Kitesurfing or Kiteboarding is an adventure surface water sport that has been described as combining wakeboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding, and gymnastics into one extreme sport. Kitesurfing harnesses the power of the wind to propel a rider across the water on a small surfboard or a kiteboard (similar to a wakeboard). The terms kiteboarding and kitesurfing are interchangeable. There are a number of different styles of kiteboarding, including freestyle (most common and utilises standard kite and board), wake-style (flatter water using board with bindings) and wave-riding which is focused on big waves using a board designed for wave riding.

History Of Kite Flying

In fact, the kite sport is pretty new and was mainly developed at the past few yearsBut the kitesurf concept was invented long long time ago, when the Chinese were using kites as a simple mode of transportation during the 13th century. But the kitesurf concept was invented long long time ago, when the Chinese were using kites as a simple mode of transportation during the 13th century.

George Pocock, in the 1,800’s used the basic kites and increased the size of the over-wall kite to propel carts on land and ships on the water. The kites were engineered with 4 lines as it is setup today. Both carts and boats were able to turn and sail upwind. His work results provided the fastest speeds on land and water at those days. He won at boats races with his special history of kites design and his original patent number was GB5420, (on year 1826).

An American inventor name Samuel Cody kite-sailed across the English Channel at 1903, using his invention "the man-lifting kites".

During the history of kite flying, at the 1970’s, the first commercially successful 2-line deltas were developed by Peter Powell, with which he sailed small dinghies. The original patent inventor was Francis Rogollo at the early 1940’s and Powell based on it with his 2-line development.

Six of Powell deltas were used by an Englishman name Keith Stewart with a nine foot catamaran to cross the English Channel, purposely duplicating the Samuel Cody’s 1903 crossing.

Gijsbertus Adrianus Panhuise, from Netherlands, gets the first patent in the history of kite flying, NL07603691 for the kitesurfing sport, at October 1977. The patent using a floating board of a surf board type where a pilot standing up on it is pulled by a wind catching device of a parachute type tied to his harness on a trapeze type belt.

During the history of kite flying, in 1978 an American guy name Dave Culp designed his first kite boat with the first documented inflated leading edge kite which powered it.

Through the 1980 there were lots of attempts to combine kites with other items such as ski boots, roller skates, snow skates etc in order to create a new extreme sports concepts.

Two brothers, Bruno Legaignoux and Dominique Legaignoux, from the Atlantic coast of France, changed the face of the history of kites and developed some kite designs for kitesurfing in the late 1970’s early 1980s and patented a inflatable kite design, Patent US4708078 at November 1984, which has since been used by many companies to develop their own products.

A practical kite buggying was pioneered by Peter Lynn at New Zealand in 1990 and made a big step at the history of kites. Lynn developed a three-wheeled buggy with a forerunner of the modern parafoil kite.

The Kite buggying became very popular all over the world. Over 14,000 buggies were sold up to 1999.In 1996, the windsurfers Laird Hamilton and Manu Bertin exposed world widely the kitesurfing on the media. They demonstrated the kitesurfing off the Hawaiian coast of Maui on the media and brought a huge exposer to the extreme kite sport everywhere in the world and made the histroy of kites. In 1996, the windsurfers Laird Hamilton and Manu Bertin exposed world widely the kitesurfing on the media. They demonstrated the kitesurfing off the Hawaiian coast of Maui on the media and brought a huge exposer to the extreme kite sport everywhere in the world and made the histroy of kites.

The Legaignoux brothers developed and sold the breakthrough "Wipika" kite design in 1997, which had a structure of preformed inflatable tubes and a simple bridle system to the wing-tips, both of which greatly assisted water re-launch. Bruno Legaignoux developed the bow kite design, which has been licensed to many kite manufacturers today.

In the history of kite flying, in 1997, specialist kiteboards were developed by Raphaël Salles and Laurent Ness. By 1998 the history of kites had become a mainstream sport, and several schools were teaching kitesurfing. The first competition was held on Maui in September 1998 and won by Flash Austin.

Allot of competitions, photos, videos, organizations and magazines worldwide dedicated to this increasingly popular sport and the thrills associated with it this days.

Most kites now use a similar design with inflatable bladders and struts which assist greatly in re-launching from water.