Windsurfing in Singapore

In July 07, midway through the southern hemisphere winter months, I went travelling through Asia which included a couple of weeks in Singapore where I visited my Sister and her family who moved there a few years ago. Like most mad windsurfers I had to check out the local windsurfing scene. I wandered on down to the East Coast where I was told that most of the sailing and windsurfing happened.

I came across the Peoples Association Sea Sports Club which is a fantastic facility set up on the shores of the East Coast of Singapore. This facility I was reliably informed, is provided by the Singapore Government as the vast majority of the population live in apartments and have limited storage spaces for windsurfing equipment.

Included in the facilities was a great board and rig storage racks as well as rigging, unrigging and hose down areas as well as a café and other usual club house facilities. While I sail at a great sailing club in Sydney Australia, Dobroyd Aquatic Club, the facilities were impressive.

Attached to the club is a windsurfing and kite surfing shop aptly called “The Windsurfing Shop”. The guys here are very friendly and welcomed me to what they said was the main sailing location in Singapore. I asked if they had rental gear and after some coaxing they said that they could rent me some free ride gear with an 8.5m2 sail. However, they also noted that there was more often than not much wind in Singapore.

Seeing that I had not been sailing for some time (2 weeks) and was getting a little desperate for a fix, sailing fix that is, I said that I would be happy to rent the gear and would come back when there was some wind. I waited about for a while and chatted with some of the guys. We all looked out to the beautiful Singapore Straits, which has a huge amount of international shipping moving through it and willed the wind to come. But alas, it never really came. While chatting with the local guys they informed me that this is more often than not the case and that they get very little wind all year and when it does come, it is mostly associated with a storm and seems to pass through pretty quick. More often than not this means that the 10 – 15 knot wind is there for less than an hour and then blows itself out. After that it’s back to the usual pleasant 0 – 7 knot tropical breeze.

On a later day during my stay I returned in the hope of some breeze. I did much the same, sat about, chatted with some of the local guys and waited till there was wind which would pull my ample frame along on the rental free ride gear. Once again, the wind never really came with any great force. There was a brief 20 minute period however, where the breeze picked up and there was a great flurry of activity. People grabbed there pre rigged gear and hit the water. They all got the odd blast and then the wind fell away and it was back to bobbing about on short boards.

This is a familiar dance for many of us around the world who do not have the luxury of a Hawaii like all day 20 + knots wind. First you rig up, then you sit next to your gear and wait for the wind as the gear that you have is not suitable for light winds. While waiting you chat with your sailing mates, who like you are also waiting for enough wind to get the medium to high wind gear going. You compare gear, which is the latest and best looking, who has the newest sail or some other related toy. I call this the dance of delusion or more specifically the dance of a sport and industry going down the drain.

As an avid raceboarder, this looked like ideal longboard conditions and indeed I saw many longboards sitting in the racks of the wonderful government provided facilities. Included in this were Mistral One Designs, a range of Raceboards, 4 Lechners and even a few relatively new looking Konas. But alas they seemed to have the slalom bug and were experts at the dance of delusion.

I enquired as to why no one was using the longboard gear and was told the familiar story that “some guys use it from time to time, but we generally prefer the slalom gear” or the ever unintelligent “that stuff is not cool”. How could a sport and an industry let this happen when this is the conditions that the vast majority of people from around the world see on a regular basis. The phrase “killing the goose that laid the golden egg” seems appropriate here.

I left Singapore with many fond memories including the very friendly people at the Peoples Association Sea Sports Club with their fantastic facilities. However, it was also with a tinge of disappointment that there were no light wind boards being used in this fantastic predominantly light wind tropical sailing venue. Why was there no serenity sailing going on? Why had the Mistral One Designs collected cob webs? Why were the new Konas not out?

With the revival of longboards let’s hope that places like Singapore can again see that sailing longboards in light winds can be a heap of fun and is cool. Perhaps this is an ideal venue for a raceboard event – let’s reignite the flame in them again.