Do you - or should you - care about the health of our sport? Is it in good hands and well-positioned to grow again? Or at least tick over and keep producing the goods and images we crave to get our kicks? It seems like it's been an uphill struggle for nearly two decades now. So are there finally green shoots of recovery this Spring? Let's take stock and ask ourselves, 'where we go from here'?
Brian McDowell
2011. We don't really know how old windsurfing is. It could be an Egyptian-derived way of crossing the Nile on a 'reed-basket' board, of ancient Polynesian descent, or we could spend an eternity debating whether it was Chilvers, Drake, Schweitzer - or all of the above - who gave us the greatest sport on earth. You love it. I love it. Some have fallen out of love with it. Some are back in the fold after 'affairs' with kiting, or Sabbaticals raising young families. It's not as big as it was in the 80s, but it’s sure easier to gain a lust for being wind-powered across the water now than ever before.
And why do we need to keep self-examining anyway? I've never heard a MotoX fan or mainstream sports player ever tread so carefully around the issues of their sport's growth. Let's face it. We're just a small band of like-minded weekend warriors, hell-bent on enjoying wild weather that even hard-core outdoors enthusiasts would run and hide from.