Windsurfing

Water sport Windsurfing on Columbia River, Oregon Windsurfing is a wind-propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the Californian aerospace and surf culture. Windsurfing gained a popular following across Europe and North America by the late 1970s and had achieved significant global popularity by the 1980s. Windsurfing became an Olympic sport in 1984. History Darby sailboard, Popular Science, 1965 Early sailboard concepts Peter Chilvers is cited as having built a sailboard-type craft in England in 1958. In 1964, Newman Darby of Pennsylvania developed a rudderless "sailboard" incorporating a pivoting square-rigged or kite-rigged sail.[citation needed] Darby's design allowed the rider to steer a rectangular board by tilting the sail forward and backward. However, the sail was operated in a back-winded configuration, with the sailor positioned on the leeward side of the sail. This arrangement differed significantly from later windsurfing designs and limited both efficiency and performance. The modern windsurfer Between 1967 and 1970, Jim Drake, a California-based ae