topic to end all topics...windsurfing is...

[windzup]

bigger than Kiteboarding. Yes, still to this day more windsurf gear is produced and sold than kiteboarding gear!

And while kiteboarding had claimed for the last 10 years that it was the fastest growing water sport.... it has been de-throwned from its self-proclaimed title by Stand Up Paddle Surfing. At the last Kayak trade show, there were nearly as many paddle boards as kayaks...and funny, the paddle boards resemble windsurfers in size and bulk (just w/o sails).

So here's to Windsurfing (or poleboarding as I hear they prefer) with a 2 decade lead, still the largest wind powered board sport on the water...and if G Bush had not made it so unfriendly for US residents to leave our lovely soil... one would see for themselves the shear numbers of the windsurf army that is strong and growing across Europe and many third world countries that are only just getting into wind powered sports recently.

And here's to kiting for offering a windsurf rig in a backpack!

Where do I get the numbers you ask? Me bungus holio! but seriously, from the factory reports I get and the close out rumors I hear and from how many carbon booms alone that our local Powerex produces...well, kiting has a long way to go to catch up with our pioneering brothers.

OK, no wind so time to spam with your own thoughts...hopefully dug up from the deepest caverns of your own bungus holio.

Windzup,
Brian Schenck

BTW - I would have been a windurfer but there was no instructor at my beach...so I found this kite on ebay and then....

[Josh Shirley]

Brian:

thanks for the numbers. Kites are way more visible.

Here is the best news of all. Wind!!!!

Go to Lincoln beach every night this week for north wind. That should take the edge off some of us.

[John Dubock]

I was at the Outdoor Retailer show and StandUp Paddling made a huge hit and impression. Simple, expensive, new, shiny, but its exploding and of course being pushed by retailers as the next big thing. http://www.standupjournal.com is alive and well, 4x a year, insane photos worldwide. If you Google around SUP is everywhere.

Surftech makes SUP boards out of Santa Cruz, CA. They did a demo in the surf at Huntington Pier during the US Open Surfing Championships for 45 mins and blew the beach crowd away. Which is akin to Christians going into Baghdad and surviving. Its a new day.