About
A timeline of wind-powered board sports
Windlines follows windsurfing from the first sailboard in 1964 to now, with kitesurfing and wing foiling branching off the same line. It holds 113 milestones: 60 in windsurfing, 32 in kitesurfing and 21 in wing foiling.
What gets on the line
A milestone is here for what it meant to the sport worldwide: an invention, a record, a first championship, a change in the rules or the gear. Where it happened, or who it happened to, is a detail of the story, not the reason for it.
Every claim has a source
Each milestone lists its sources on its own page: patents, magazines, books, official records and the people who were there. Where sources disagree, the text says so. A detail that cannot be sourced is left out. Records are given as ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record Council where it ratified them; speeds measured by sensors or GPS are named as such.
Drawings made from documents
The drawings on this site are made from documents, not copied from photographs: patent drawings traced into line art (patents are public domain), maps from OpenStreetMap, boards drawn from their published outlines and measurements, and a few simple diagrams. Numbers stand in where a picture would only decorate.
Photographs are used only when they are free to use (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA) or with written permission, and each one is credited. 30 milestones have a photograph so far.
Help to complete it
Windlines grows with the people who know the history. If you have a photograph you took yourself, a correction, a missing milestone or a better source, use the suggestion form (every milestone page links to it too) or write to [email protected]. Photographs are credited with your name.
If you hold the rights to anything shown here, see Credits & rights.
Independent
Windlines is an independent project. No brand paid to be on the timeline, and none decides what is on it.
Languages
Windlines is written in English. The other languages are translations of the English text; the sources are given as published, in their own language. If a translation reads wrong, the suggestion form is the place to say so.
Privacy
Windlines sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. The site is hosted by Cloudflare, and its typefaces and drawings come from the site itself. Visits are counted with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and does not fingerprint visitors: it shows totals, not people.
The suggestion form runs on Tally. Tally stores what you send for Windlines; only Windlines reads it. Your email address is used to reply and is never shown on the site.