Windsurfing increases in popularity

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Don Anderson

Kyle Mayhew and his wife Cynthia traveled all the way up the coast from Santa Monica to windsurf the Columbia River. They hope to spend about a month in Oregon, trying some of the best spots.

While the winds around Hood River are considered some of the best in the world, he says, the waters off of Youngs Bay are also supposed to be good. With a small trailer pulled behind a Lexus sport utility vehicle, the Mayhews dont much resemble the surfer bums of a few decades ago. Kyle has a job in advertising, and Cynthia is a pediatrician. They are both in their late thirties, athletic and driven.

We started windsurfing because we had friends that we visited in The Dalles who were really into it, Cynthia says. They would take us out on the river for days at a time and we got hooked.

On a good day, this sport combines the best of surfing with the best of sailing, Kyle says. Sports aficionados, the Mayhews also run, surf, kayak, backpack, and mountain climb. Kyle also owns a sailboat, the Alicia Marie. Still, it is wind surfing that captures their imagination most of the time.

What I like best about the sport is the thrill of catching some really big wind, Cynthia says. It takes awhile to build up the skill necessary to be out on the river when it is really blowing.

Windsurfing is one of the youngest sports that Americans have added to their summertime repertory, starting in 1968 in California. Originally it was called sail boarding, but that name was not as catchy as windsurfing and fell out of use. Since 1984 windsurfing has been a part of the Olympic Games, with categories for both men and women.

Oregon has been touted as the Windsurfing Capital of the World especially in the Hood River area, where air funnels up the Columbia River gorge creating the huge gusts that make windsurfing so exciting and popular. The Warrenton-Astoria area is also popular with windsurfers, as Youngs Bay is often windy and provides a huge, safe area for windsurfers to practice their sport.

It was two Californians, Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer who invented the sport of windsurfing in the sixties. Best friends, Drake, an aeronautical engineer, like to sail and Schweitzer, a businessman, was a surfer. They didnt like the fact that in traditional surfing, the surfer had to wait for the waves. They thought it would be great if a surfer could go find the waves by being propelled through the water. Together they combined the two sports and patented their invention.

Windsurfing is not cheap; an outfit can cost well over a thousand dollars. Most dedicated windsurfers are middle to upper class persons like the Mayhews, who can afford to travel to the best windsurfing spots around the world. However, used windsurfing gear can be bought inexpensively and any body of water, including the ocean, that gets good wind can be used.

I cant emphasize enough that when you are starting out, you should get some lessons with someone who knows what they are doing, Kyle says. You dont want to get stranded out on the river when the wind dies down, and you definitely dont want to have a run-in with water craft. This can be a problem along the Columbia, where wind surfers often have to share the area with tug boats, fishing boats, and pleasure craft.

Fortunately, our best conditions are usually the worst conditions for other boats, Cynthia says. We love huge waves and huge winds.

Interested in windsurfing yourself? One of the best things you can do is hang out where windsurfers congregate and talk with them. They are a loquacious group of people and, for the most part, love to give advice to newbies. For more information on techniques, classes, and windsurfing gear, go to www.windsurfer.com.