One of his patents describes in 1979 the first use of an inflatable kite design for kitesurfing. Strasilla and his Swiss friend Andrea Kuhn also used this invention in combination with surfboards and snowboards, grasskies, and self-made buggies. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Dieter Strasilla from Germany developed parachute-skiing and later perfected a kite-skiing system using self-made paragliders and a ball-socket swivel allowing the pilot to sail upwind and uphill but also to take off into the air at will. Through the 1980s, there were occasionally successful attempts to combine kites with canoes, ice skates, snow skis, water skis and roller skates. This patent did not result in any commercial interest. The patent covers, specifically, a water sport 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. In October 1977 Gijsbertus Adrianus Panhuise (Netherlands) received the first patent for KiteSurfing. Peter Lynn lifting a kite in Dieppe, September 1988 In the early days of the sport, there were significant injuries and some fatalities, but the safety record has improved with better equipment and instruction. They often wear a wetsuit in mild to cold waters. The kitesurfer rides on either a bidirectional board (a "twin-tip", similar to a wakeboard), a directional surfboard, or a foilboard. Most power kites are leading edge inflatable kites or foil kites attached by about 20 m (66 ft) of flying lines to a control bar and a harness. Worldwide, there are 1.5 million kitesurfers, while the industry sells around 100,000 to 150,000 kites per year. The sport held the speed sailing record, reaching 55.65 kn (103.06 km/h) before being eclipsed by the 65.45 kn (121.21 km/h) Vestas Sailrocket. It has freestyle, wave-riding, and racing competitions. A person kiteboarding in Kanagawa, Japan in 2022Īfter some concepts that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s and some designs were successfully tested, the sport received a wider audience in the late 1990s and became mainstream at the turn of the century.
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