Don't mention Robby ripping it up at Long Reef.......
The bad thing about drawing Robby in the second round of the wave comp at Long Reef was that
he made you look really, really, really ****house - and I never needed help to look bad!
The good thing about having drawn Robby in the second round of the wave comp at Long Reef was that no-one gave you a hard time about being knocked out by him!
As KA43 says, the sport was huge, and it was built on a back of a sport that was promoted as being accessible to everyone.....pensioners, kids, once-a-month sailors.
Just about all the big sports are sports that are NOT extreme, NOT very difficult, NOT expensive- so wtf do we promote 'extreme'* windsurfing?
* if you take the original definition of 'extreme' sport as something where you died if you made a mistake, windsurfing isn't extreme anyway.
Good ah point
Good ah point
I think the state of windsurfing now is JUST FINE and don't know what any of you are complaining about.
All we really need is more wind.
Nobody complaining, except those who perpetually want more wind
Nothing wrong though in trying to get more people into the passion.
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Everyone has a right to an opinion, but if you think it's a good point, please address some of mine at the post that followed his on 27/10/2008, 6:55 pm - I'd be interested.
I would love to address some of your points but I couldn't find the post !!
Fact. extreme sport or not Windsurfing is a hard sport to learn Bjorn reckons Windsurfers are the most determined people in the world , and I would have to agree.
Windsurfers the most determined people in the world? Huh?
Even in just the sporting world, that's not true.
I have a rello who is a top-class rock climber; gets featured in international mags, DVDs, etc. I was looking at his corkboard of pics of his old friends; about 7-10 of them died on the face. How determined is someone who keeps hanging off rocks when so many of your mates have died?
Someone I used to know did the Euro/Transatlantic shorthanded ocean racing trimaran deal. To get into the game, you needed to spend years getting a sponsor. Then, at the time, you had a 10% death rate, per annum. You spend lots of time with the boat on the edge of a capsize, with you hanging off the bow or windward float, trying to wrestle with a sail that can be up to 30m tall and 12m across, in a gale stronger than the ones 99.9999999999999999% of windsurfers ever see - and you do it at night, in the middle of a black ocean. You cross oceans in a cabin about 1m x 1.5m x 3m, moving across massive swells flying two out of three hulls at 30 knots plus - while you sleep. How much determination does that take?
What about the determination of a top-class swimmer, facing hours each day with their head down, doing laps? Or a netballer, dedicating their life to one of Oz's biggest sports with stuff-all chance of ever getting a decent buck.
Doing stuff like a Sydney-Hobart takes a lot more determination, most of the time. At night, halfway across the Strait, it's not like you have a nice warm shore and car just 200 metres away like you normally do windsurfing. It's surely the same with the guys who do white-water kayaking in remote bush areas, ice climbers, rowers (man those guys train hard!), etc etc etc.
I was Bjorn's training partner a bit before we did the worlds together years ago. He was just a kid, but I have some idea of the way he approaches windsurfing and a hell of a lot of respect for him. However, surely he's wrong in this respect.
And the idea that the sport DEMANDS people who are that determined is wrong; you can still be a "windsurfer" if you just blat around having fun on a lake. You can learn how to windsurf in a couple of hours....you won't windsurf well, but you're still windsurfing. At the uni windsurfing club we could get just about everyone "windsurfing", even if they had little English skill and had never even seen the sea or done much sport before they arrived in Oz. Hell, my mother in law windsurfs; not well, not often, but she does it.
It's an incredible sport, because it spans such a range - from camping overnight under your rig, to looping, to racing, to BAFfing and freestyle, Formula, ODs, light wind zensurfing - that to just say it demands incredibly determined people seems to be selling windsurfing short, IMHO.
Well that quote from Bjon opened up a discussion didn't it !! I think he may have thrown the term "determined" around Loosly and in retrospect he may have used "Among" the worlds most determined, Its a while since I read the article but any way thats not to say the "top" windsurfers arn't Determined like "top class" rockclimers or "top" Ocean Sailors or "top" swimmers as mentioned by you , striving for that record, they are talking "triple" loops now thats "determination" and pretty fricken dangerous too,so lets not take this out of prospective any top achiever has to be determined even champion chess players I guess.
Lots of people have said to me, even today, a person said they had a go at windsurfing and it was just way to hard , "I couldn't turn around got blown out to sea" "uphauling that sail just killed my arms " "climbing up on to the board falling back in" "I had a go but it was too hard" I hear this all the time! Don't you ?? yeah fair enough putting around on the old boombora in a lake even that takes some skill and determination. but progressing to in the straps and blasting on high tec gear takes real determination. and two years is quite a long time to move through the basic learning curve,Waterstart ,straps , hooked in,jibing tacking all take time and determination.
So maybe not the worlds most determined but determined just the same 
Select to expand quotepierrec45 said...
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. Everyone who sticks at it planes within the first 2 years with modern equipment too - basically it's a no-brainer now.
Hi dism
I umm didn't actually quote the two year thing !! but just refered to it .
Hey Toadwhispera, I was just happy that I learnt faster then the mentioned time frame!
Anyone got an estimate of how many windsurfers are in Aus?
From there we can work out what marketing is needed!
Dism
That would be a whole new topic right there !
How many in Oz
Which state has the most (WA maybe !!??)
who has the most hard core (Tazzy or WA Margies,Gero,narloo, South oz)
Does or is anyone silly enough to sail in the Northern Territory ?
Does anyone sail Lord Howe? it would have to be windy out there !?
Hi Pierrec45
What are doing up at this hour it could be windy tomorrow !!?
I guess it could also be determined where you first start your sailing too , like here on the Gold Coast it quite a short season and all be it fickle. Your stoked if you get two or three days in a row here, but it does happen , so I think it took me two seasons to get hooked in in the straps and blasting then I hit the Ocean and that brought about more frustrations and you know what I still learn something every time I sail after 18 years , Plus I never had a lesson so that would definately help a learner, still have loads of trouble with the front tack on a short board DAMN !! any tips 
Go to bed! I can't I'm working !!
geez
Gonewindsurfing44
Go to program click on shutoff AND GO TO SLEEP its going to be windy tomorrow !!
Remember to try your fowards in the first hour of your sesh 
While Toadwhispera is right to say that windsurfing certainly isn't the easiest sport, we do seem to make it harder by defining "windsurfing" as wavesailing or freestyle or being able to pull off a fully-planing ducky or whatever.
One interesting thing is that we bag out kids today for having short attention spans and requiring instant gratification, then we bag them out for spending too much time on the computer playing games that are often very complicated and difficult to master (afaik).
The interesting thing is that the games have levels, campaigns, different titles within a series, etc etc etc. So you get the gratification from finishing a certain segment of the game (or a whole game in a series like FF4, I'm told) after 20, 40 or 100 hours (depending on the level of difficulty etc) and then go on to the next one.
But with windsurfing, we tell people "it will take you 2 (or 6, or 18) years to become a real windsurfer" and wonder why they aren't into it.
And once the number of beginners drops off, and only experienced windsurfers are left, it becomes even harder to give the sport a friendly image. Way back when the sport was first booming, no one in Oz had more than about 4 years experience. Every week, other newbies started. It didn't take long to become one of the good guys, because very few people had that much experience.
Now, newbies are in a situation where most people have 10-20 years of sailing under their belt. The gap in experience is vast, and we're not doing much to fill it. We show people an image of sailors doing things that the vast majority of newbies could never do, especially those who are living in the city with a 9-5 job and family and (shock, horror!) perhaps another sport or intellectual interest.
If we could reclaim the image of windsurfing as an all-round sport, from cruising to waves to speed to racing and then don't sneer at them or their gear*, then we could attract people who just want to have fun.
"Everyone who sticks at it planes within the first 2 years with modern equipment too - basically it's a no-brainer now"
There's no drama in getting people to plane well within the first year (or weeks) on old-style boards, as long as they get access to proper small sails and instruction initially.
* one of the most successful marketers of high-performance sailboats in the world used to sell boards. He's pointed out that you can't succeed for very long in selling new gear each year to families, by rubbishing their older stuff. Resale values fall, upgrades therefore become too expensive, and pointing out the flaws in the old gear just makes the sport seem bad.
And after all, if company "Y" basically tells you that the boards they built in 2002 were crap, why would you believe them when they say that their 2008 boards are good?
