The sport of windsurfing on water started with the invention of the windsurfing board by Hoyle Swchweitzer and James Drake in 1970 ref.(US. patent no:3,487,800)
It was a concept which integrated the technology of the surfing board with an unsinkable foam core and a rear fin together with the drop-keel and triangular sail of a sailboat. The mast was modified to be operated by a standing-up windsurfer. This new sport became very popular through the entire world in just a few years.
In the northern countries, the windsurfers built all kinds of equipments to windsurf on snow covered fields and on frozen lakes using windsurfing sails as mean of propulsion.
Differents equipments, differents solutions
There's a great diversity of winterwindsurfing equipments. Most of them are designated by their commercial name. In order to avoid confusion and to generalize the denomination, we'll use W.I.S.S.A.'s terminology (World Ice and Snow Sailing Association) which organizes the world championship of this sport. In accordance with WISSA's terminology, we use “windsurfing sled” to name thoses equipments to sail on ice and snow.
Most of the windsurfing sleds use one or more alpine skis, sometime equiped with sharp steel blades or with steering mechanism to change direction. Another type of sleds is ridgid boards with gliding surfaces, sometime with sharp ice blades or external skegs. Some sleds are designed specific for ice, others for snow only.
Other systems use a mechanism to fix the windsurfing sail directly on a pair of alpine skis .
