NZHerald 4/12/2011: The Pole-turned-Kiwi is our leading hope in the women's boardsailing, a discipline where New Zealand has a solid pedigree. The 1999 world youth champion, she went on to enjoy some senior success before packing her board away in 2005. She finished 38th at the 2010 world championships, 21st at a world cup regatta in April, 16th at Sail for Gold at Weymouth in June and 10th at the Olympic test event at the same venue a month later. Her well planned schedule was hampered by a nasty training accident earlier this year, when she broke her leg sailing off Takapuna.

Are you a kid or parent looking for more information about youth windsurfing in New Zealand? This is the website for you. Here you can find out about:Schools and clubs, competition pathways, where to buy windsurfing equipment, fun windsurfing events and competitions and how you can have your say...

The current joint proposal that Windsurfing NZ and Yachting NZ has before SPARC is aimed to introduce windsurfing into mainstream junior sailing. The numbers in the following news item are impressive but demonstrate what a well managed programme can achieve. Hopefully WNZ is taking steps in that direction already.

"Around 1,500 children across Birmingham and Worcestershire have been introduced to sailing and windsurfing through the RYA’s OnBoard grassroots programme this year. RYA OnBoard is all about providing youngsters from local schools, community organisations and youth groups with opportunities to get their first taste of sailing and windsurfing and give them the chance to continue participating at low cost."

Windsurfing NZ has put in an Expression of Interest (EOI) for funding over the next 3 years to employ someone to promote windsurfing at the youth / yacht club level. This would be backed up with other initiatives to support the development of clubs and promote windsurfing in general. The 2 page submission has been accepted by SPARC but there's a lot of competition so we will now start working on the next phase of the proposal. If you would like to be involved in any way please contact Bruce Spedding. The 2 page submission is included below.