Like I said before, the Guy Cribb crew numbered 11. The most I counted was 15 total in the middle of the day with several sessions being awesome with only 3-8 people, I had one session with only 2 other people out. Much better than the 50-60 out years ago!

(This is a response to Nuders post).

HF, Sounds good. Will be an awesome comp.

In regards to concerns about numbers. I doubt a comp will radically increase the numbers. I agree with others that about 5 to 8 years ago it was pretty busy from September right through to March with many people staying for several weeks at a time.

A lot of the Euro crew now go to South Africa. The single biggest reason is that getting your windsurf gear / kite gear to Oz is either crazy expensive or outright impossible. Then once you get here everything is insanely expensive.

Compare that with South Africa which is relatively easy to get to (8 hours from Europe), gear transport is easy and cheap, once you get there live is fairly inexpensive. Their wind is more consistent then what we've seen in WA over the last few years plus you don't have to drive hundreds of kilometers just to get from one spot to the next. Often you can get a house right on the beach where you windsurf.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying OZ is no good. Quite the opposite. It's just that I don't see a Nationals comp suddenly attracting a flood of people that never heard about this place.

thedrip said..
Useless windsurfers on SUPs haven't diminished in numbers in the morning.

here's a useless windsurfer on a SUP, look how much space is being taken up in the lip no respect, absolute OUTRAGE!!!!

Why talk about next years event 4 days before this years event actually happens.

Seems very odd. Maybe wait till this years event us over so it gets the space it deserves.

At least respect those that have put in the effort to make this years event happen by helping provide a focus on flat rock.

Pretty poor form.

Gestalt said..
Why talk about next years event 4 days before this years event actually happens.

Seems very odd. Maybe wait till this years event us over so it gets the space it deserves.

At least respect those that have put in the effort to make this years event happen by helping provide a focus on flat rock.

Pretty poor form.

Reckon it's something good to get excited about!

Odds of getting flat rock anywhere near as good as Gnarloo - are about the same as a female jockey winning the melbourne cup!

But then again, you never know!

Col,

Great job putting down the ground work. One thing people need to remember is that windsurf events in Australia are volunteer based... ie people don't do it as a get rich quick scheme. Quite the opposite. Often people put in their own money in addition to time, blood, sweat and tears to make it happen.

Gestalt, the big problem with organizing any type of beach event in Australia is the insane number of permits you need which can take months to get depending on what council you are dealing with. In addition, you have scheduling conflicts with other events, school holidays, etc. . On top of that you have to content with people complaining about location, who is allowed to enter and who isn't, that there is no wind, there is too much wind, there are no waves, the waves are too big...
... sometimes I am surprised these events happen at all.

stehsegler said..

Gestalt, the big problem with organizing any type of beach event in Australia is the insane number of permits you need which can take months to get depending on what council you are dealing with. In addition, you have scheduling conflicts with other events, school holidays, etc. . On top of that you have to content with people complaining about location, who is allowed to enter and who isn't, that there is no wind, there is too much wind, there are no waves, the waves are too big...
... sometimes I am surprised these events happen at all.

To be fair, Gestalt, who has successfully run Burrum Heads Windfest for the last 9 years, has a good appreciation of difficulties in organising a windsurfing event

John340 said..

stehsegler said..

Gestalt, the big problem with organizing any type of beach event in Australia is the insane number of permits you need which can take months to get depending on what council you are dealing with. In addition, you have scheduling conflicts with other events, school holidays, etc. . On top of that you have to content with people complaining about location, who is allowed to enter and who isn't, that there is no wind, there is too much wind, there are no waves, the waves are too big...
... sometimes I am surprised these events happen at all.

To be fair, Gestalt, who has successfully run Burrum Heads Windfest for the last 9 years, has a good appreciation of difficulties in organising a windsurfing event

thanks John.

lotofwind said..
What I want to know is why is it that an activity that you all say is not "fashionable" anymore, and yáll are always banging on about ways to promote it to try and boost numbers like back 30 years ago in the 80's, but then hold one of the biggest comp (20 people attending) in one of the most remote places possible that no Joe public can actually come and watch ?

Its kinda like putting the leper colony out in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah cos we are all retarded and tried a wave comp on the Swan River in front of the CBD and strangely the conditions were not quite right. Duh you do realise our capital city has no real wave spots? Why wouldn't we put the wave Nationals at the best wave spot going?

Timmayyy

i can sort of see loto's point.
It's kinda like Surfing in the 80's and 90's
Comps were being held in substandard conditions because thats where the crowds and sponsorship was.
Then they realised to really promote the brand the best way was to surf at idyllic venues and promote the sport more as a travel destination than a competition.
It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I'd like to see windsurfing more popular in Australia, with a tour at all the great sailing spots around the country, but on the other hand, people get on my F*&%ing tits.

Every surf break has an event but from my experience if you carnt work out who sails it well and one needs to crown a champion it will be a sad day / it will be a mother period to avoid the place
part

masse said...
Would be nice to see some more heli footage from Gnaraloo. Hope that you'll have a good comp and that the place can be kept the way it is. I'd sure like to go there, one of my dream spots to sail (alongside Mauritius, Topocalma and PSC).

Just to put things into perspective - here in Sweden, I'd say that alongside Margs and Geraldton (and perhaps Esperance), Gnaraloo is easily the most well known spot for wavesailing in WA.

It even has its own nick name in Swedish - "Gnarran".

funny enough gnaraloo isn't well known by overseas surfers

^^i guess we will just have to disagree on this then

HF said..

There's 2 main reasons for doing it there in 2016.
First is that we will be doing some aerial photography near Gnaraloo at the time so having a helicopter there will be no issue and secondly that area is undergoing ownership changes .

Choppers and land ownership issues aren't valid reasons for running a national comp. ^^^

It's the wave , dude.

Have your contest and I hope it's epic.

Tombstones is arguably the most high performance wave sailing spot in the land.

Do it.