We all swim & sail together kites and windsurfers and we have fun lets keep it that way.

Kites seem to need a larger sand areas or launch area than windsurfers. Hampton and savoy beach are man made beaches the port of Melbourne or an authority pumped the sand to these beaches at an enormous cost. Dendy was also pumped. Not as much though. Someone out their is or was trying to make our beaches better this was say 20 & 30 years back. Hampton and savoy had almost no sand and on big days your car would be sprayed by salt water from the waves. You knew it was big then.

I think for safety we should try to relocate a few poles. A small expense when you look at what has been spent on the waterways in the past

As mentioned by others signs educating beach users are needed. These can be fun for all users on the land and water used for fitness and fun and safety

Hope someone can use these ideas

Windsurf0709 said..

I think generally we're going to have to be a bit more proactive in promoting best practice behaviour amongst fellow windsurfers. I know I'm guilty of sailing into the beach at 20 odd knots and pulling up 3 metres from shore. I mostly try to get upwind and out of no boating zones, but I've never had a conversation with another windsurfer suggesting they do the same - I guess there's been no reason to to date.

There a quite a few folk that don't follow these forums and don't or won't care about whether they obey existing or new marine laws. There might be value in developing a code of ethics for windsurfing much liked the surfing signs we saw earlier in this (or the other thread) and bringing them to the attention of all windsurfers.

We could manufacture signs and stick them up at popular beaches - make posters to put up in the stores or produce some t-shirts or other merchandise! Hopefully if we don't come across as zealots then the whole windsurfing community might pull together on this one - either that or the $250+ fines will do the trick!

I second that! If we are on the front foot and the lifesavers / authorities see actions in addition to words that would go a long way to foster coexistence. I would also suggest to include the main sailing rules (similar to one of the surf rule signs we saw earlier) because out of own recent experience some of the guys out there have no idea (I nearly got run over at Elwood last month in an incident that could have caused serious injuries).

fabulon31 said...
Nice letter Stuart.
Please contact me if you need any help. I was at the meeting last week but had to leave early so didn't get a chance to put my hand up to offer assistance.

Brilliant i signed up as a Lifeguard at Elwood today walked in harness and all: )

Sputnik11 said..

K Dog said..

When you look at:

www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/boating-zones.htm

You can see that the real thrust is aimed at Jet skiing issues....

Perhaps a table showing statistics of incidence? I will try and track down some data....

f***ing jet skis, the rodents of the water. I'm not surprised that we are having these difficulties now due to jet skiiers.

jakranz said..

cameronil said..

K Dog said..

cameronil said..

Great work with all of this and for volunteering to take this on. Agree with your letters. Hopefully common sense prevails and co-existence of water users is possible without the exclusion of some. It is not a major change required for this to occur in regards to moving the zones a little and I think it is good that this is being emphasised along with the safety aspects. Ironically I recently rescued a swimmer on my windsurf board who was drowning. I sailed back into the swimming area and dragged him onto my board. I think we have a fair point in regards to safety as we are generally a safe bunch on the water.

Stories like this could be very useful. Maybe send your details to the PV team just in case?

I've assisted a dude with a capsized sailing canoe before.... more of a boat than a swimmer, and also assisted kiters in trouble at St Kilda, but again it shows we are responsible water users.

Happy to assist if needed but the story was more an add on just to illustrate the point that we do have a positive influence on the water in regards to safety, as K Dog also has shown. I have never witnessed any issues to a swimmer from windsurfers or kiters for that matter. I even saw one lady swim through all the kiters at Hampton (north end) in 30 knots and not get touched, although she tried hard and she could have easily moved to the south end and have hundreds of meters to herself. In regards to the incident I referred to occurred at Green Point in late January this year, there was no report. When I got to the guy he had gone under and was unable to come back up on his own. I was assisted by another swimmer, the swimmers wife met us on the beach and an off duty nurse helped. He swallowed lots of water but despite our insistence they refused an ambulance. We stayed with them for a while and the nurse stayed on for even longer. They were very thankful and he was incredibly lucky I was windsurfing in sight of that beach. I would say these type of incidents often do not get reported unless the ambulance is called, lifeguards are present or a hospital is visited.

Impressive story indeed, this guy wouldn't have made it without you! I think this story should round up the picture that we are a responsible bunch and look out for people.

Just adding to the many instances where we windsurfer seem to be where the buck stops in windy unpleasant conditions ... Last year I had to drag in a SUP guy that was part of a group doing a downwinder in strong northerly (offshore wind) conditions. He had broken his paddle and was "dead in the water" about a km out. He seemed somewhat in shock and could not think straight anymore. instead of lying flat on his belly and paddling home like a surfer with very little exposure to the 35knt wind ... he was sitting up and trying to paddle with the broken paddle blade. needless to say it got him nowhere other than straight out downwind to the heads. I found a piece of string, attached it to my rear foot strap with a loop for him to hold on while lying on his SUP. That way I managed to pull him in to about 50m off the beach where the wind would not allow anymore pulling on my 73L board (sinker). I instructed him to paddle like a surfer to the beach but he was clearly not able to do even that ... luckily a rescue boat was on its way and helped him out in the end ... so I did not have to swim him back.

cameronil said..

Great work with all of this and for volunteering to take this on. Agree with your letters. Hopefully common sense prevails and co-existence of water users is possible without the exclusion of some. It is not a major change required for this to occur in regards to moving the zones a little and I think it is good that this is being emphasised along with the safety aspects. Ironically I recently rescued a swimmer on my windsurf board who was drowning. I sailed back into the swimming area and dragged him onto my board. I think we have a fair point in regards to safety as we are generally a safe bunch on the water.

nice work, Stuart. Excellent representation of the windsurfers' perspective