I met with the Recreation Officer of the mandurah City Council today and the following is a brief summary of the outcomes.

Firstly the Mandurah WS Fest. He was all for this, will help promote. Got me to focus and committ on dates and length of Fest, so I chose sat 4th of Jan 09 and sun 5th of Jan 09. He wanted a "promotion of exercise" element to it, with an emphasis on bringing new people to the sport. I suggested that the mornings of sat and sun we could provide free lessons tryouts, for kiddies/juniors, and over 30's and over 60's. He was all for this and felt this was very important to Mandurah CC. I also suggested seminars on tuning gear, how to go fast etc, and he also approved.

Re events etc. He wanted details of events, and how they tied into WWA. I said we could use the sat as a gps NM event, and also slalom races towards WWA state title points, pending what WWA need/want etc. The Sun could be the warm up for the WWA L2L with a race across and back of the Peel Estauary about 20kms, with possibly over 100 competitors. He said he also wanted racing as close as possible to spectators. Overall, He seemed happy with these ideas.

Club Incorporation. He was particularly keen for the Mandurah Mob to become a Windsurfing Club, with the promise of funding towards events, and the possibility of funding of facilities/premises in future if it became popular. So I said I would see if people were keen.


We canned the idea of a gear/shop expo for a variety of reasons.

We canned the idea of a swap meet because people spend too much time off the water trying to sell gear.

So whaddyareckon.

Well thunked elmo, good points.
The crabbers have always seemed a bit of a worry to me.

Mark _australia said...

Be positive. It will be 20-25kn at 1300 and the crabbers will have all bvggered off

oh yeah do we satill have the "have a go at GPS" pencilled in for winter sometime

Ya Reckon????

We go barreling down the run doing +60kmh the water looks like murkey coffee, and the Crabbers insist on wading out to where we are doing our runs, No Schit we can have close to 20 dickheads spread out along the run.
Then we have the boats which put out their crab nets, the nice ones use visible floats, unfortunately theres a few of them which like using clear water bottles.

Re the GPS, no probs we'll induct you into the "Dark side"

This is a great idea - well done hardie !

(It goes against the grain for me a bit suggesting this) BUT

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"its a competition / event - you cant be here if your not a competititor "

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You 'fence' of an area and people have to keep clear ! Wave / surfing events do that all the time, why can't other sports.

Perhaps it would only be a matter of a few nautical lollypop men in boats who suggest to any people at risk that they are not safe where they are - depends how many competitors you get I suppose.

I have neve seen anyone in the way at the start of the L2L - its a bit obvious. The finish is a different story.

Or it could be a weekend where windsurfers have a licence to do anything they want ! The keys to the city to anyone who can waterstart. Like the beachs when there are "beware - here be windsurfers" signs and all other beach goers have to watch out and give way (Thats what I always thought those signs meant).

"Racing close to spectators" (sounds like more appropriate to kite forum) ! Lets have no spectators - "everyone participates" would be a nice motto.

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Better than "everyone participates" my personal one "the person who has the most fun wins"
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hardpole said...


Or it could be a weekend where windsurfers have a licence to do anything they want !

NOW we are on the same page that is a ripper idea

decrepit said...

Trouble is closing the beach for a wave comp involves about 200m.
A nautical mile run would need 2km, not sure that would go down as well.

apart from waders / crabbers is there a lot of boats needing to "cross" the course ? I was imagining its a long corridor but most of it is away from the shore.

I just realised there is probably a whole can of worms to do with who is in charge of the water rules.

the only time I have been at hardies it looked pretty clear except for the cats and people wading (and it looked more like the boat would hit the crabber than anything - but I imagine just after xmas would be very busy. you guys would obviously know better about the local conditions.