I think one of the problems with windsurfin in WA is the lack of youth in the sport. Im 17 and the number of people my age i see windsurfing is really small. I dont know why this is considering on the PWA freestyle events the are kids who are 16 ripping it up. What are they doing different to us to get young people into the sport????
I dont know what the answer is and im sure many people dont but there must be a way. Apart from this keep up the great work

shmage

I reckon for young people its prolly harder for them to get into windsurfing when compared to surfing/body boarding. Firstly its cheaper to buy a surf board than a windsurfing rig, you need a car to transport all your gear around also... with surfing you can take the bus. Im 21 and still at uni so i have enough trouble getting the parents car and getting down for a sail.

hi i'm 16 and for me wwa could improve by having less comps during exams for school/uni. I'm mostly interested in wavesailing and was keen to go to gero and greenhead at the start of the season but found they clashed with school. Maybe you could have the scabs and cottesloe comps early in the season during school and then the further away competitions during holidays. Also it'd be great if you could get a winter waves comp going at dutchies or avalon and leave a few reserve dates so you could wait for a big front to come through.

Auswind could give discounts to students and it's not as if there going to be missing out on any profits if they sold gear at wholesale to kids because hardly anyone my age can afford new gear anyway. Or even if you could just lend out a bit of gear on competiton days because i can only afford one board at the moment which makes it pretty tough.

Another thing that would be great would be getting some of the top wa sailors to help us out with learning new moves and tricks.

I know in nsw there's a free gear for juniors program where other sailors donate there old gear and people under 18 can pick whatever they want and the requirement is that they sail in a few competitions that year and don't sell the gear on. I reckon that could be pretty succesful and i mentioned it on my wwa membership form last year but nothing has happened about it yet.

where do you sail shmage?

Im now 19, been sailing for about 4 year. My dad bought the families first rig, (Huge battleship with good rig components for around $1200)
I always have had a part time job sometime earning up to $800 a fortnight but usually averaging around the $250 a fortnight. Then for birthdays and christmas presents I usually get money that goes into sailing gear. I dont drink, i dont smoke, i am still living with my parent. I am able to fit working around doing an engineering double degree at the same time. I have plenty of good quality gear because as i see it, i work bloody hard, i play hard, I dont have the time to put up with crap gear. There is no reason why students whould complain about the lack of kit, work hard spend your money in windsurfing shops, and not elsewhere.

The problem I come to is that I have good race kit but I can only really compete in the local races due to the fact that I cant go and race on the 'rural' events beacuse of uni. Also i disagree with the way events are ran so close to our exams.
i am sure there are many other sailors cant travel. I think it would be better to have a race on every second weekend locally ran, ie from safety bay to pinaroo pt.

I think that the real races should start later in the season with more of the swan river, nedlands course racing being done earlier in the season. Its only febuary and the racing season is over.

Next year i want the pricing structure to change, I think that the price should be something like $50 non wwa members $30 for wwa members so that people who are good sailors can enter one or two races if they want. lets encourage people to race instead of making it hard for them.

Also I think that there should be another division in the events. Sponsered/professional Riders: for anyone who is/was/or has been sponsered or has won an open even. Lets actually make the racing scene a bit more realistic.

regards
Chad Silver

at last some common sence maybe these surgestions could give the new cummers to the spot an insentive to try racing with out it costing the earth to race in a class that you will never be competitive.remember when racing was for fun not just for sum . mybe you should be surrpoting novices alittle more mybe even a race result now and than .

I have to agree with increasing the number of social functions. Let's make the sport more fun. It's not all about racing, winning and looking the part. Let's party, relax and have "fun Days" Blasting down the coast, with your mates and a BBQ at the end.

What about an event where we sail to Rotto. Sure it can be a race, but I bet there are plenty of people out there that would do it just for FUN. WWA could organise an event like this, the kite guys did!

I understand that the racing helps to generate income etc, but what about those of us that just want to sail for fun.

ps

I think the insurance is a very good idea.

At last some sensible comments regarding races, I have been entering events for a while especially Ledge to Lancelin, Safety Bay, Snag Marathon. Recently I have noticed the slow death of the circuit, there are about 20 core sailors who attend reguarly have all the gear required and seem really committed to racing. My group of mates who have never been top sailors have slowly one by one lost enthuiasim and dropped out of competing. Personally I get the feeling that certain events are now run on their reputation and most people are more focussed on how drunk they get at the party. To me the best run event is Safety bay, they provide a great event close to Perth with regular updates on their website of results and previous years standings. I feel juniors and novices should be encouraged to enter even if they only pay for their insurance and maybe $10 entry, something has to be done to reinvigorate the circuit. Maybe a buddy system could be introduced where the top twenty sailors were paired up with some of the less accomplished this may improve the overall morale and the overall standard. Even a pairs team entry to the marathons i.e no 1 and no 40 enter together etc and the teams finishing with the best results get a small prize.

I think maybe some sort of handicap system at some fun events so Joe average has some chance of competing equally with the sponsored guns. If it's good enough for Sailing & Golf, it could work for Windsurfing.

Re geeting kids involved, one key is to get the AND their mates on a board at once. Check out all successful kids sports, and in nearly all cases they get to hang together. I think the trailer full of donated/low cost gear, which rotates around several venues according to a callender

Endorse Grumpy's Trailer Idea, willing to donate some of my old gear to help young crew out

I'm a softie at Heart

I agree with you retro boy, i mean WA get so many euors every year. You go up to lancelin and half the population are euors, we cant have them invading us, what would the world come to????.
If people knew of how good WA is for windsurfing through promotion of some sort them maby it may get the picture across to people, the euros know how good it is and they are half way acros the world!!!!!.

shmage

Pauls ideas are good, and require committment from others, I'm willing to committ time to the Mandurah area.

I'm a softie at Heart

Woops, forgot about boards!
Any board repairers out there with a few various size boards which could be repaired and donated?
Maybe instead of end of season discounts the importers and retailers could help out with a board each.
Remember that every guy/girl using donated gear will become a paying customer and addict.

Paul Kelf

Chad, as I said before, new gear would be best but beggers can't be chosers.
Can we then assume you are going to donate some non crap gear?
If WWA are financial at the end of the season, instead of having a big party etc maybe they could finance some gear for under 18s.
I'm sure they could get at least wholesale prices.

Paul Kelf

Simon makes some very valid and strong points, which makes the next task of lifting the profile of the sport to make it cool a difficult one. Not impossible, just difficult.

It's promoting of the Robi Radis's, getting the Roberto Campello's of the world over here, using some of the footage in the PlugnPlay video to promote the sport, if what Roberto BRA111 does on that is not considered cool then nothing will be

Fat middleaged winsurfers such as myself, probably trun young kids at the beach off, maybe I should make a sacrifice and give up

I'm a softie at Heart