Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer built and tested the first Windsurfer off this coast in 1967, making it the literal birthplace where the sail-board craft was patented and named. Listed here as the discipline's heritage source; no verified local windsurf school is vouched for yet.
The sailboard has two American beginnings. In 1964 Newman Darby of Pennsylvania built a rudderless board with a pivoting sail. The version that spread came from Santa Monica, California, where Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer founded Windsurfing International in 1968 and were granted a joint patent for the rig in 1970; by 1984 it was an Olympic sport. The wing is newer. Tony Logosz of Slingshot tested his first wing prototypes in the Columbia Gorge in 2011, Flash Austin tried handheld wings on foils in Maui in 2018, and by 2019 they were on sale. Maui is where windsurfing is most alive today, and where the wing on a foil was made into a sport. At Ho’okipa the Aloha Classic closes the world wave tour each autumn; in 2025, its 41st edition, Marc Paré left as world champion for the first time.
Stand where the first Windsurfer was built and tested in 1967 — the heritage source, with no school vouched for yet.
Nothing to join. This entry stands on the patent and the first board rather than on a room: the record carries no vouched school on this coast and no count of who still sails it. Three dots for heritage, not for a cohort you could walk into next month.
BirthplaceHeritageUnbroken lineageVDWS Windsurf / Wingfoil Licence & Instructor Certification · Certifying body: VDWS / IWO (International Windsurfing & Wingfoiling Organisation)
There is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website, and too much of the internet is the second kind. Four instruments do the work, and every one of them is visible on the page you are already on.
If a place dodges these, that's your answer. It costs you nothing to ask, and it tells you everything.
This is the short version. The full method is here — the six questions, in order, for any craft anywhere.