Wipika sells the first inflatable kites

The Legaignoux brothers’ first company, Wipikat, built a small inflatable boat pulled by their inflatable wing. It closed at the end of 1995: it cost almost as much to make as it could be sold for. Their next company, Wipika, sold kites.

The wings Bruno Legaignoux designed were built by the paragliding department of Neil Pryde, and from 1998 by a sail loft in China. Preformed inflatable tubes and a simple bridle to the wing tips made the kites far easier to relaunch from the water than anything before. Sources date the first sales to 1995–96 or 1997; Wipika as a company was founded in June 1997.

The numbers show how fast it went. One French history counts about 100 kites sold in 1997, 500 in 1998, 2,000 in 1999, 6,000 in 2000 and 15,000 in 2001, without saying whether these are Wipika’s sales or the whole market’s. A worldwide count gives 29,000 kites already in 1999. From 1999 the brothers licensed their patent, first to Naish, then to Neil Pryde, Slingshot and others. Bruno also set up a network of Wipika schools, which later became the International Kiteboarding Organization.