Board sales peak at 400,000 a year

In little more than ten years windsurfing went from a curiosity to a mass sport. Estimates of world board sales, brought together in a 2024 history of the sport’s spread, go from 574 boards in 1972 to 3,000 in 1973, 60,000 in 1976 and 290,000 in 1980. Around 1983 they reached about 400,000 a year (a 1984 newspaper report put 1983 at nearly half a million), and in 1986 they were still about 390,000.

The boom was worldwide, but widest in Europe. By the end of 1981 nearly a million boards had been sold there, and more than a hundred makers competed for the market. In 1987 a news report counted 2.5 million boardsailors in France, 1.3 million in the United States, 1.1 million in Germany, 850,000 in the Netherlands and 600,000 in Japan.

Then the curve turned. By 1993 world sales had fallen to about 190,000 boards a year, half the peak. The figures are estimates from different sources, but the rise and the fall are clear.