windsurfing

Windsurfing began as a combination of two sports; sailing and surfing. The sport consists of navigating the surface of the water on a board, which has a sail attached to catch the wind. Depending on your skill and the kind of equipment you have, all sorts of tricks can be performed including pirouettes, jumps and speeding.

Windsurfing is quite a new sport, which originated in California USA, in the garage of 2 friends: Jim Drake, a sailor, and Hoyle Schweitzer, a surfer. In 1968 these 2 guys combined the disciplines that they loved, surfing and sailing, in a hybrid sport that they patented under the name of Windsurfing. By 1970 windsurfers were be mass produced because of the huge demand.

By the end of the 1970's, Europeans - who have traditionally always had a love for individual sports - had made windsurfing one of their most popular sports. This drove the development of new and better equipment. Into the '1980's, the sport of windsurfing continued to grow when at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games it was recognized as an Olympic sport. 

Since then the sport and its equipment has continued to evolve, allowing windsurfer's to reach not only greater speeds, but also to perform pirouettes and jumps