Newman didn’t patent his design, but he is widely credited with the invention of the windsurf board. In the UK, Peter Chilvers independently came up with a similar sailboard design on Hayling Island in 1958.

In the 1960s, aeronautical engineer Jim Drake and surfer Hoyle Schweitzer ironed out the early design flaws, including adding an uphaul rope to pull the heavy sail out of the water. They called their design the ‘Skate’ and eventually changed it to the ‘Baja Board’. This became the windsurf board that we know today.

Jim and Hoyle patented the designed in 1968. Jim had no idea at the time how much impact their invention would have on the world of watersports. So he sold the patent to Hoyle in 1973 for $36,000 USD.

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Hoyle became the first person to successfully market the sailboard to the public. He went on to found Windsurfing International in Southern California. It became the first company to mass-manufacture polyethylene windsurf boards and Hoyle made millions from it.

Windsurfing boomed in the 1970s and 1980s. The first world championship of windsurfing was held in 1973. It was estimated that one in every three households had a windsurf board. The Professional Windsurfing Association (PWA) was born around this time as well.

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By 1984, windsurfing was such a growth sport that it was included in the Los Angeles Olympics for the first time. Dutchman Stephan van den Berg won the first gold medal.

In the first Olympic events, daggerboards weighed 4kg and were taken out when sailing downwind and slung over the windsurfers’ arm, leaving many sailors with badly bruised thighs. The course was nine nautical miles long, so it was quite a feat to even finish the course.

Olympic windsurfing uses ‘One Design’ boards, so all the competitors have the same boards, daggerboards, fins and sails. The equipment is chosen to allow racing in a whole range of sailing conditions – this is important because events have to take place, even if there isn’t enough wind for planing. The current Olympic class is Neil Pryde RS:X – it changed in 2008 and has been used ever since.

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In May 2012, the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) voted to remove windsurfing from Olympic sailing from 2016 and replace it with kitesurfing. However, after many complaints from the windsurfing federations, the decision was reversed in 2012, much to the annoyance of kitesurfers.

Today, there are more Olympic class windsurfing organisations around the world – plus more Olympic class windsurf boards on the water than ever before.

There are many difficult disciplines within windsurfing. Olympic windsurfing is different from Formula windsurfing, which was developed over the past 15 years to allow high performance competitions even in the lightest of winds.

Unlike the Olympics, sailors can choose boards and sails from any manufacturers, as long as they are certified by ISAF.

Slalom, Big Wave, Freestyle, Super X and Speedsailing are among the other disciplines of windsurfing which hold their own competitions around the world.

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