Wing · Prehistory
1981
Jim Drake's hand sail
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.
US 4,651,665, Fig. 4 (1987), the US grant of Drake's hand-sail patent · public domain
Jim Drake had helped invent the Windsurfer. In August 1981, over dinner in Munich with Uli Stanciu, he came up with something different: a sail without a mast on the board, held in the hands. One account traces the idea to flying fish seen off Gran Canaria.
On 13 October 1981 Drake filed the patent application for a “hand sail”. It describes two equal wings set at an angle of about 120 degrees, with a boom in the middle for the hands. The rider holds it freely; for light wind a hinged foot on the board is an option. The application was published in 1983 and granted in 1987.
The prototype department of Fanatic built two rigs from aluminium tubes. On 11 November 1981 Stanciu tried the first on a windsurf board at Hua Hin in Thailand, in little wind and choppy waves. The central boom broke on the first attempt; the next day, repaired with a sawn-off windsurf mast, it worked. In January 1982 riders tried it in Kailua on Hawaii.
The hand sail went no further. On a normal board the drag was too great to reach any real speed. The idea had to wait for the hydrofoil.