Incredibly, windsurfing can be traced as far back as the early 1960’s! In 1963 Newman Darby produced the first prototype Darby Sailboard using a sail hand-stitched by his girlfriend Naomi.

In the early summer of 1964 Newman and Naomi tested their sailboard on Trailwood Lake, Pennsylvania. After ditching the shallow leeboards in favour of a daggerboard, manoeuvrability and upwind progress became possible and a new sport came to life.

In the beginning there was only the Wind-surfer – the original windsurfing board which resembled a large Malibu-style surfboard. It measured approx 3.5 meters in length and weighed in at a back-breaking 27 Kg!!

In Europe the Wind-surfer caught on fast with the predominantly light to moderate winds making it ideal. By the late 70’s, ‘windsurfing fever’ had hit Europe and windsurfing became a mainstream sport with one in every three households owning a windsurfer!!

Meanwhile however in Hawaii, a few were being sailed but the regular big waves and strong winds made them less than ideal and at times, completely un-sailable.

Website Contact Action Vid.

By 1980, the most exciting top level windsurfing competition was the Pan Am Cup, held off Kailua, Hawaii in March each year.

The Pan Am was a strong wind ‘funboard’ style competition featuring long races held in big swells and breaking surf. Even the Rockets were proving themselves a handful in these conditions, particularly when airborne or on the face of a wave. With its abundance of surf board shapers who could produce prototype windsurfing boards within a few days, Hawaii began to lead the development of modern windsurfing boards.

At first the designs were nothing short of awful, being overly wide with huge, high volume tails. It wasn’t long however until, Hugh England of Windsurf Hawaii did what in hindsight seamed so obvious; he put a windsurfing sail onto a small gun style surf board and produced the first sinker.

This was a huge breakthrough for high performance windsurfing but unfortunately at the time, the design was far in advance of the current windsurfing skills with waterstarts being nothing more than a freestyle manoeuvre! It wasn’t long however before the likes of Mike Waltze and Matt Schweitzer (Hoyles son) developed the techniques necessary and took windsurfing to the next level.

In Europe the first glimpse of this new radical style of board was when Jurgen Honscheid broke the record at the Weymouth speed trials in 1981.

The early Eighties saw rapid development in equipment and continued growth of the sport culminating in Olympic Status at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

By the late Eighties windsurfing was starting to get high tech. Camber inducers, monofilm sails, carbon components and comprehensive board and sail ranges helped windsurfing to become more sophisticated and high performance.

The vast improvement in equipment was reflected in the standard of sailing on the water – particularly in the waves where moves like the forward loop, back loop and aerial were becoming common place.

The 90’s was to see the very highs and lows of windsurfing. The early nineties started well with a thriving PWA World Tour and many of the sports top pros making serious money and living the life of superstars. The equipment was top notch and more affordable than ever but the ‘high tech’ end of the sport was starting to take precedence over the ‘fun’ focus that windsurfing had sustained through the 1980’s.

The dream was short lived and by the mid nineties, windsurfing was experiencing real decline. The advent of many other ‘action’ sports was starting to take a serious toll on windsurfing and the new ‘high tech’ image that the sport portrayed wasn’t necessarily conducive to participation.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom however. For those who were well and truly hooked on the sport, the staggering improvement in equipment design helped old barriers to be demolished. Double loops, pushloops, and modern freestyle pushed the possibilities of windsurfing to new levels.

Bjorn Dunkerbeck was Mr Windsurfing in the 1990’s, wiping the floor in every conceivable discipline. At times he made his competitors look nothing short of second rate as he went from year to year and event to event without even breaking a sweat. 13 World Titles must put this man in the running for most successful athlete of all time. As the nineties drew to an end, so unfortunately did the mass appeal of windsurfing. Dedicated slalom boards, techno jargon, carbon fever, and a performance-at-all-cost attitude spelt the end for the innocence and fun appeal that windsurfing had always thrived on.

Windsurfing has had some major upheavals so far through the 21st Century. Manufacturers have come, gone and changed ownership more times than anyone cares to keep track of.

New disciplines have been invented in an effort to increase public appeal and equipment has changed from the ultra high performance oriented designs of the nineties to a much more grown up and mature approach that puts user friendliness and ‘fun’ back at the top of the list. At last it looks like stability is setting in. The remaining leaders of our sport have withstood the test of time and appear to have a newly fuelled passion to make windsurfing a success again.

Whilst some of us may not care too much for what the future holds, we do all have one thing in common – we owe Newman Darby a huge thank you for his perseverance and inventiveness way back in the early 1960’s that lead to the creation of our wonderful sport.