Kite · Pioneers
1977
The first patent for kitesurfing
A Dutch patent application describes a surfboard pulled by a parachute-like kite that is hooked to the rider's harness.
NL 7603691
Dutch patent application, filed 1976, published 11 October 1977
In April 1976 Gijsbertus Adrianus Panhuise filed a Dutch patent application for what its English title calls a composition for the practice of water sports. It was published on 11 October 1977.
The idea: a rider stands on a floating board of the surfboard type and is pulled along by a wind-catching device of the parachute type, tied to a harness on a trapeze belt. Histories of the sport call it the first patent for kitesurfing.
No source shows that the design was ever built or sold. Its influence stayed on paper. Seven years later the patent examiner cited it as prior art for the Legaignoux brothers’ patent on the inflatable kite, and the examiner of a 1997 kiteboard application cited it as well.
The application came in the years when windsurfing was booming. A kite instead of a mast would need another two decades of gear development before it worked on the water.