Alexandria: Birthplace of windsurfing?
September 2, 2010 at 7:00 pm in Alexandria Echo Press
One day, about 50 years ago, Al Seltz daringly rose to his feet on the edge of a sailboat, and skillfully skimmed over the waters of Lake L’Homme Dieu. That moment may have put him in the history books. Continue Reading
Al can be congratulated on his innovation but he cannot unfortunately be credited with inventing or actually doing windsurfing because the key element that differentiates windsurfing from sailing is that the sailor actually holds the sail up. A windsurfer has a flexible joint where the mast connects to the board, and the sailor must hold the mast and sail up to move. A windsurfer also does not have a rudder and steers through manipulation of weight and sail position. A yacht has a self supporting mast. Standing up on a yacht, even a small yacht is common place now, but may have been innovative then so he is probably still claim to be an innovator. Bruce Spedding, Windsurfing New Zealand, http://www.windsurfingnz.org
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Al Seitz’s claim of invention affiliation with windsurfing is akin to claiming to have invented walking by standing on one’s head! Sailing ‘standing up’ on a flattie type sailboat is quite a fetch away from “invention” of my windsurfing sport.
A bit of research would take one to much information regarding windsurfing discovery and development. Al’s big breach is obvious in your article photo where he is seen steering with a traditional tiller/rudder. The sailboard invention, which is most commonly credited to Newman Darby from Pennsylvania, did not have a tiller/rudder steering assembly at all. The novel, inventive part was steering by the rig movement fore ‘n aft, without a rudder. Darby accomplished this by initially having the mast totally separated from the craft. Steering was done by setting the base of the mast into a rounded socket depression on deck which allowed the mast full articulation in any direction. In the absence of support, obviously the rig would be at rest in the water horizontally. Darby steadily improved his concept by first adding a rope connection between board and mast base, and then to a simple mechanical universal attachment which according to Darby, was made simply of two oar locks and a one inch section of pipe all fastened together with two bolts . Darby’s rope concept is the invention which has survived today, fabricated of a rubber type, flexible, modern rope material. The only other way to steer a sailing craft (rudderless) would be to vary the position of the keel/centerboard (pivot point) below the water surface in a similar fore n’ aft movement, or use both rig and centerboard movement techniques in combination to vary a craft’s course through the water. Such a technique may have been well known in ancient Polynesia as demonstrated by Francis Cowan of Tahiti who sailed the raft “Tahiti Nui” against the wind to Peru from Tahiti (early 1950′s) using 4 centerboards in the absence of any rudder. Newman Darby has my vote (and the Smithsonian’s) for being the true inventor of sailboarding ..(aka windsurfing). There are three others claiming invention to date: Schweitzer/Drake-US (60′s), Peter Chilvers -London (50′s), and Richard Eastaugh-Australia (40′s) I was the first US national champion (’72) and the first windsurfing World Champion (’73) on the Schweitzer/Drake WINDSURFER brand. Schweitzer is unquestionably the one who exploded and developed the sport in the 70′s and early 80′s, having shrewdly secured a patent on the concept with Drake. Al Seitz appears to be a guy who is nuts about sailing which is great; however, we do not need any more nuts claiming invention of windsurfing! – Bruce Matlack
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