A short tale of a great sport

1964: On a warm summer day, the American tinkerer Newman Darby and his girlfriend Naomi Albrecht test a keelless float with a selfmade sail at Trailwood Lake in Pennsylvania.

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2007: After an amazing jump combination of front and back flip, the Brazilian wave world champion Kauli Seadi hits the troubled water of Gran Canaria. The Australian Jason Polakow defeats monster waves of 20 metres at the Hawaiian shore. The speed record for sail-driven water vessels is held by the Irish windsurfer Finian Maynard (90,2 km/h). (Since March 5th 2008 Frenchman Antoine Albeau is the new world record holder.)

Exceptional athletes and high-tech development quicken the windsurfing’s pulse of progress. Today windsurfing has come to the temporary end of a unique evolution in the world of sports. There is hardly another sport that developed that far in such a short period of time. However, the next step is only a heartbeat away.

Invention, Part I
But back to the beginning: Newman Darby and Naomi Albrecht marry. Their invention, a board driven by sail, is published and sold. With windsurf construction kits, the so-called “Sailboard Kits”, the young couple goes into business. Unfortunately, their plans fail soon and they go broke, not least because of a fire at the factory. The triumphal procession of board and sail ends in the sand before it really began.

Invention, Part II
However, some years later the Californian Jim Drake has an idea. The airplane designer and his friend, businessman Hoyle Schweitzer, concoct a similar approach at their dinner without knowing of Darby’s invention. The wave riding’s immediacy is meant to be combined with the speed of sailing. The mast base is being fixed on the board by a cardan joint and after long consideration the sail finally gets a wishbone. This concept still applies these days – windsurfing was invented!

In 1969 the two patent their approach. They found the enterprise “Windsurfing International Inc.” and build “Windsurfers” in the shape factory of a known wave board producer. At the beginning of the 70’s an article about the production of their boards appears in the magazine of the plastics enterprise Dupont. The journal is read in Europe as well and windsurfing is getting some attention there for the first time.

The Conquest of Europe
The exotic ideas that the magazine reveals fire the imagination of the sport fans in cold Germany and soon the first boards are being tinkered across the pond. The mostly light wind at the German lakes accords well with this new, fresh and exciting sport and at the end of the 70’s they have finally gotten the hang of it. The windsurfing fever spreads and shows to be highly contagious, especially in Germany.

Windsurfing – the Rock’n’Roll among Sports
The trendy windsurfing becomes a mainstream amusement. Against the walls of one garage in three leans a board. You cannot show in public anymore without a windsurfer on the roof of your car, and due to the sheer endless number of windsurfers sometimes even cross Lake Garda without getting wet. It is a great, wild fun to rush over the water under the smiling sun with wet hairs and a big grin on the face. What rock’n roll was for music, windsurfing is for sport.

While the supply of sports for most young people was limited to sports like football, gymnastics and track and field which were all trapped in strict rules and regulations, the windsurfing sport spilling over from America proved himself to be completely different. Independence and freedom, which traditional sport clubs lacked could be experienced here. Windsurfing offered the possibility to become part of the unique worldwide surfer’s society, although you did not live in Hawaii and the next spot was just a small quarry pond.

Friendship and Betrayal
Hoyle Schweitzer who pushed Jim Drake, the sport’s real founding father, to sell him his holding on the patent in 1972 is earning millions by selling licences to Europe to the regret of his old friend. Disputes on licences will determine especially the technical development of windsurfing for years.

Da Vinci’s Heirs
The 80’s turn the new trend into a completely new attitude towards life. During that period the windsurfing lobby is vibrating of energy. Strong winds and impressive waves which always made the newly discovered Mekka of surfing Hawaii a hard challenge for board artists finally become vincible thanks to the development of footstraps and harness. Even the boards are being adjusted to those challenging conditions. Windsurfing has found its new home.

Allegorical the legendary slide of the serial champion Robby Naish who already took off the water’s surface of Kailua on the Hawaiian island Oahu in 1977 in a spectacular move equipped with a massive windsurfer with a wooden daggerboard and a triangular sail. Within that instant, for the durance of a blink of an eye, Leonardo da Vinci’s dream of flying becomes reality for the first time in windsurfing.

The Bloom
The desire of imitating Robby, of freedom and adventure attracts people from all over the world. Golden ages dawn for windsurfing. The highest number of regatta participants ever, the creation of the World Cup and the Olympia premiere in 1984 crest this incredible development. The boards become lighter, quicker and easier to handle. Windsurfing becomes a mass movement.

Dawn of a new Age
At the beginning of the 90’s the world’s best windsurfers ride on the wave of euphoria and become ultimate superstars. Especially the Dutch Björn Dunkerbeck dominates the competitions. However, the sport’s fun image is fading due to the concentration on expensive high-tech equipment. On the water fancy material seems to be more important than enjoying the sport. Meanwhile, other trendy and simpler sports like skateboarding are entering the stage and steal market share from windsurfing.

In the Millennium, however, the unique sport blooms again. Attractive new disciplines again like the innovative, youthful freestyle or the spectacular indoor-surfing which transports windsurfing from the beaches directly into the metropolis astonish the audience. The material is no longer dedicated to high performances and the uncomplicated holiday fun is being emphasized again.

The Future
The current top riders – from the revolutionary wave riders Kauli Seadi and Victor Fernandez to the bearish racer and holder of the world’s speed record Antoine Albeau – have what it takes to become international superstars far beyond the borders of the windsurfing sport and step into Dunkerbeck and Naish’s footprints. Nearly 40 years after the first tests with a board and a sail, windsurfing is having its renaissance.

The fever of surfing is raging again, the number of athletes rises. You all can join! The next quarry pond or beach is closer than you might expect. Where? This, and more, you get right here.

Links

Chronicle on Video: Jim Drake on May 21^st 1967 doing his first steps on his new invention in Marina del Rey, California (USA)

Portrait: Jim Drake - Inventor of Windsurfing
Interview of the US "Windsurfer" magazine with Jim Drake.

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