Windsure Adventure Watersports: Who We Are
Windsure is a family-run watersports business, located at beautiful Jericho Beach in West Point Grey, Vancouver. Today, we work to share our love of five quintessential Vancouver watersports: Windsurfing, Wing Surfing, Wing Foiling, Stand-Up Paddleboarding, and Skimboarding.
Regardless of experience, age, ability, or comfort-level, Windsure has a program designed for anyone looking to get out on the water. Offering everything from beginner and intermediate lessons to equipment rentals to youth summer camps, the team at Windsure is dedicated to creating an experience for as many watersport-seekers as possible!
We are proud to be a part of the Vancouver watersports community and we hope to continue to help it grow by sharing our love of the water with our fellow Vancouverites.
Beginning in the 2021 season, new Windsure Owner Sophie Labrosse has taken over the family business from her father Bernard. Having grown up spending her days at Windsure for both work and play, Sophie is uniquely prepared to lead Windsure into the future.
Check out this picture of Windsure Owner Sophie (Right) learning to skimboard as a kid at Windsure!
Bernard’s Dream: How WE Got Here
It all began in 1975 at Kitsilano Beach, Vancouver. Walking along the beach I saw boards with a sign advertising lessons. I had a chat with a fellow (Paul Winterton), inquiring about this surfboard with a sail attached to it. I ended up taking lessons from him, but had a miserable time trying to learn! It was a narrow board and big heavy rig in shallow water, with rollers (big waves) coming in, making me fall all over the place!
I had been a gymnast in high school. I wondered: where was this balance that I had acquired?! But in the end, I did persist, and the result was incredible! I had just fallen in love with the newly discovered sport… windsurfing!!!!!
I possessed so much excitement and enthusiasm for the sport that in the next season I became president of the newly formed windsurfing club, and also became a Certified Windsurfing Instructor with Windsurfer International.
Paul had ended up at Kits Beach after first seeing a clip of windsurfing on TV when living in Edmonton. In response, he jumped into his car and drove down to Los Angeles’ Marina Delray. There lived Hoyle Schweitzer, the inventor of windsurfing. Paul knocked on Mr. Schweitzer’s door and brought back six windsurfer sailboards back with him to Vancouver, Canada. There, he started to teach the sport at Kitsilano Beach.
A year or so passed and Paul became a distributor with Windsurfer International for Western Canada while maintaining his mobile windsurfing school at Kits Beach.
At about the same time Jericho Sailing Center had just been founded and was in its infancy. Walking by the Sailing Centre, I developed a vision for a business where I could share my passion. I was so eager and infatuated with windsurfing that I went to see Paul and asked him to sell me a dozen windsurfers to start my own school out of the Jericho Sailing Centre.
Paul did sell me a dozen Windsurfers and after some negotiation with Dairy Walsh (the JSCA general manager at the time), and the Jericho Sailing Center Association board of directors, I was able to set up my own windsurfing school. The year was 1977, and the rest is history. Windsure began from a dream, with me as the sole instructor. We now have over 40 employees and have diversified into other watersports like skimboarding and stand-up paddling.