Wind-powered board sports, from the first sailboard to the foil

A plywood platform with a hand-held, kite-like sail becomes the first publicly described sailboard, a year before it appears in Popular Science.

An aeronautical engineer and a businessman from his circle build a board with a free-swivelling rig in California; the first water trial is most often dated 21 May 1967.

A mast on a universal joint, a wishbone boom and a sail you steer with your hands; the patent that defines windsurfing is filed.

The first customer puts the board on the cover of the Seattle Times Sunday magazine, and the name that sticks is his, not the makers'.

Roto-moulded from polyethylene, the first industrially produced Windsurfer appears in March 1970.

A Dutch textile company signs the licence to build and sell Windsurfers in Europe; within three years Europe buys far more boards than America.

At Association Island, New York, the class crowns its first world champions, Matt Schweitzer and Beb Thijs.

A small group in Kailua, Oahu, starts rebuilding the Windsurfer for strong wind and waves; the harness comes first, footstraps and high-wind sails follow.

An importer, a plastics manufacturer and a designer set out to build a better board than the original, and start one of the sport's great brands.

At a record-sized Windsurfer World Championship in the Bahamas, with 456 competitors, a 13-year-old from Oahu takes the title.

Fred Ostermann's Windglider becomes an international class in 1979 and the first Olympic windsurfing board in 1984.

A Dutch patent application describes a surfboard pulled by a parachute-like kite that is hooked to the rider's harness.

For the first time any board may race; European designs beat the ten-year-old Windsurfer, and brands begin to compete on technology.

The Kailua sailors add footstraps so they can stay on the board in wind and waves; their photographs turn Hawaii into the sport's promised land.

Windsurf boards are timed at the speed trials for the first time, and Derk Thijs sails a standard Windglider at 19.1 knots.

Two Americans claim clip-on hydrofoils that lift an ordinary windsurf board out of the water, an idea that would take decades to become the norm.

From Riga to Tbilisi sailors build their own boards from photographs, and in June 1979 four coaches in China launch a home-made board of their own.

Peter Brockhaus founds F2, whose funboards with footstraps help lead the market into the funboard years.

A decade after the first factory-made board, the IOC admits boardsailing to the Olympic Games without a single vote against.

In special speed trials at Maalaea Bay, Jaap van der Rest sails a Ten Cate Special at 24.63 knots.

The co-inventor of the Windsurfer files a patent for a sail held in the hands, with two symmetrical wings and no mast on the board.

In a case against the world's biggest board maker, an English court accepts Peter Chilvers' 1958 board as prior art; the patent that ruled the industry starts to crumble.

Fred Haywood becomes the first windsurfer to sail faster than 30 knots, as speed sailing turns into a contest of equipment.

From 574 boards in 1972 to about 400,000 a year in the mid-eighties. Then sales halve by 1993.

The manufacturers launch a professional World Cup; wind limits and spectacular images turn racing into a show, and the first women's titles follow in 1984.

Jeffrey Magnan's design for Gaastra couples the battens to the mast, so a race sail keeps its aerofoil shape instead of flapping into it.

MauiSails presents the rotating asymmetrical airfoil: battens that swing around the mast, so the sail takes a wing shape on each tack.

Off Long Beach, on the one-design Windglider, windsurfing becomes an Olympic discipline and the Netherlands takes the first gold.

Bruno and Dominique Legaignoux file a patent for a kite with an inflatable frame that can be relaunched from the water, the design kitesurfing is built on.

Maui's north shore gets the contest that would crown wave sailing's champions for decades.

At Sotavento on Fuerteventura, Pascal Maka sails 38.86 knots and takes the outright sailing speed record from the catamaran Crossbow II.

At the 1986 speed event on Fuerteventura, Britt Dunkerbeck is timed at 33.77 knots.

Tom Magruder builds a symmetrical wing that pivots on a mast, to fly off the waves; it never catches on.

Seventeen years after it was granted, the US patent of Schweitzer and Drake expires, and with it the licence fees.

At the Seoul Games, sailed off Busan, the windsurfers race the Division II; Bruce Kendall of New Zealand wins gold.

In a new speed canal at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Erik Beale becomes the first sailor to officially break 40 knots.

From 1988 to 1999 Björn Dunkerbeck wins the overall world title every year, twelve in a row, a record.

With no say in a tour run by the manufacturers, the professional windsurfers found their own association, the PBA.

Sami Tuurna's hand-held wing goes into production as the SkimBat, becomes a racing class on ice and snow, and lives on as the Kitewing.

In New Zealand Peter Lynn builds the modern kite buggy and starts a line of traction kites that eventually leads to the water.

In the speed canal at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Thierry Bielak sails faster than anyone had ever sailed.

At Barcelona men and women race separately for the first time, on the Lechner A-390; Barbara Kendall of New Zealand wins the first women's gold.

At Peʻahi on Maui's north shore, windsurfers sail one of the biggest waves in the world, before tow-in surfing makes it famous.

Babeth Coquelle is timed at 40.05 knots, five years after the first sailor of any kind broke 40.

Bill and Cory Roeseler patent and sell a kite system with water skis and a bar with a reel, able to relaunch from the water and sail upwind.

At Atlanta, sailed off Savannah, the Mistral One Design becomes the Olympic board; Nikos Kaklamanakis and Lee Lai-Shan win gold.

Laird Hamilton and Manu Bertin ride Legaignoux inflatable kites off Maui, and the new sport gets its pictures and its name.

After the riders' association PBA collapses under its debts, a new association runs the tour, now as the PWA World Tour.

Raphaël Salles's windsurf brand makes its first kiteboard, the red 215, and can hardly keep up with demand.

The Legaignoux brothers' company brings the inflatable kite into series production; one history counts kite sales growing from about 100 in 1997 to 15,000 in 2001.

In Brest the first Formula contest is sailed on short, wide boards with big sails; by 2001 it is an international class.

On Maui some 25 riders take part in the first kiteboarding contest; Flash Austin wins.

Björn Dunkerbeck wins the professional tour's first freestyle world title, a discipline judged on tricks rather than on speed or waves.

A big-air contest on Maui's north shore turns jumping into a discipline of its own.

Naish releases its first inflatable kite under licence from the Legaignoux brothers, and the big windsurf makers move into kiting.

Short, very wide and extremely floaty, the Go planes early and forgives mistakes, and aims to bring beginners back to a sport that had grown too technical.

About a hundred windsurfers start the first Défi Wind; it grows into one of the biggest windsurfing events in the world.

Kiters vote to form their own professional association, the PKRA, and a new organisation starts building a network of schools and instructors.

Four-line inflatable kites become the industry standard, and wakeboard-style twin-tip boards take over from surf-style directional boards.

Ricardo Campello wins three freestyle world titles from 2003; in 2006 Gollito Estredo takes the first of nine. Both sail from Isla Margarita.

Susi Mai wins the first women's big-air title on Maui and keeps it for three years in a row.

Finian Maynard ends eleven years of Yellow Pages Endeavour; windsurfers then hold the outright sailing speed record until a kitesurfer takes it in 2008.

Gisela Pulido wins the KPWT freestyle world title aged ten, the youngest female kitesurfing world champion on record.

A flat, bridled kite designed by the Legaignoux brothers reaches the market, with far more depower and a much wider wind range than the C-kites before it.

At the Beijing Games, sailed at Qingdao, the Neil Pryde RS:X replaces the Mistral; Tom Ashley and Yin Jian win gold.

Rob Douglas sails 49.84 knots at Lüderitz on a stock 7 m kite, the first time a kitesurfer holds the outright sailing speed record.

Sébastien Cattelan becomes the first sailor to go faster than 50 knots; a day later Alexandre Caizergues raises the record to 50.57.

The International Kiteboarding Association is founded, and the sailing federation ISAF gives kiteboarding international class status.

Kristin Boese wins nine world titles on the PKRA and KPWT tours between 2005 and 2008, a Guinness record for a woman.

Tomahawk Foils from Weymouth and the AFS-1 from Brittany present foils for windsurf boards, years before foiling takes over.

Kites take the outright speed record back from the hydrofoil trimaran l'Hydroptère, and Rob Douglas pushes it to 55.65 knots.

Slingshot co-founder Tony Logosz builds hand-held wing prototypes, years before the market is ready for them.

Van Rijsselberghe wins the RS:X at London 2012 and again at Rio 2016, the first to defend an Olympic windsurfing title.

In the dug channel at Lüderitz, Anders Bringdal becomes the first windsurfer over 50 knots; Antoine Albeau ends the season at 52.05.

In May the sailing federation votes to replace windsurfing with kiteboarding at the Rio 2016 Olympics; in November it reverses the decision.

After years without a contest, the big-air event comes back at Big Bay in Cape Town; Jesse Richman wins.

Six kiteboarders take turns to cross the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to the Turks and Caicos Islands in 27 days.

Hydrofoil boards take over kite course racing, the Formula Kite class joins the ISAF Sailing World Cup and a foil tour starts in 2014.

In a machine-dug channel on the Namibian coast, the French champion sets a windsurfing speed record of 53.27 knots over 500 metres.

Large, high-lift hydrofoils remove the drag that had held back earlier hand-held wings; Tony Logosz takes his old prototypes out again.

NeilPryde, maker of the Olympic board, unveils a foil board; by 2017 most major brands sell windsurf foils.

The Australian wave sailor becomes the first windsurfer to ride the giant waves of Nazaré in Portugal.

Nuno "Stru" Figueiredo kites a 62-foot wave at Nazaré, recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest wave ever kitesurfed.

Alexandre Caizergues sails 57.97 knots over 500 metres at Salin-de-Giraud, a new kite speed record.

At Kanaha on Maui, Flash Austin rides a hand-held wing on a SUP foil board, and designer Ken Winner, watching him, is hooked.

World Sailing puts a kite event on the programme for Paris 2024; in 2021 the IOC makes it separate men's and women's Formula Kite.

At the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, teenagers race twin-tip kiteboards for Olympic medals; Sofia Tomasoni and Deury Corniel win gold.

Designer Ken Winner builds and rides his first inflatable wing in June 2018; in November Duotone decides to put it into production.

Naish announces an inflatable hand-held wing for foil boards and SUPs, with no hardware, no rigging, no bar and no lines.

Formula and IFCA crown their first foil world champions, and the PWA its first champion of a standalone foil tour, in the same season.

Within one season Duotone, Slingshot, F-One and Ozone bring inflatable hand-held wings to the market.

Nine brands found the Global Wingsports Association, the first international body for wing sports, and launch it with races and freestyle at Silvaplana.

The GWA holds the first events of its world tour at Fortaleza in Brazil and Tarifa in Spain; Titouan Galea wins the very first.

At Leucate in France the GWA holds the first official Wingfoil World Cup, the start of a world tour with its own world champions.

At the Tokyo Games, sailed in 2021 off Enoshima, Kiran Badloe and Lu Yunxiu become the last Olympic champions of the RS:X.

At the Lüderitz speed channel Liam Dunkerbeck sails 26.92 knots over 500 metres with a hand-held wing, on a board with fins instead of a foil.

Chris Bertish travels from Santa Cruz to Honolulu alone and unsupported, 2,465 miles in 48 days, on a custom-built, wing-powered craft.

Wingfoil racing replaces kiteboarding at the planned World Beach Games in Bali; the games are cancelled a month before they start.

World Sailing endorses two wingfoil world tours, one for expression disciplines and one for racing, and brings the sport into the sailing federation.

Sarah Hauser windsurfs a 12.19-metre wave at Peʻahi, the largest wave ever windsurfed by a woman according to Guinness World Records.

Patri McLaughlin rides a 72-foot wave at Jaws on Maui, the largest wave ever kitesurfed according to Guinness World Records.

At La Palme, Antoine Albeau sets a ratified windsurfing record over a nautical mile, a distance that tests endurance as much as speed.

At Pozo Izquierdo on Gran Canaria the GWA crowns its first big-air world champions, Julien Rattotti and Mar de Arce Sánchez.

Dimitris Apalagakis wings from near Athens to Crete in one day, setting a Guinness record of 259 km in 12 hours on the way.

Forty years after Long Beach, Olympic windsurfing is a foiling discipline; Tom Reuveny and Marta Maggetti win the first iQFoil golds in Marseille.

At Marseille, Ellie Aldridge and Valentin Bontus win the first Olympic gold medals in Formula Kite.

Nia Suardiaz wins the surf-freestyle, freefly-slalom and big-air world titles in one season, on the way to seven world titles by the end of 2025.

At Lüderitz, Jenna Gibson raises the women's windsurfing speed record to 48.02 knots and Antoine Albeau the men's to 53.49.

The big-air contest in Cape Town gets its first women's division; Francesca Maini wins it.

Benjamin Castenskiold, aged 14, and Marie Schlittenbauer win the surf-freestyle world titles in their first season on the tour.

At Cagliari 91 riders race registered, series-produced wing equipment for the first Formula Wing world titles; Mathis Ghio and Maddalena Spanu win.

In 2025 Offringa is world champion in wave, freestyle and Slalom X, her 28th world title; in 2026 she adds a 29th.

Hugo Wigglesworth jumps 40 metres at Cape Town, measured by a sensor on his board, the first kitesurfer to reach that height.