The dream holiday plan - 2 weeks upper Italy sight-seeing, 2 days Mondello (Sicily) chilling on the beach and having a windsurf (where the One Design World Titles 2022 were held)
then 2 weeks Croatia sight-seeing. Social media shows at least 2 businesses renting equipment off the beach at Mondello. We book a B and B a short walk away.
Arrive in the afternoon, find the office of Albaria rental, nice young bloke shows me the rental prices displayed on the front window, $25 Euro for "non club members" per hour, $20 for members. I am to come down tomorrow after 9am and see the beach manager.
So I come down the next day and find the beach manager who i now dub the rudest man in windsurfing. He tells me no windsurfing today and walks off. Its cross offshore 5-15kts, a bit gusty but nothing of any concern, and its a scorching 35 degrees! Im peeved but we have a swim and go and do other things.
I come back a couple of hours later and its a light onshore with a dozen or so windsurfer one designs cruising about. I find the manager and this time he's "no windsurfing, only club members" WTF. There are dozens of unused one designs on the beach. He walks off on me again. So I go up to the office and find the young bloke. He's embarrassed but cannot do anything about it. He says to try 2 other hire places up the beach.
I go to the furthest, a very formal building more like a Yatch club. It has no signs saying it hires boards but I ask. A staff member says the place is for members only so this does not help.
Back at my room I look up Corsi-kitsurf.com who also rent Windsurfers. Alessandro Alberti replies and says i can hire a board after 1pm on my second and last day. I go to the location as arranged and its another "club" but after explaining the email, they let me in the security gate. Its arranged, ill just go back to my room, get the $25 cash and rash vest and it will be smooth sailing.
I return just 10 or so minutes later to find i cannot hire a board because it is too "dangerous" !!! Again 5-15 knots cross off, 28 degrees, beautiful ocean colours, lots of windsurfers and other craft out there.
What is it with these people? The young guy who gave me the bad news was sympathetic saying its not his decision, it was the owner Alessandro who happens to not be here. I tried every angle to convince him I was proficient and the conditions were far from dangerous but nothing worked. So there ended my remaining chance to windsurf this place.
I might also point out that the majority of the beach is fenced off into "clubs" where you must pay $30 Euro to enter and use the deck chairs and umbrellas. Not many people in this town have an understanding of English unlike other areas of Italy we visited. The place is not tourist friendly.
Overall a bad expensive experience but recorded here to hopefully help a fellow windsurfer avoid the same mistake.
Gary McEvoy
GM1
Sounds horrible and seems like you kept your cool. I would have written the story (and spoke to the people) with much more anger and frustration most likely!
Private clubs do have rules and whatnot, are there other online reviews about them? How did you go about finding them?
That's sad, particularly considering how well you can sail longboard as well as shortboards.
The guys who race LTs there are pretty friendly in general. If you do anything like that again, perhaps you could contact the local racers through the class association and they could probably smooth the way. Years ago in Italy I just bumped into some One Design sailors in a carpark and they lent me a board, and a similar thing happened with classic sailboats in Venice.
