Windsurfing was invented in the mid-sixties by two southern Californian
surfers, Hoyle Schweitzer and Jim Drake. Surfers need strong rolling
waves, and they hate days of calm sea. Schweitzer noticed that on days
when waves were not high enough to surf, there was often a strong wind
and he set about finding a way to use it. His first experiments involved
standing on his surfboard holding out a piece of sail cloth in his
hands. Gradually he and Drake refined this idea into a basic design for a
sailboard, similar to a surfboard, but holding a mast and a triangular
sail which could be tilted and turned in any direction. The windsurfer
operates a boom which controls the amount of wind in the sail, for speed
and change of direction. Schweitzer immediately went into business
designing and making the new sailboards and taking the idea abroad. By
mid-seventies, the sport had spread to Holland, Germany and France.
