Try the enter key..

I know - too obvious right?

It's a system made for Elmo's

Type and go

no fancy pants scripting required

Being a right pill here

What is the basic mode you refer to? is it to do with browser setup or page setup?

please type slowly for me so I can get my head around it

Hi Elmo & 555, thanks for your replies. When I hit "reply to topic" gives me the screen that I type in and that's it. Not doing any other "voodoo stuff". #13;#10;Browser I'm using is "Flock" (like Firefox). Will try another & see what happens.#13;#10;#13;#10;Yep, it looks like the ebook gives contacts for how to get the cheap gear - that's why my curiosity if someone's actually used these contacts to get any gear. Doesn't appear to be any testimonials on the site either...not that I think that's foolproof either tho'

AAAhhhhhhhhh

All to Tackernacal for me back to basic

Thanks for explanation, curiosity satisfied


Regarding the E book and not trying to sound to cynical

If it looks to good to be true then it generally is.

Trying to not sound like a ****er, but this is a big issue..
but buying overseas from places like that is what kills the industry here in Aus and will kill off the shops. so you have to pay a little more, but its about supporting the sport that you love! if the shops go under and then your only option will be dodgy overseas websites like this! then who do you turn to when you have a warranty issue or need advise???

My 2 cents worth anyway!

I guess that cleared things up.

Your other browser is flocked up! Maybe you're a goose for using it..

Firefox and IE both seem to work fine.

Yeah, I "got Flocked" (installed flock) about a year ago, and it seems to work well for some things and not others.

Since it's similar to Firefox, am now trying it (Firefox) & see if it works ok too. I find that Internet Explorer doesn't run well on my Mac.

Yes, KA222 you make a good point, and consider myself appropriately "smacked" for asking...I thought this may come up in asking the question.

I don't know if "buying overseas from places like that" killed it for Australian shops - maybe that's more to do with the trend of windsurfing popularity here itself. I was told by an ex sailboard retailer in Sydney that there used to be 32 windsurfing shops (in Syd) at it's peak, now there's one (his comment not mine). His comment on the reason for the decline was due to the decrease in popularity of the sport itself...

yep its a dieing sport cause its getting to dear for young ones to take up and getting anthing here in tassy is nere impossible[}:)]

strangely, here on the goldcoast the interest in windsurfing seems to be looking the best it's been since I started sailing here in 2000. Hopefully keeps getting better

I actually find it pretty sad that windsurfing in Australia doesn't have the popularity of years gone by, because in Europe and the UK it's still as strong as ever. Every year more and more windsurfing resorts are opened in turkey, greece, egypt, spain etc.

I think in a sparsely populated country like Australia, there's a "critical mass" for sport popularity. remember indoor cricket?? when it got to a stage when "people weren't doing it", then no-one wanted to take it up. kiting broke through it's critical mass, but as people leave the sport due to laziness or because the "extreme factor" is now dilute, it'll be interesting to see whether that critical mass is maintained.

I think the Gold Coast "anomaly" might be because in a lot of ways it's the perfect place to sail (climate, space, waves) but a lot of people went to kiting because the wind was just a bit off the pace for "traditional" wave gear. now that we're all sailing shorter but floatier stuff with bigger but simpler sails, it's perfectly feasable to go out in a good summer breeze and have fun.

one of my beefs (and I'm inviting the shops to respond with their view) is the lack of entry-level equipment. if you want a tennis raquet, you go to the shop and you pick either the $20 one or the $200 one. it feels to me like in windsurfing, we only have the $200 one...

matt

excellent link winditup...

i found another link with some great gear on offer for excellent prices.

www.seabreeze.com.au/Members/Classifieds/Gear/2002-RRD-Fireball-272-cm-109-litres.aspx?id=0471fd30-39eb-4348-bc42-a55f6db8f745&search=E36aB6eVKcE%3d

I'd support the local shop here, because Sam's a good guy. The shops that used to be here deserved very little support, because they and their ****y "this sport is all about high-wind high-performance" are what stuffed the sport up in the first place.

As Goldy says, the industry told everyone they "had" to have the $200 racket, not the $20 one; it was as if car yards only sold Ferraris rather than Corollas and Commodores, or as if boat shops tried to sell everyone 18 Foot Skiffs instead of Lasers. Lots of people, like Barry Spanier from Maui Sails and Jim Drake who co-invented our whole sport, say that the high-wind only attitude is what made the sport a shadow of what it was.

I'm not sure about the sport being as big in Europe as it used to be - the windsurfing industry association reported that annual sales were down to 80,000 per year, from 1 million back 20 years ago.

Wow I nearly posted a 50000 word essay on this topic but deleted it.

Bring back plastic boards 6m sail, no harness and a storm sail if your game to go out in more than 20 knots. If you want to wave sail get a sheet of dark plastic, heat up the board and bend up the nose. Thats was when windsurfing was really fun and we never sat in our cars waiting for wind or wondering what size sail to rig.

I can't see that it is any different here to the UK or places in europe I have been to but people that I have met who are in the watersports industry, shops, windsurf holiday centres etc only pay cost for their gear which is about 50% of retail; that seems like one hell of a mark up for the rest of us. I assume that retail prices are controlled by the manufacturers rather than the shops.

If the popularity of the sport is dwindling, and the competition from kitesurfing is growing surely the manufacturers need to consider how to fight back by making it better value for money.

And why would a teenager take up windsurfing when they need to cough up $3000 for one board and rig, and they'll need another sail at least very quickly; when they can spend a fraction of that on a surfboard, and that is all they need!

BTW I don't surf or kitesurf so I'm not biased.