my local spot at VP only about 2 of us actually post on SB. there are another 4-5 that lurk and another 3-4 that don't understand what the internet is.
we can do a tally
everyone whos a windsurfer put your right hand up
ahhh... one, two , three, four, five......
You may find it easier to count legs and divide by two.
People who are actually sailing right now may find it hard to put their right hand up.
Facebook group?
Called "Australian Windsurfers - just to get a tally. We'll never mail you anything. We promise"
As others have said, there are many windsurfers out there who do not post to Seabreeze. For example there are many windsurfers on the Central Coast of NSW but very few of them post here and none of them are members of the GPS Teams Challenge.
Perhaps a online petition with some sort of prize like a rig would be the go. Otherwise getting people out there on warm, windy weekends. It wouldn't be that good a job though. You would have to be travelling around to different spots, counting sails and people in carparks when you'd rather be windsurfing.
That's what I was thinking. A prize to encourage people to participate.
Of course. it may not serve any purpose except satisfying our curiosity.
I think the closest you will get is to get shops involved as they would maybe have a list of customers for mail outs ect.. most sailors would visit a shop at least once a year for at least rope or a uni joint or something..
Would be good for the importers to get an idea how many sail aswell..
maybe then its not a good thing to know how many people windsurf, back in the day kings used to have census of their kingdoms before they went into battle (and for tax reasons) but imagine if you wanted to go to battle but you had alot less people then you thought, be pretty bummed...
but imagine the stoke you would have if there were an extra couple thousand people then expected
Nothing like counting on the Internet is gonna work. Like, I for one never use it 
Let's try to systematize, a Bob Hawke would say.
There are 3 kinda crowds:
a) those that renew and sail fairly recent gear
b) recent gear, but only from used market
c) old-timers that circle around on Narrabeen lake (no offense) on old gear
d) those who own boards but haven't sailed in 125 years
The latter are not really active, perhaps they took up kiting already for that reason, whatever. Let's ignore them.
To "calculate" a), we require only 2 approximations:
a1: total number of new boards sold each year in Australia.
- get or approximate
- 1000 sounded a lot, but whatever.
a2: assume for that crowd an average number of renewals per year.
- some buy new every year
- others buy one new board every 3 or so
- for argument's sake here, say 1.2 on the average.
The crowd at b) is small, as sooner or later they join the Tupperware party.
Let's say they're .25 of a), for argument's sake.
To approximate c), just say for each 'renewer' with recent gear, there is say .7 that sails occasionally at MacQuarie and Canberra and Pitt and such with an old Ten Cate or Windsurfer.
Plug in the numbers and ratios you want. For my tentative numbers above:
a = (a1 * a2) = 1200 sailors that buy recent new stuff
b = (.25 * a) = 300 sailors that buy used only
c = (a+b) * .7 = 1000+ cottage sailors (no offense again)
= a paltry total of 2500 active windsurfers in Oz.
The equation works IMO, it's a matter of plugging in the numbers as you see them.
However, they'll never add up to very much.
P.
The Bureau of Stats gave me import figures in 2005 that there were 1200 windsurfing boards sold in that year.
I think the above logical assumptions are pretty close. In the last year of Freesail, I think 2004 the print run was about 4000 I seem to remember. But how many never got sold?
Well say 4000 (sounds plain impossible), and all got sold (equally unlikely), it's still a very small number of windsurfers and a small industry.
But that's that. I was driving the entire length a Sydney last summer, showing off the place to yank co-workers. Was a beautiful sailing day, like maybe 20 knots NE, early in the arvo. From Barrenjoey to Pittwater to Balmoral to B-Bay to Wanda, I counted perhaps 50 boards.
No wonder...
I don't think sales of equipment would give a correct number, cause not everyone buys new boards yearly or second yearly, plus all boards for that year don't always sell they sometimes sit on the shelf for the next year.
Here's my working out just guesstimations work.
Perth on a windy day (locals)
Pinnaroo/Island 20
Metts 25
Scarbs 30
Cott/Leighton 50
River North and South 100
other perth beaches 25
Total 250 double it for people at work or other commitments (sick, kids, injury, gear damage) = Perth 500
Rockingham 50
Gero 80
Lancelin 30
Mandurah 50
SW coast 60
Total 270 double it again = 540
Total WA (rounded down) 1000
NT ?
SA ?
VIC ?
NSW ?
Queensland ?
Australia 3000
Feel free to correct me if I guessed wrong.
