I was just wondering (This has been the worst lack of wind winter for me EVER! I have way too much time on my hands) How many people windsurf in Australia ?

When I drive along the coast in summer I see different amounts at different spots I tried to add them all up then doubled it to cover for people at work or not there with other commitments, I reckon by my crazy visual calculations we would have 500 in Perth.
What do you reckon Perth people? am I close or way off with 500
What about other cities around OZ ?

No wind in WA, so count us out on the tally.......

Only 500 in Australia's windiest city of 1.47 million people! That's only 1 in every 3,000 people.
I think Australia's least windy city Canberra (pop 345,000) would run to a similar ratio. That proves wind does nothing to attract windsurfers.

Haven't been here long, but the Illawarra with a pop of 278,000 doesn't seem to even match that ratio.

^ lol

there was 686 people registered with the AWA last season.

6 of those were windsurfers and the rest are sailboarders

its more than you would think..

about 800 -1000 new boards are sold in oz each year - with most windsurfers buying a board every 2 or 3 years i would say that makes for around 3000 or so.

Plus casual die hards on old gear.

Where did you get those figures from ?

Reflex Films said...

its more than you would think..

about 800 -1000 new boards are sold in oz each year - with most windsurfers buying a board every 2 or 3 years i would say that makes for around 3000 or so.

Plus casual die hards on old gear.

nick0 said...

thiers a list for all the registered sail numbers in aus . also shows how many for each state

That would not be an accurate measure of the number of people windsurfing. Most windsurfers don't have sail numbers registered to them. Possibly the only way to measure the number of windsurfers would be for a census to be taken at places where windsurfing takes place.

Such a census would require at least one person to travel around Australia to known windsurfing locations, counting sails, interviewing windsurfers and from this getting the required data. Talking to windsurfer retailers and getting customer numbers would help too.

Mobydisc said...

nick0 said...

thiers a list for all the registered sail numbers in aus . also shows how many for each state

.....would require at least one person to travel around Australia to known windsurfing locations, counting sails, interviewing windsurfers and from this getting the required data.

Yeah I'll volunteer.......

Wow 1000 would not be much. The registered count cannot possibly be indicative.

But let's say there are 1000 new buys a year, at say $5k a pop (with rigs, bits, etc.), that's only a $5 million industry. That's a very small volume of business. Spread amongst 5-8 different makers, it's no wonder new equipment is expensive...

seriously guys out side of metro areas a one armed man could count the windsurfers and still have fingers left over so 500 world wide would be a stretch

KenHo said...

I dunno, I think it an on-line census would be more achievable. An incentive to participate would help. Most people who sail are tech-savvy enough to have computer access for that and word-of-mouth might help catch the few who don't pay attention or care.

I'll write a GUI Interface in Visual Basic to track their IP.

But seriously, how about just a gCalc spreadsheet?
State | Age Group | Something | Something

Reflex Films said...

...- plus the 5 - 10 or so die hards that make up 80 % of the posts (anyone with a number of 2000 or higher on their avatar) here

...

I am CLOSE! So close I can taste it!

I used to work in the industry and have a rough idea how many boards the various brands sell in OZ.

There's 385 boards just for sale in the buy and sell section. Being fairly conservative I reckon this may only account for say 20% of windsurfers actually selling their wares at any one time. So maybe 2000+ at a minimum ???????

Of course I could be completely wrong like a lot of other things.

that "6 degrees of separation" Idea could be applied.. so maybe seabreeze emails everyone on their database a form with organised fields (age, car type, equipment description) and we fill in as many windsurfers as we know.

so i could enter, say, probably 100 windsurfers i could describe from memory or from sailing over the season.

eg,

"that old guy in the pink seat harness who uses a yellow 6.9 NP 1999 sheertip, and the DROPS slalom 296, who always crashes his waterstarts, owns a jack russelXdalmation, and drives the blue 1985 volvo wagon, and gets angry at the modern world such as Ipods, kitesurfing and female PMs"

and somehow if this guy gets entered once, everybody recognises him and doesn't repeat the entry..

this data gets calculated somehow and we get a total!

thinking about it, this wouldnt work because that one description represents a fair chunk of the windsurfing community XD

The number of boards sold doesn't equate to the number of windsurfers. I have eight of the buggers in use, and half a dozen old ones up in the loft!!

Neither do shop keepers necessarily tell the truth. (Would they admit to selling just a couple of multi fins only?[}:)])