Several years back, WindSurfing magazine gave us a profile of the American windsurfer.  By polling their readers, they arrived at a picture of the medium-core windsurfer: male, over 30, earns $30,000—you know the picture.

Another answer to the burning question "Who Windsurfs?" can be found in  Americans at Play: Demographics of Outdoor Recreation & Travel  by Alison S. Wellner (Ithaca, NY: New Strategist Publications, Inc., 1997).  The book is based on the1994-95 National Survey on Recreation and the Evironment by the USDA Forest Service.  Of course the way you ask the questions influences the results you get.  Respondents were asked in which activities they had participated "at least once during the past year."  So the results of this survey, sponsored in part by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, says more about "market reach" than about the behavior of hard-core windsurfers.

But it’s true:  windsurfing is an "elite sport."  Only 1.1% of the population aged 16 or older participated in windsurfing at least once in the past year.  (A tragedy of missed opportunity, by any
estimation.)  Compare this to downhill skiing where a whopping 8.4% of the population snowplowed down a hill at least once in the survey year.  Or iceskating:  5.2%.  Snorkeling, a sport very comparable to windsurfing in terms of difficulty of access to water and cost, lured 7.2% of Americans to the water.  Even the loathsome jetski attracted 4.7% of the population off the beach.

How elite is it, one might ask?  You have to look hard to find a sport with a lower participation rate than windsurfing.   Kayaking is one of them (0.7% of the population).   Snowboarding, just beginning to take off in 1994-95, rated a measly 0.8%.  Must be much higher now.  And windsurfing attracts the young, says the survey.  People in the age groups 16 to 24 and 25 to 29 are much more likely to have
windsurfed than older groups.

Maybe all the bellyaching we hear about the high cost of windsurfing is justified.  Participation in the
sport is highest by the affluent. Three percent of persons with an annual income of $100,000 or more participate in windsurfing, while only 0.4% of people earning $15,000 to $24,999 windsurfed once in the survey year.  But this is true of watersports generally: the rich are more likely to participate in all the watersports except surfing.  There are more surfers among folks who make between $50 and $100K each year than among those who earn more than that.

Men (1.3%) participate in windsurfing more than women (0.9%).  Surprise. According to the survey, whites and blacks participate in windsurfing at the same rate (1.1%).  Participation by  "other
including Hispanic" is lower (0.8%).  This certainly doesn’t correspond to the population I see at Jordan Lake, but maybe you see more varied complexions in other parts of the U.S.

Participation in windsurfing is highest among college graduates: 1.8% of them put sail to board in
1994-95.  So maybe all that money spent on education really does pay off!