Becalmed : Cost of Windsurfing and Its Image as a Sport for ‘Daredevils’ Cause Participation to Level Off

A typical day for Chang Liampetchakul, 33-year-old windsurfer and owner of a Ventura Thai restaurant: Get up, check the weather report, go to the restaurant, check the weather report, eat a bowl of mee krob , check the weather report, hear the magic words winds of 25 miles per hour , cancel all appointments, abandon customers, get in the water at warp speed.

“When the wind blows,” Liampetchakul says, “I’ve got to be there.”

A combination of sailing and surfing, windsurfing provokes obsession and passion among its participants. Others, however, think it’s nuts.

“You couldn’t pay me enough to risk my neck on that contraption,” says John Stevenson, a tourist from Chicago who was watching Ventura windsurfers soar across the waves recently while Santa Anas blew.

Windsurfing in the United States is becalmed by numerous problems today, diversity of opinion being only one of them. According to experts, participation in the sport has leveled off after years of growth. Some of the blame lies with the recession--uality start-up equipment begins at a stiff $1,000--but other factors figure more prominently.

Because of TV commercials that feature high-performance windsurfers--risk-taking men and women who can leap monster waves with a single bound and buzz the water at 40 m.p.h.--the public sees windsurfing as a daredevil sport, too intimidating for the average athlete, and stays away.

In reality, the majority of windsurfers aren’t adrenaline junkies. “The ads have created a misleading perception,” says Pete Fotheringham, publisher of several windsurfing magazines.

Avoiding high waves and high winds, the average windsurfer floats like a butterfly in eight- to 20-m.p.h. winds on flat-water lakes, harbors and rivers. “Anyone can learn to windsurf,” says Frank Bacchilega, a Ventura instructor who has taught, among others, dozens of Girl Scouts in the last several years.

But Bacchilega adds a caveat: Lessons are mandatory (see accompanying article). Without lessons, it would be as difficult to learn windsurfing as skiing and “you could get hurt,” Bacchilega says.

But while the ski industry has been successful in its effort to educate the public about the need for lessons, the 20-year-old sport of windsurfing hasn’t been around long enough to develop a strong national organization that can establish standards. There’s not even a uniform method for teaching, or certification requirements to use a sailboard.

No wonder people aren’t rushing into the sport: A guy who windsurfs without a lesson probably has a bad time and will not try again. He also will send a message to anybody who watches him nearly drown himself.

“When people see a windsurfer constantly falling over, they think the sport is really hard and probably won’t try it themselves,” says Bacchilega’s wife, Dorothy, herself an instructor.

Not that windsurfing is easy. Windsurfers have to balance on a narrow eight- to 12-foot-long plastic board and use their arms to control a nylon sail, which is attached to a 15-foot mast. They need the same knowledge of winds and currents as sailors. Unlike sailing, however, even the tamest windsurfing requires constant, intense focus, allowing no time for casual reflection or relaxation.

“It’s hard to drink a beer and windsurf at the same time,” says Jessica Gibassier, 34, a Santa Barbara windsurfing instructor.

Warning: Windsurfing might be addictive. Like ski bums, serious windsurfers are hooked, often to the exclusion of everything else in their lives. They have no control over their next fix. Worshiping the wind god, they can satisfy their craving only when nature cooperates, so they acquire an ability to act on the spur of the moment no matter what. The wind beckons and they are gone.

Gibassier is a high-performance windsurfer who can ride 15-foot ocean swells on the tail of a 40-m.p.h. wind. “Any day over 20 miles an hour is perfect,” she says. “Forty is more intense. I once survived 60 before I got slapped”--the term for being knocked silly by a wave.

On the top rung of the sport’s evolutionary ladder are the surf sailors capable of performing aerial maneuvers. Bob Lievsay of Port Hueneme does 360-degree loops with his board.

“You want to go to the next level (of windsurfing evolution),” said Lievsay, 40, a quality control inspector for an aerospace company. “The better sailors are doing loops.”

Although the sport was invented in California, windsurfing has its biggest following in Europe. In two decades, says Fotheringham, the magazine publisher, Germans have bought about a million sailboards; only half that many have sold in the entire United States over the same period. And while the U.S. public is indifferent to windsurfing competitions, large crowds turn out in Japan to watch contests held in flooded outdoor stadiums.

The hotbed for windsurfing in the United States is the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, attracting about 10,000 windsurfers a year. What makes the mile-wide, 80-mile stretch of river so popular is a consistent wind that smacks head-on into a strong current, creating waves.

It’s the lack of a consistent wind that makes windsurfing so iffy in Southern California. With most ocean windsurfers using a short board, winds have to blow a minimum of 15 m.p.h., which doesn’t happen with much frequency in the summer and fall. The best winds of the year are coming--from December to May, winter storms bringing clearing winds that “make for wild windsurfing,” Gibassier says.

Two of the best ocean areas in Southern California are in the region: Leo Carrillo State Beach in Malibu and Surfer’s Point in Ventura. Riding the waves in these places takes skill, months of flat-water experience and “paying your dues,” Gibassier says.

“You don’t get to this level without almost drowning,” Gibassier says. “That’s why I started wearing a St. Christopher medal.”

Novices with six to eight hours of instruction should be able to get around a lake or harbor without endangering themselves or others, but the virtual absence of nearby ocean alternatives are a problem in Southern California. In the Valley area, Castaic Lake is an option, but it’s usually too crowded in the summer. Lake Isabella in Kern County and Lake Lopez just south of San Luis Obispo are prime flat-water destinations.

Like lakes, harbors are excellent for beginners and intermediates. But there’s only one harbor in the Valley region: Ventura Harbor. Windsurfing is not allowed in Channel Islands Harbor.

Some beach breaks provide a friendly surface: Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura often has small waves, and Ledbetter Beach in Santa Barbara usually has chop.

Like novice skiers who quickly tire of the bunny hill, new windsurfers soon realize the thrills increase proportionately to the risks. Ultimately, the ocean will be too tantalizing to resist.

“I get bored on flat water now,” says Liampetchakul the restaurant owner, known to his friends as “Chuck Wagon Chang” for cooking Thai food on windsurfing expeditions to Baja.

Windsurfing is considered a relatively safe sport--reported deaths and serious injuries are rare--but high-performance windsurfers like Liampetchakul push danger to the edge. An expert who has been windsurfing for 10 years, Liampetchakul was “lucky to be alive” after an incident last March when he was forced to ditch his equipment 200 yards from shore and fight strong currents to swim to safety.

The close call made him appreciate his wife and two children and he vowed to devote at least one day a week exclusively to his family. Except, of course, “If there’s a real good wind and a real big wave,” he says. “Then my wife lets me go windsurfing.”