Kiteboarding is a comparatively recent activity, only a bit more than 10 years but the art of moving a craft with a kite has been in use for years.

Originally humans started in asia, where kites were used to pull canoos along the sea . Going with the wind was the only form of movement in these days. About the 18th century an man known as George Pocock created kites with 4 lines. This gave the opportunity to have kites flying upwind, a glaring advantage for craft traction as it gave a more impressive range of sailing directions.

By the sixties, there were some innovators who began using paragliding wings to tug a surfboard but they were still facing the problem of re-launching it in the water. That was the start for the industry.

This came from the hands of Bill Roeselers, a Boeing engineer and his son Corey, top flight water-skier.

In France, the Legagnoix siblings, both into sailing, surfing and windsurfing spent a lot of time from the early eighties working on kite design. By 1987, they came out with a kite which had an inflatable buoy inside it. This device made it eminently possible to relaunch the kite from the water and also gave it the precise lemon slice shape. They patented the design and shortly the first Wikipa kites were for sale.

From there on, the story moved to Hawaii. Legendary surfer and pioneer Laird Hamilton, together with Manu Bertin showed the surfers and windsurfers of Maui the new sport. It swiftly gained a massive interest amongst the adrenaline driven islanders.

The decline of windsurfing gave kitesurfing the push it wanted to gain worldwide recognition. The reality is that plenty of makers used their already existing sail factories in asia to shift them to producing kites. An exceedingly quick reply from the specialised mags helped publicise kitesurfing among windsurfers.

That was typically due to the fact that kites were dynamic and hard to reduce power. Aswell, folks were self taught, so did not know many unsafe situations. These days, kites are much safer to use and most beginners go thru lessons. These courses put plenty of emphasis on safety, on manipulating the equipment, and it takes 1 or 2 days before you can attempt to get going.
What attracted loads of people into kitesurfing is the fast progression you can do in comaprison to other sports. Now kitesurfing Holidays are one of teh fastest growing holidays. .It requires a two years of regular lessons to start attempting tricks on a windsurf whereas, if presented you could be jumping in a week’s time kitesurfing

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