Had some overseas visitors with us on the weekend. We wandered into our local visitors centre and while there I started to check out all of the tourist post cards and brochures. Every single post card showing a coastal shot featured a kite surfer in it. Every single one! The shots looked modern and showed kiting in a good light. I then proceeded to search for windsurfing shots and you know what comes next. I managed to find a few windsurfing shots and each one was on a daggy old long board, a sail designed in the 70s and some overweight, hairy middle aged guy on the board.
Needless to say, this does nothing for the image of our sport but raises a few questions:
[1] Should it be someones responsibility to provide updated photos to the tourist organisations (eg State based windsurfing associations)
[2] Why is it that the kiters get into the modern shots? As a group are they more motivated / better organised and hence getting better publicity over windsurfers?
[3] Is the general public over windsurfing and looking for something new?
[4] Do we address this issue or continue to let it destroy the image of windsurfing? If yes, how?
Can you scratch out Rockingham and replace it with Lancelin on all the postcards? That'll solve the problem 
Questions 1 to 4... why do you care?
You will have to face it that kitesurfing is more visually interesting, but why would that affect your interest in windsurfing?
PS what you did with that windsurfing show on the Community TV station was brilliant, another one of those would be good. And even you couldn't resist showing that kitesurfer at Gearies?
Might not have been a postcard but what about the land mark TV ad from Rick Hart!
Windsurfing at its best
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No offense to the sailor shown
I think it's partly to do with the fact that kitesurfing is the newer sport so people are more interested in it and also do do with the fact that in lighter winds kitesurfing can appear radical - which is unfortunatley the conditions we all seem to get a lot of.
I went to the Lancelin classic this year and the whole town went out to party that evening which was amazing for windsurfing and really put the sport on a pinnicle. In fact it is the busiest night the town have with fireworks, live bands etc... and everyone is brought together by our amazing sport. We need more events like that in high wind conditions and it helps to spread the word.
Working in the media shows you that art directors, graphic artists and general photographers love bright colours; so do many specialist photographers. Old boards had brightly-coloured sails and that's what lots of arty people like. They often don't even notice the difference between an old board floating and a new board zapping, they wouldn't know a goitre from a goat, but they do know what publishers and hopefully the public like in photographs. They just don't find see-through sails very exciting.
I've had plenty of arguments with art directors over this, but maybe we should respect their training and skill and admit that colour makes for good pics.
good windsurfing to watch is mainly done in 18knots and over, not many people are at the beach in these conditions to see the sport at it's best and with a 5m sail on a wave from any more than 500m away, you can hardly see whats going on.
People are intregued by seeing other people having fun and usualy wish they could be part of it, if it's not in there face like 20 guys with 13m of bright coloured kites floating 23m above the water, than they don't rush out to learn it. like they all have with kitesurfing.
I think what has dramaticaly droped the numbers of new sailors to the sport is that there is less light wind big board sailing done on the lakes rivers etc. like a hell of a lot of people used to do in the 80's when the sport was booming. people need to see how much enjoyment you can get from just getting on the water, even in 5knots on a long board. most people see short board sailing and think it looks too hard to learn or you have to be super strong, then don't bother try, where as if the see someone crusin around on a one design they are keen to give it a bash.
What's wrong with fat, hairy and middle aged?
There are a lot of factors.
As has been said Kite Surfing is new and different, and that attracts attention. I was out on a SUP on the weekend just cruising around some flat water and that got heaps of attention from boaties, and walkers on the shore. Again it's something new so it attracts a fair bit of attention.
Also it seems the learning curve for kite surfing is quite steep, once you are up and moving back and forth to the untrained eye you look no different from the guys that have been doing it for a long time. And you start out on kit that looks similar to the good guys.
We start out on big slow boards, and slowly progress over years to the faster/shorter gear.
I saw a similar thing with snowboarding vs skiing, Snowbarding was new, appealed to the younger guys and had a steep learning curve. Skiing did end up reinventing itself (skiers hitting terain parks etc), but will always now loose people to boarding.
Windsurfing is going down this path also with Freestyle. After 30 years we wont see Windsurfing die, and considering that in parts of Europe it is still bigger than Kite Surfing and many other sports we will always have access to the latest and greatest.
Be happy you are part of a niche sport, that not everyone can get to a high level in just a few easy lessons, and that people that have a go will appreciate how difficult some aspects of the sport are.
Looking over the first post again, I came across this;
"Should it be someones responsibility to provide updated photos to the tourist organisations (eg State based windsurfing associations"
I have to wonder about the volunteers from associations being "responsible" for going out and getting pics. For a start, why? Who has shown us that old pics of bright, colourful sails is a problem for windsurfing?
Secondly, when? Those who run windsurfing associations already probably spend more volunteer time helping with the sport than anyone else; why should they give up more time that other people spend being with the kids, sailing, earning money for new gear so they can chase up pics?
Thirdly, how? Taking a picture like that is a skilled art form. How many of us know what an art director is looking for? Do we know how to frame a pic to allow for a logo? Do we know what colours come off whatever press they use and come out looking good? Or do you want the volunteers to commission photogs to get the pics, or to learn what ones postcard manufacturers want, then go through pro's pics, then hand over cash for the copyright, then send them to the postcard manufacturers. Cool - you wanna volunteer, or will you just lend the cash?
Fourthly, what then? Who uses those pics? Why would the printing company want to replace them? They want to make money selling postcards and bright coloured sails do that, arguably better than a see-through sail.
So just for interest in a slack time, I looked at Rockingham's website. The home page has a pic of a 1970s trailable yacht and some 1950s vintage Yvonne catamarans. The main-street pic shows 1990s cars. Then there's a pic of a 1960s Minnow dinghy. There's a pic of some "old people" with plastic sea kayaks, a tinny (pretty modern I think), a link to a surfing school with pics of kids on foamies on ripples, and an ancient split-screen Kombi on the logo......the bike shop has a banner proudly saying that they "sponsor the over-55s!". The MTB club shows pics of what seem to be low-tech fully rigid bikes and hardtails.
In other words, no one else in town seems to be worried about whether they are showing off This Year's Model, and no one else in town seems to be worried about having old people or kids in imperfect conditions or old gear in their pics.
Bring back indoor windsurfing. In the 90s in Europe it was huge and the couple of events that were at the London boat show a few years ago were also popular. Jump ramps, freestyle and racing and grand stand seats. It brough windsurfing to the masses. But even in Europe there are no events now...
Personally I reckon the approach that Hardie quoted from Gonewindsurfing247 is the way to go. Promote the sport as something thats healthy, interesting and exciting to people over their 30s.
Indoor windsurfing won't happen in Australia because the costs involved would be enormous and honestly, it won't get many more people involved in the sport.
I watched a show on ABC last night around 6pm. It was called Travel Oz or something like that. One of the blokes running it has the sort of voice you have heard a million times before. There were a couple of younger blokes doing their piece too. It would be great if we could get them down to a decent windsurfing school and get them up and going over a week. Similarly it would be great to get that Sydney Weekender show down to try windsurfing. Dunno how to organise that though.
In relation to image of windsurfing, I don't reckon it really matters if the gear is older. On the weekend I saw a guy out on an original windsurfer and he was cruising round in the light winds. It looked fun. Unfortunately I can't have a board that big.
these days i only really watch abc2.
I wholely agree with Hardie and Chris 249 , a lot goes on behind the scenes in our own volunteer time , that a lot of people dont realise , i have spent many a meeting trying to improve the sport and i think it is on the comeback , we will have to see what happens this year, Paul D President WWA.
don't disagree that there are some good designers, photographers and creatives in general... but for every good one there seem to be 10 mediocre ones... you know the kind I am talking about: "I have downloaded a pirated version of Illustrator therefore I am a designer."
and
"I just bought the latest high end fandangled digital camera which can take great photos... therefore I am a great photographer."
To be honest the biggest problem is that we are living in a country where people will hire not the person who will do the best job but the person who is a) a mate and/ or b) do the job for next to no money.
There is a good reason why our most talented creatives are heading overseas. The only reason I am staying is because the windsurfing here is so bloody good...
I totally agree Stehsegler.
Australia has definitely let down a lot of its truly creative talent- and elevated some very ordinary talent.
