I have always asked the question 'Why was it so popular?'. I remember windsurfing shops on every corner, local events attracting hundreds, big sponsors (cigarette companies, coke, etc), and it was even part of my high school's sport.

What was the essence?

Personal op: 2/3 reason was the same or similar equipment early 80s up to late 80s. For a while. The only gimmick then was not how much you'd spent, but fun, bit of freestyle, teaching others, friendly racing, and so on. That was replaced by the big Tupperware look-at-my-new-gear party we have now. Up to this day, the quiver guys still scorn at newcomers trying to learn. They try to convince newbies (to whom they won't teach themselves) that the only thing is multiple gear, planing and high wind sailing. Sometimes you can count the number of strokes in one's hair, as he/she didn't get on the water as the wind "wasn't good enough". Ditto shops - I know, because I pretended to be a newbie that's looking for a board.

1/3, me reckon, was the novelty-coolness thing. It was cool then, the new thing. You could get laid just because you had a board (bad joke here). Fads only last so long.

If I may add another 1/6th, I would say we live in the must-be-quick-and-easy society. In the old days, at least 95% of those trying would learn, on crappy equipment mind you. Nowadays, people give up after 1 try and 20 minutes on much better equipment. "Too hard", "not fun", "too difficult", "thought it would have been easier". Even the quiver sailors use the said quiver to sail underclothed, in order to make it easier. We're the new generation.

That's my 2 cents. It's coming back, slowly. It's now going from a wank-fad to an activity or a sport again. That's good.

Here at a local pond we had our yearly windsurfing day, with the borrowing of boards for newbies. Guess what: 3 full waves (times 15-20?) of interested newcomers. Good on them. All had a good time.

I made this an additional reply on purpose.

I teach to whomever, but not free. When I teach for free, people give up after 5 minutes and waste my time. As I said, this is the new generation.

I ask people to make a $100 check to some charity, which I will return after 5 outings, or will give out if not. This guarantees their attention, or worst case that someone will gain out of it.

Why....

Because it was simple......hard to learn, maybe
but a truck load of fun getting all the family and friends out on the Wally.

Personally I've come a full circle in the sport.....

I owned a wally back when I was around 11 or 12 years old ( now 38)
Sailed it on the lake in the surf, any wind condition, any wind direction.

Got my first wave board back in 1985, and loved it BUT my biggest mistake was putting the wally away....what I thought was to big, to heavy to slow.

But now I have 2 wally's in the shed, and am always on the lookout for longboards.

I went from sailing every day on the wally...... then on the short board being picky about wind strength, direction and what sail to use. If it wasn't 15 to 20kts we just didn't bother. and in reallity looking back on time lost a heap of time on the water.

So In a nutshell I recon time on the water and the family orientation of the sport was one of the key things for the eighties.

It is very easy to discuss 'why it isn't big now' perhaps that is a different discussion. However this topic aims to highlight the essence of why windsurfing is so great. Maybe the discussion should be 'How & why did you start windsurfing' for anyone who did back then.

Windsurfing started for me in the mid eighties through pier pressure, most school mates were all into it including the girls. It didn't take long before I discovered how good it was (I also met my first girlfriend windsurfing, she was a great sailor and so were all her friends). Windsurfing in the Eighties to me was mainly a social thing e.g. planning a sunday with about 10 friends to go cruising for hours up the bay every weekend. Heaps of fun.

We all had the gen 1 Windsurfer One Design except when we went on a surfing & wavesailing surfari (surf the glass in the morning, wavesail in the arvo with the seabreeze). In the eighties it was my experience that most people did it all, surfed, wavesailed, did slalom, raced raceboards and cruised around on wallies. We didn't have big quivers but shared equipment around.

For me it was big because there was an appreciation for all variations of the sport.

The popularity of the '80s was probably youth, novelty and cheaper gear. Also I don't remember it being a "planing only" sport. Just an activity.

I hear the average age of windsurfers is 40. Probably the same people who started in the '80s now have money to spend on the more expensive gear. Maybe that is why sales have picked up a bit.

'84 - Started on a TC Beacher.
'85 - Bombora South Pacific II (the one with the centreboard).
'92 - Windsurfer Fun/Freestyle secondhand and still have it.
'07 - Kona One.

I have fondest memories of the South Pac II which could do the short board thing but could still get me home when the wind dropped. I think my long-term preference of all-rounders in general has led me to the Kona. To me its not about being the fastest but having fun most of the time.

Actually, longboarding must still be fun.

Driving by the local spot (I was sailboating today), wind was weak and there were only 3-4 oldboards and longboards out. Guys were having fun, family, teaching, etc. Frankly looked like the older days.

Perhaps nothing has really changed from this perspective, it's just that the newer crowd is not having as good a time??

This is an interesting topic, which has been debated accross the web a number of times. It was a longboarding/sailing type sport then, which is not the case today.

I wonder if a lot of the types of people who were into windsurfing back then are either in sailboats, or maybe kayaks today. For racing, there seems to always be lots of opportunities for sailboat racing. For getting out on the water, just about any time you want, for low cost, kayaks may be a lot more appealing to more people. Easy to learn, cheap, and not that complicated.

In the '80s, it was trendy, and definitely a bunch of people were just there to be cool. But of course, before it was cool it was often seen as damn stupid,because we were all learners struggling with 6m sails and teak booms, yet the sport still caught on to the stage where it became cool. So it wasn't just about trendiness.

Windsurfing was just simple fun, and simple fun is what tends to attract most people. Even at the peak of the boom, some of the mags and the top sailors were concerned that the increasing trends to high winds and high tech was taking away the appeal of the sport that had attracted the average person.

Kayaks have had a resurgence but a lot of that is because windsurfers have moved away from the simplicity and all-weather appeal they once had. It's surely significant that when the original Windsurfer factory moved from polyethylene to the lighter materials, kayak builders picked up some of their gear and staff and used windsurfing's discarded technology to make simple kayaks that now out-sell complicated windsurfers by about 1.7 million units per year.

back then : cars had rain gutters : which means you could buy a $20 all purpuse
rack to put on your car.

- buy some foam stuff and ducktape it to the rack-bars.

- then show up at one of your local shops and buy your equipement !!

===
Now a days : ... high price racks for `specific` cars (specific high price footings).

- your lucky if you got a store that sells Sailboard equipment in your region.

.denis.