Utah Windriders: Sailors go where wind takes them

Rick Heninger, president of the Utah Windriders Association, remembers those days well.

"It was more of an outing," he said. "We would carry those big boards down to the shore and wait for the wind to blow, and if it didn't, we just had a nice day at the beach." Today you can't buy a board in Utah without going to the Internet, and sailors are more likely to be cruising at speeds nearing 40 miles per hour during storm conditions in some remote corner of Utah Lake.

Now, Heninger says, the Internet has "changed everything."

In 1996, a group of avid windsurfers formed the Utah Windsurfers Association and, two years later, one of those founding members, Dimitrije Milovich, radically changed Utah windsurfing by establishing a Web site to help sailors predict where the wind would be blowing.

Milovich was asked to set up a colorful windsurfing rig for the backdrop in a scene for an episode of "Touched by an Angel" and was given $250 for the use of his gear.

He decided to put the money back into the sport and paid one of the Web designers at his company, Radius Engineering, to set up and host the UWA Web site. With the advent of kiteboarding and snowkiting, the organization has since evolved into the Utah Windriders Association (www.utahwindriders.org).

More than 500 sailors regularly log onto the Web site, where they find a daily forecast of "Where to Ride" from weather guru Craig Goudie along with current wind readings from Utah's favorite sailing spots and many other weather resources.

The Web site also contains a "wind log" for sailors to post conditions after sailing, a calendar of events, a place to buy and sell gear, instruction and lessons for beginners, safety guidelines and a list of Utah's favorite sailing sites.

Gone are the days of simple "outings."

Like the tornado chasers, sailors go where it is blowing hard and do so with a great deal of accuracy.

"Windsurfing is so much more user-friendly now. What took me 15 years to learn, I see people learn in a year," says Heninger.

Nowadays, the boards are wider and lighter, and beginner boards have soft foam decks. The new shapes help with stability, planing and speed — particularly in Utah's variable wind conditions.

Because sailors follow the wind, often they sail in remote spots.

"At mile-marker 19 on Utah Lake," Heninger said, "you are more likely to find shotgun shells than sea shells, and the UWA has spent many hours picking up broken glass and burned pallets. And every year the kiteboarders haul a truckload of garbage from their favorite site at South Sandy Beach on Utah Lake."

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