With the Monsoon Cup held successfully on its 4th year of the annual regatta, Malaysia has proven once again that it is worthy of one sailing nation. Sponsorships seems to be in abundant, and the crowd multiplies each year. It is no doubt that Malaysia is the on right track into becoming one of the world’s favorite spot for sailing events.

This success, although unfortunately without medal winnings, had to do in some ways with the success of the less serious division of dinghy sailing namely the Optimist, Laser, 420, 470 etc. Malaysia has some of the best sailors in the world for dinghy sailing, and it has been proven time and time again. The sensational triumphant of this division has been the pushing power to bring more serious sailing competitions like Monsoon Cup into Malaysia. In a few years, it will not be a surprise if such breed like Dato’ Peter Gilmor will be born in Malaysia.

I was once a sailor for the Optimist myself for a few years. Back then, we were not really that well equipped. Regatta would only see less than 100 sailors, and the gap between each regatta is about 3 to 4 months. Laser contestants only have enough boats to establish a class, and other dinghy classes like 420 & 470 was not even heard of. A few SEA Games medals later, we saw over 300 participants on each regatta, with consistent sponsor & supports from the government after they noticed the potential of the sport. The system is now so well established, that every state has been given substantial funds for the expenses of training, and in return were rewarded with high success rate of securing the podiums in international events. Some coaches even noted that it takes less than 6 months to train a Gold Medal SEA Games sailor!

On the other hand, flashback of windsurfing in this respect was not really the same, almost the opposite. Windsurfing raised its popularity during the early 90′s, and it continues to flourish until the late of 90′s. Towards the end of the millenium, an organization was established by a group of local windsurfers on the ground off bringing serious athletes into the SEA Games, only to see all of the invested time & money to be washed away into the drain by the Sports Ministry at the moment. This lack of support and endorsement eventually saw the downfall of windsurfing in this noted event.

The particular reason behind this sad history actually revolves around the lack of understanding of windsurfing.
Windsurfing was viewed as a recreational, leisure sport. While not 100% incorrect, every other sport at some point falls into this category. Badminton, football, cycling and even motor racing shared the same crowd when it comes to leisure, while the select few further their passion by entering competitions and so on. In the countries in the Europe for example, parents can afford to buy sailing dinghy for their children just purely for recreational purposes. By the same concept, shouldn’t dinghy sailing too be labeled as a leisure sport then?

Although viewed as a leisure sport, windsurfing in its nature is not actually that easy. In fact, it is even more athletic and physically demanding when compared to sailing. Imagine standing for a few hours, holding a sail a few meters taller than you with bear hands, while at the same time constantly focusing on stabilizing the board and the sail going at a speed reaching up to 30knots. It’s not really a sport that can be mastered in a few months, some take years, even more give it up half way. The idea that windsurfing can be done just as easy as learning to jet ski while you’re out on vacation is nothing but plain false advertisement.

Somehow, it was understandable why windsurfing was taken quite lightly some years ago. In those years, the ideal condition for racing particularly for slalom type setup is during the monsoon season. With the wind condition in Malaysia, it is almost impossible to extend the training & racing off the monsoon season. Therefore course racing were favored, but with the cost of using the slower longboard type setup which is less exhilarating to both audience & the athletes especially when it can be done by sloughing in wind as low as 3 knots.

With the current development of Formula Windsurfing (FW) , it brought back the exciting planing windsurfing in winds as little as 6 knots. The low wind requirement means that the condition in Malaysia is more than accommodating to develop the sport, all year round. This is also the reason why some of the countries with identical seasonal wind condition have picked up FW and it proved to be very successful over the years. Our neighboring countries such as Singapore, Thailand & Vietnam are already way ahead of us in terms of Formula Windsurfing.

The recent Penang Regatta that was held recently can be taken as an alarming indication to how Malaysia is really wayyy behind other countries in respect to Windsurfing. There was only 10 FW participants, whom two of them are Malaysian. For an event exclusively held in Malaysia, this is certainly a pathetic number. Not to mention that one of them is our respectful Mr Leong Soon, a remarkable veteran windsurfer whose age is beyond 50! And thanks to him, we managed to keep the Malaysian flag flying on the podium.

But it will take more than just a few very enthusiastic people to bring windsurfing into its glorious era just like in the 90′s. I will be wrong to put an unnecessary responsibility to every windsurfer in Malaysia to help revive this sport, but in all truthfullness, that is exactly what we need.

A crowd would attract nothing less than a bigger crowd, which is true for any other sports in the world.
For example, Mountain Biking used to be almost unknown in Kuantan back in the days, now they’re the next biggest thing since rempit which poisoned the minds of youth here. Bicycle stores are springing like the mushrooms after the rains in every little corner of Kuantan, and they packed up branded bikes from the most advanced ones to to least ‘entry level’ ones. Little that we know, It was all started by a group of 10-15 people doing ups and downs the Pelindong Mountain every other weekend. What, you haven’t heard? Check out their latest Kuantan Enduro event held in Telok Chempedak here.

A group of windsurfers frequently doing simple racing, hanging out at the beach would provide the same catalyst. Do we really have to wait for 20 knots winds or the Monsoon Madness to do this? You tell me. I honestly do not think that a simple race every other weekend at any location with minimal amount of prizes is too much to ask for. Should we also call the press for reviews, magazine for some photoshoots, a few chicks to add the flavor perhaps? Be creative, be proactive.

In addition, a rather active group on internet forum for example will also be an excellent platform to reach out the potential crowd. We can learn a lot from our friends in Singapore with their Bluefinz forum. Internet forum provides instance ‘teaser’ for those who wanted to get to know the community or gathering any information about getting into the sports. It will also cater all your needs to discuss any future events or ultimately just for sake of keeping things alive.

So where do we start?

1. Penang International Regatta 2010
2. Kitesurfing in Malaysia
3. Malaysian Endurance Windsurfing Event
4. Pattaya Cup 2009
5. An Afternoon With George Warren

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 1:36 am and is filed under Windsurfing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.