Wing

The co-inventor of the Windsurfer files a patent for a sail held in the hands, with two symmetrical wings and no mast on the board.

Tom Magruder builds a symmetrical wing that pivots on a mast, to fly off the waves; it never catches on.

Sami Tuurna's hand-held wing goes into production as the SkimBat, becomes a racing class on ice and snow, and lives on as the Kitewing.

Slingshot co-founder Tony Logosz builds hand-held wing prototypes, years before the market is ready for them.

Large, high-lift hydrofoils remove the drag that had held back earlier hand-held wings; Tony Logosz takes his old prototypes out again.

At Kanaha on Maui, Flash Austin rides a hand-held wing on a SUP foil board, and designer Ken Winner, watching him, is hooked.

Designer Ken Winner builds and rides his first inflatable wing in June 2018; in November Duotone decides to put it into production.

Naish announces an inflatable hand-held wing for foil boards and SUPs, with no hardware, no rigging, no bar and no lines.

Within one season Duotone, Slingshot, F-One and Ozone bring inflatable hand-held wings to the market.

Nine brands found the Global Wingsports Association, the first international body for wing sports, and launch it with races and freestyle at Silvaplana.

The GWA holds the first events of its world tour at Fortaleza in Brazil and Tarifa in Spain; Titouan Galea wins the very first.

At Leucate in France the GWA holds the first official Wingfoil World Cup, the start of a world tour with its own world champions.

At the Lüderitz speed channel Liam Dunkerbeck sails 26.92 knots over 500 metres with a hand-held wing, on a board with fins instead of a foil.

Chris Bertish travels from Santa Cruz to Honolulu alone and unsupported, 2,465 miles in 48 days, on a custom-built, wing-powered craft.

Wingfoil racing replaces kiteboarding at the planned World Beach Games in Bali; the games are cancelled a month before they start.

World Sailing endorses two wingfoil world tours, one for expression disciplines and one for racing, and brings the sport into the sailing federation.

At Pozo Izquierdo on Gran Canaria the GWA crowns its first big-air world champions, Julien Rattotti and Mar de Arce Sánchez.

Dimitris Apalagakis wings from near Athens to Crete in one day, setting a Guinness record of 259 km in 12 hours on the way.

Nia Suardiaz wins the surf-freestyle, freefly-slalom and big-air world titles in one season, on the way to seven world titles by the end of 2025.

Benjamin Castenskiold, aged 14, and Marie Schlittenbauer win the surf-freestyle world titles in their first season on the tour.

At Cagliari 91 riders race registered, series-produced wing equipment for the first Formula Wing world titles; Mathis Ghio and Maddalena Spanu win.