past year has been amazing, with almost constant 18knot+ winds from mid April until mid June. This brought a lot of people back, and I think with the frequency that they got the bug back.

We had a lot go over to kiting due to the extra time on the water, again this decent strong windy spell got a few of them to come back to windsurfing.

As for new people entering, I think the appeal of kiting has had its peak and now it is levelling out again. Kiting is attracting more at a guess, but we dont see more kites on hte water (probably as its only low tide for a short period ;-)). In the youths the RYA (evil overlords of our fair sport ;-)) did a 'Team 15' with regular training and meetings throughout the country, this was great for youngsters but left a gap where they couldnt get hold of kit after 15 if they had none. I think there are a few new projects that are helping that.

One guess I would put out there is the fact that when the boards had a big leap forward in usability around 2003-2005 (short wide) they were expensive, but now you can get boards from then really cheap (if thay are still in one piece) which is helping more get into it without the initial cost, and also avoid the ebay mistakes that many made in the past decade.

The speed side of things over here is growing without a doubt, I could see there was a need for an article or two every month, and now the mags have followed and are trying to beat me to it to get them up online which is difficult for me as I dont earn money from it, but is great for the sport. There is however a gap in the market that we are trying to fill soon. Also with the OTC (official test centre) opening at Portland Harbour more people get to try before they buy.

Many people have GPS but wont post to the big sites yet, for several reasons it seems. The biggest is they may be embarrassed about lower scores, or dont want their name posted on the front page etc. We have come up with something that should help them start to compete at a low level, just a completely fun thing, and we think it will really benefit the two big sites, your GPSTC and GP3S in the long run. Cant say much now as its still all hush hush and in development, but in a couple of months we will roll it out locally and then hopefully it will catch on once we have ironed out any bugs.......

Lea good to hear what you guys are doing in the UK......hope you can sail better than play cricket.
We are encouraging intermediate sailors to get into GPS speed, also getting people to try out new spots, flat water and wave.
Stick to the same old spot for too long and you soon get bored.
In Tassie we have inconsistent wind but heaps of different sailing conditions from flat water inlets to ocean beaches all over the state.
I think the key is to get people to go out and explore!! That's where this forum comes into it's own, you can see where sailors are heading so you're always with a group.
Izaak good to see your old man still coaching, he needs a winner, we all know how disappointed he must be with you