ka360 - just watched your vid, gees I'm impressed, just about brought tears to the eyes, good stuff, you must be proud!
Well done!!!

Your boyfriend must take advantage of your cluckiness while it lasts...

H20 - whatever you're doing to book TV crews for these sort of events, keep doing it. Would have been great to have some footage of Robbie and the good sailors pulling shakas and loops!

You got me and the kids all excited about going sailing !
They had a ball at Narrabeen lake this afternoon. They want to go back tomorrow !
On my big AHD 130 l with foam top and French Decathlon's kid rig (3.5m2).
The little rope was a great idea as they felt safer. I had 20m but will need more !

spot1 said...



i think windforce will be getting some calls this week
josh age 7 HE HAS been reading this thread

That is so cute!
Tell him to look forwards though...

As it fits the topic - here is a little movie we did on the
river (Pelican Point) last week:



Unfortunately we do essentially never see any other kids there.
It would be great if there were a few regulars, it would be so much more fun.

Windxtasy said...

Tell him to look forwards though...

I think you'll find he needs to look backwards going for loops (as I imagine he is thinking in that photo)

I don't think there is any promotion of windsurfing outside of windsurfing, if you know what I mean. I wonder what effect an ad, like a manufacturer's 2010 range, at the movies would have?

Here is a great blog that addresses this issue: http://schoolofsurf.com.au/blogs/

Secondly, windsurfing is still way more popular than kitesurfing.

Just type in windsurfing and see how many results show compared to kitesurfing.

If that doesnt convince you, if you use google adwords or just use the google adwords tool search, you'll see that windsurfing has wayyyyy much more searches than kitesrufing. Kitesurfing is going through a boom similar to what windsurfing did back in the 80's. :)

Windsurfing all the way! Never look back mate.

Loved the photo LeStef (great to see the rope working) - your son is looking good! Your rig is nice and light but the only point I'd make is that you'll need something smaller ideally as you gradually increase his exposure to stronger wind. I reckon a 2 to 2.5 metre is essential. He'll need that anyway (for his age and weight) when he starts to go in wind strengths above 15 knots. When you use a small sail, you'll need to cut down an old fin to between 10 - 15 cms so he can turn the board (the small sails can't do this using a normal size fin).

Spot 1 - congratulations to you both - Josh has great stance - he's really hanging off the boom. I think he's looking up in the photo, imagining his new rig - probably the 2011 model Neil Pryde Dragonfly! Your simulator reminds me of what I did for Alex and it was of huge benefit! He'll be planning before you know it.

Showpony - that's really fast into the straps and nice one-handed action! Great video, finishing with a gybe! Great rig control too - can you get your hands on a 100-110 litre pro edition freestyle board? I reckon after a couple of goes with that - there'll be planning in the harness and straps happening for sure... (The Young Gun board is a bit hard to get planning for first timers although it is a great board but made a bit heavier by it's additional features (extra footstrap plugs, foam and extra fin slot). Once they've felt planning then they can achieve it on the Young Gun too.

well that is 2 days of training at pell/point down. I thing that the gear i rented was good the sail was 2m think it could have been smaller and lite for a 7year old.
Josh had fun and is going to do the start windsurfing school mon,tue,wen
it feels like iam learning all over again ......the walk of shame

My 2 cents..

So how do other places in the world get kids hooked on windsurfing?

Example from in Hong kong, the government have set up subsidised water sports centers all around the place. Cost to rent a windsurf board is around 4 AUD per hour. This includes a rescue boat, for when you get into trouble. Lessons cost around 40 AUD for 2 full days, in a group of 5, with one instructor in a boat. You can book it all online.

The result, any weekend in Stanley beach HK even when there's no wind, says it all with dozens of young kids all out on the water having fun, plus quite a few not so young kids. Maybe this also has something to do with a famous (in HK) windsurfer Lee Lai-Shan who won the Olympic gold in '96, lots of people there would like to follow her.

I think the place down at Balmoral charge around ten times that price for a few hours rental. Well of course, they have to since it's a business and they need to make some money...

I dont have kids, but I remember being one, and there's no way my folks could have justified shelling out hundreds of $$ on whim that I'd stick with something seemingly as difficult to learn as windsurding. So a BMX bike it was.

Andy

Great looking sail h2O, your son loves it already.

We went again today at Narrabeen lake with the kids, I have tried my smaller fin (20cm) for the 130 l board and 3.0 m2 sail. They can turn better and it seems to be aiming up and down ok, but I wonder how they will go as there isn't any centerboard and when I sail I can really feel myself going sideways and not pointing much. I guess, the big board is great to learn, but they eventually will have to go on the smaller size board like Alex and Josh.

And Pierrec45 you would have loved it. A couple came with an old board they got for free from someone throwing it away, it was a Hifly 600 CS (Corado Speed ??). I helped them rigging, I haden't seen a boom like that for 25 years, but it was fun to try. Amazing how heavy an old sail can be when it's wet !

LeStef said...


And Pierrec45 you would have loved it. (...)

No I wouldn't. If there was wind I woulda been Wonda or at worst B.Bay ;)

I think it's just a generational thing, like when windsurfing first got popular in the 80's everyone go onto the bandwagon, so to speak and now a lot of those people have aged and drifted away from the sport.

Or maybe stopped sailing when they had kids, and now their kids are grown they're dusting off the old gear ?

Kitesurfing is the new trendy thing so it seems to interest the younger crowd looking for a sport to get into, and will probably go the same way in 10 - 15 years as the originals drop away and the younger crew take up the next sport that comes along.

Similar thing with cycling, when mountain biking came a long there was a big drop in kids getting into road racing, same thing with water skiing when wake boarding came onto the scene.

Windsurfing seems to be making a resurgence now, maybe the original guys have got the kids off their hands now and are getting back into it, maybe some paddle surfers are getting into it as a way to get away from the crowded surf spots.