I've been retired (from professional practice) for nine months now.

Let's see:
4 months in Mallacoota (Far east Victoria)- locked out but not down
1 week Geraldton- first forward at fifty six
1 month sailing West Coast Tassie to Hobart- top speed 8.2 kts @ 12 tonne boat
Remainder spread between Melb (blah) and Mornington Peninsula (not so blah).

IMO there ain't one location that has it all, but the nomadic lifestyle lets you go to the best places at the right time. Just like FirieBob does.

So is Alice Springs the epicentre of all the best windsurfing around Australia?

If I had my choice then I would like a location that had clear blue skies, warmish water and good constant wind. I think there used to be places like this but suburbia caught up with them. Clusters of tall buildings block out the wind and stormwater drains change the colour of water, depositing sediment over the clear sandy bottom. Jet skis and powerboats churn the water. Sharks and crocs are protected, but not our car parks.

Australia does have about 11000km of coastline. Perhaps there is somewhere that ticks all the boxes. Realistically though, I am beginning to think that windsurfing is a bit like snow skiing because there is a short season of a few months when everything is good then you wait another nine months before you can do it again. The only other option is to travel overseas. I am considering starting up a go fund me page for this option, if you feel generously inclined

Orange Whip said..

MarkSSC said..
If I had my choice then I would like a location that had clear blue skies, warmish water and good constant wind. I think there used to be places like this but suburbia caught up with them. Clusters of tall buildings block out the wind and stormwater drains change the colour of water, depositing sediment over the clear sandy bottom. Jet skis and powerboats churn the water. Sharks and crocs are protected, but not our car parks.

Australia does have about 11000km of coastline. Perhaps there is somewhere that ticks all the boxes. Realistically though, I am beginning to think that windsurfing is a bit like snow skiing because there is a short season of a few months when everything is good then you wait another nine months before you can do it again. The only other option is to travel overseas. I am considering starting up a go fund me page for this option, if you feel generously inclined

There's a place you may not have heard of, notwithstanding your profile says you live in Qld. It's north of Caboolture and it's called North Queensland.

Don't you need a passport to travel that far from the rest of Australia?

There are some wonderful benefits about North Queensland, but how far north are you talking about?

North Queensland also has nasties that sting and bite. Crocs, Box jellies, fins with teeth, stingrays...they didn't appreciate Steve Irwin either.

MikeyS said..
I've been retired (from professional practice) for nine months now.

Let's see:
4 months in Mallacoota (Far east Victoria)- locked out but not down
1 week Geraldton- first forward at fifty six
1 month sailing West Coast Tassie to Hobart- top speed 8.2 kts @ 12 tonne boat
Remainder spread between Melb (blah) and Mornington Peninsula (not so blah).

IMO there ain't one location that has it all, but the nomadic lifestyle lets you go to the best places at the right time. Just like FirieBob does.

So is Alice Springs the epicentre of all the best windsurfing around Australia?

Spot on mikey. Great to see you are still getting great TOW.

decrepit said..

sailquik said..>>>> I don't recall anyone posting speeds from any offshore speed strips around Geraldton. Can anyone point to one?

I think this is what Mark's referring to www.geraldtonwindsurfclub.com/trips.html

Oh, OK, but that is not exactly 'local'. And the OP didn't say what that radius was or what sort of sailing he likes best. Gero is a great jumping off place for Shark Bay too, but that's not exactly 'Local'.

So, there have been some very interesting suggestions and ideas, but the questions is inevitably a bit like the old: 'how long is a piece of string?'

If you are including the idea to travel 200 to 600+km on a good forecast (which I do regularly ) it opens the whole location thing up enormously.

It is interesting to start putting 600km (or whatever) circles on the Map of OZ and consider the possibilities.

WA. Buy a Windsurfer LT for retirement and you can sail everyday if you have time. You can sail for fun or compete against others on one design equipment. An LT can be sailed in every wind strength, in the waves or on flat and any wind direction with one rig and board, so simple it is just a nice tool in your arsenal. It can be SUPed or surfed as a section connector. Learn to Wing on it sans foil. Just one bow in your quiver of other gear ( you can have the other gear kite, wing, wind, foil and surf etc too no problem) and it intensifies life. Keep living the dream and come and enter at the Australian Master Games, Perth in October- charter boards for interstate entrants are limited so get in now. For the nomadic types camping is available near Mounts Bay Sailing Club- just get in now and make the arrangements.

australianmastersgames.com/sport/sailing-windsurfer-lt/

RichardG said..
WA. Buy a Windsurfer LT for retirement and you can sail everyday if you have time. You can sail for fun or compete against others on one design equipment. An LT can be sailed in every wind strength, in the waves or on flat and any wind direction with one rig and board, so simple it is just a nice tool in your arsenal. It can be SUPed or surfed as a section connector. Learn to Wing on it sans foil. Just one bow in your quiver of other gear ( you can have the other gear kite, wing, wind, foil and surf etc too no problem) and it intensifies life. Keep living the dream and come and enter at the Australian Master Games, Perth in October- charter boards for interstate entrants are limited so get in now. For the nomadic types camping is available near Mounts Bay Sailing Club- just get in now and make the arrangements.

australianmastersgames.com/sport/sailing-windsurfer-lt/

Your have obviously found your calling. Have fun while you can

sailquik said..

Ian K said..
With the rollout of EVs around the corner 200km is going to be the new radius. (Unless there's a charging station at the Jurien Bay carpark?).
A smaller radius would be easily accommodated if water state was quantifiable and GPS results could be categorised. Maybe an accelerometer to log the bumps at the tail of the board could do the trick?

Peter Hands has all categories covered within a 20km radius!

200Km is why I won't be getting an EV anytime soon.

Have had an EV for almost four years now. It's not as bad as many think. And they're a lot cheaper to run, so cost of "fuel" is not a factor anymore

Perth to Adelaide takes one extra overnight stop, but possible. I know a bunch of EV owners who have done it. I had a Melbourne - Shark Bay trip planned myself for Jan-Feb but had to cancel it due to Covid

#VanLife

decrepit said..
I guess it won't be that long before charging stations get closer together. But a trip from Perth to Lake George would be impossible at the moment.

Gonna have to call you out here Decrepit. Haven't really been reading these forums much until I read the Fangy fin thread after getting his fin and realised I'm missing out on some good knowhow. BTW this is the same Flex in GPSTC but someone here already has Flex as handle so #2 has to do. Thought I'd comment on the EV stuff as there is a lot of misconception out there and the mainstream media (no doubt funded by fossil fuels) always casts EV's in a negative light. Little bit surprised the wind mob aren't aware so excuse the following ramble.

First off, a trip in an EV Perth to Lake George is not impossible..pretty damm easy actually. The first production EV to travel around Australia without lugging a generator was done in 2016. Its so common now (except the last year thanks to C19) it doesn't count as special. I think the record is down to around 14 days now. The only issue with Perth to Lake George currently is you have to plan to stop somewhere for 8hrs between Lake Grace and Adelaide...and if you are human you need to sleep sometime so just plan to rest roughly half way between Lake Grace..i.e. Eucla caravan park.

I have had an EV for the last 1 1/2 years and it has an honest 400km range at highway speeds (with the windsurf gear inside the car). It quite simply is vastly superior to ICE in every regard. Costs me less than $5 for full range top up at home and can fill for free in many places. I got the go faster (0-100 in 3.4 secs) version as opposed to the go further version which has 100km more real world range. This means I can out fang pretty much anything on the road except its big brother. This beats on range and 0-100 by a long way in exchange for $. My car allows Perth-Albany in one go if you don't have wind against you. There is now a free fast charger in Kojonup which means you can drive aggressively as you please and pass all those grey nomads with ease (Like Firiebob doing his thing) and deal with strong winds. I did the Albany trip last xmas in my EV when I first discovered GPSTC and sailed Lilacs every day. No one probably saw me as I parked at kiters end as I didn't know any better. I recharged using a normal 10Amp electrical outlet with 75m of extension cords (since I was camping) which gave me 10km/hr charge rate which was plenty to get around. There are a number of free chargers in Albany which give around 50km/hr charge rate. Even Macca's has one. I'll let you work out how long it takes to get free fries.

There have been two public charge stations in Jurian Bay for at least 3 years. One is one of the many free 3 phase sockets Synergy donated around the State in mainly remote areas for EV's. This gives you 55km/hr to 85km/hr charge rate depending what EV you have. There is also a home made fast charger built by one of my mates at the nearby Caltex station. This gives you 250km/h+r charge rate. For a number of years this charger has run on diesel but now runs on waste deep fryer oil so is carbon neutral. I met this guy a few years ago and motivated me to do the same but different approach.

Since WA drivers are an impatient lot (worst in the world IMHO), a long charge is unacceptable and thus supposedly impossible (you have to sleep sometime though and best case to Ecula is 15 hrs driving..surely this is time for a rest?). The recently announced WA government fast EV infrastructure plan isn't addressing this supposed dead zone between Lake Grace and Adelaide (its more concerned with internal state travel and not going to happen anyway for another 2 years). Since I'm new here I can't post links or images but go to the plugshare website (PLUGSHARE DOT COM) to see all the available EV chargers around Australia (the world). You will note there there is plenty of slow chargers (green) but a lack of fast chargers (orange) between Lake Grace and Adelaide (and also north of Jurian). Fast chargers = full tank in time for a sit down meal (<1hr)

So when I'm not on the water myself, the guy who built the Jurian Bay fast charger Jon Edwards and I are building fast chargers out of our own pocket to fill this gap. Jon is building the waste fryer oil chargers (under company Bi0Fil)...just 2 days ago did a full day load test with Murdoch Uni studying the results with a continuous queue of EV's to charge. Quick look results show that the waste oil generators emitted same energy per litre as diesel but 1/2 the toxic emissions plus carbon neutral (for remote locations this stops them checking the oil in a hole and enables another revenue stream).

For those many duped by the media that think that charging an EV on fossil fuels is pointless, most people don't realise is EV's are so efficient at converting energy into forward motion that even using coal or gas (i.e. our grid) to recharge is far superior. We would get instant reduction of 50%+ carbon if every one switched to EV and we stayed with coal. Example: I drive almost latest generation VW transporter (that blue beat up campervan)..gets 10litres per 100km at best, average is around 12l/100km. Trip to Albany is 420km so VW takes about 50 litres. Each litre diesel has 10KWhr energy so consumption is 504KWhr. My EV, driving hard into full head wind and overtaking Firebob and all his mates takes 80Kwhr to do the same trip. Assuming I didn't use solar to recharge which I did, but use the grid means I consumed 80Kwhr at at 40% efficiency ( big generators and new gas turbines are now pushing 50% efficiency) = 200Kwhr which is way less than twice better than the best german made engine ever.

My approach to fast charging and filling the gap between Lake Grace and Adelaide is attempting a more business model to be self sustaining. This is using junk EV batteries (75-80Kwhr capacity) and slow charging them on any available source of power (single phase, 3 phase, solar/wind and/or waste fryer oil) then dumping that power quickly into an EV when required. To make money the same system generates AC power for the roadhouse/caravan park...sort of like a giant Telsa Powerwall. Been working great till I blew it up last saturday..lesson learnt but will be working again soon.

Happy to show anyone these chargers anytime or you can see them in action by following the Targa West Rally. By far we are first in the production class but hard to beat the team with infinite money and non spec everything. Look for the White Tesla with lots of logos all over it. It is stock and over 1 year old now. You will be happy to know that our WA government told me to F*$k off when I applied for their grant in the "Clean Energy Future Fund" to fill this hole in charging infrastructure. Cost would be less than $200K tax payer dollars to put in 2 self sustaining charges and get two roadhouse off diesel + make money for themselves + go carbon neutral. Applying again right now. Will never happen unless you, the majority start demanding it.

Sorry for the first post ramble..

For about a million years of human history a day's march was 20 miles. Horses were good for 50 miles. Camels 40 miles. And then a very short time ago we figured out how to turn fossil fuel into rotary motion. Maybe it's just a brief moment in history and we'll have to back off a bit.

ballina said..

Not Ballina, ballina?

Flex2 said..>>Sure Decrepit, anytime. Might bend you ear too...treasure trove of info here...just found the plug and play GPS thread and working my way through that...seems you are fairly active in that department.

Didn't you see that strange looking thing on my head?

Flex2 said..

Gonna have to call you out here Decrepit. ...........................

I love your obvious enthusiasm, but you gotta admit that it's still a dicy, logistics exercise traveling outside the Major cities. Looking at that map of charging points, if you take away the green ones, it is still very sparse indeed. For the Grey Nomad with their caravan, or 'van life' windsurfer person, it just does not appear in any way viable yet.

What EV's Vans are currently available for the nomadic Windsurfer?

There is not even any 'green symbol' charging stations near my favourite windsurfing destination, Beachport SA. Can EV's be plugged into normal caravan park power points?

OTOH, New Zealand look like they are WELL ahead of us.