Wind Surfing is a sports that computer engineer Hoyle Schweitzer and ex-navigator James Drake of California thought out together in 1967. It came from the idea to fix a yacht sail onto the surfboard. Departing from the basic concept of fixing the mast perpendicular to the surfboard, the mast is movable by using universal joint. With universal joint, the position of the sail gets adjustable to face the wind freely. The mast plays a role engine and rudder.

  Surfing is done by the way of balancing the surfboard with the wave as well as the sail with the wind. Nowadays, Wind Surfing has become popular in Europe, USA, Australia, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe. Above all, the strong point with Wind Surfing is that everyone can enjoy such a primitive style of sports in the rivers and lakes as well as in the sea.

  The 1st World Wind Surfing Championship was held in 1974 in Lake Ontario, USA, with 66 windsurfers from 7 countries. After that, in the 8th Championship held in Okinawa, Japan, over 600 windsurfers from 40 countries took part. Wind surfing was officially adopted as regular event of the 23rd Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984.

  Even though Wind surfing had not known well to the public as it had been introduced in Korea in 1976, the boom in it was triggered by the feat of an enthusiast surfer named Kwon Hee Bum when he crossed alone the Korean Straits between Pusan of Korea, and Tsushima Island of Japan in October 1980. In fact, Korea that is surrounded by sea from three sides has the most suitable natural conditions for Wind Surfing. Today, the most popular venues for Wind Surfing are Daesung-ri and Cheongpyeong along the Hangang. Numerous home-manufactured equipments are so excellent in quality and it is easy to purchase.

The World Wind Surfing Championship consists of 3 races; Olympic course, free style and slalom. Olympic course race as major event requires the surfers to turn around 3 marked buoys one by one by the order of the number. Of total 7 races, the best 6 races’ records are taken into account for the score. Men’s race is classified into 4 categories of Light, Medium, Light Heavy and Heavy according to body weight while women’s does not account for body weight. Free style race requires the surfers to show individual free style feats for 3 minutes. Scores are given for each category of difficulty, creativity and maturity. Slalom requires every twosome to race between the 2 marked buoys. The first finished surfer wins. Usually done in tournament formats, Slalom requires all-round skills of the surfers.

Made of synthetic resin, the windsurf should meet the specifications: surfboard 3.65m long, 0.66m wide, 18kg heavy; mast 4.20m high; boom 2.70m long; sail 5.4㎡; and total weight 28kg.