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Club Paradise: Sunday, October 3
Sam Moses, American Windsurfer Senior Editor
Sunday Brunch with Some of Our Bunch
Okay, it's Sunday, a social day, a good day for introductions. Let's meet three of the people who are behind American Windsurfer's 2000 Board and Sail test, which officially began yesterday, here on the island of Maui.
The leader of this motley crew (a very talented, very committed, very passionate motley crew) is John Chao, who's the tallest underdog I know. As founder and publisher of American Windsurfer, John has almost single-handedly kept the book in your hands and on your coffee tables for the last six years, at great personal expense, and not just financial. His vision was dynamic, his timing. well, less than lucky. It's no secret that the sport and the industry, after an initial boom in the '80s, fell into a steep dive until about two years ago. Now it's just the industry that's in turmoil, as the sport itself recovers nicely from that dive. But John has kept the issues coming, and he kept publishing and writing about what he believed in, which is what we all believe in: windsurfing is just about the most wonderful sport in the world.
The problem is it's a sport that's not so easy to master nor convenient to do. To make the sport boom again, all we really have to do is climb (or even stumble) over those two significant barriers to growth. The answer lies in versatile, user-friendly equipment-and, of course, correct guidance and instruction. In the mid-'80s, the sport was seriously lacking in those three things. It still has a long way to go. But at least it's on the right path, now.
The broader part of the answer lies in relating and catering to the average sailor, that 90 percent of us, not the enviable, exciting elite who can do flips and loops. We like to read about them, and American Windsurfer will most certainly continue to write about them, but most of us sailors don't like to be treated-and that includes being marketed to-as if we should be able to sail as well as them.
Which brings us back to John: his vision, and the reason for this test. I sometimes tell John that he's spread too thin, that he's stressing himself out because of it, and all he comes back with is, basically: Yes, but somebody has to do it.
As for the rest of the staff, our friends look at us with astonishment and exclaim, "You mean to tell me you're spending five weeks on Maui windsurfing, and calling it work!?" We just smile and repeat our leader's words. Yes, well. somebody has to do it.
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