Is the "Wind Weapon" the mother of wingsurfing?

In the 1980s, Tom Magruder, a windsurfer on the legendary Columbia River in Oregon, had an idea: what if you could jump off and fold your sail horizontally in the air to fly through the air like a kite?

The result was a design that resembled a wing relatively closely. A symmetrical wing with a holding bar in the centre. But because Tom Madruder was actually a windsurfer, he didn't want to do without the fixed connection from the wing to the board at the time. This was probably the reason why it didn't catch on at the time. When turning round, the wing had to be folded over the head in the jibe - you could get wedged in the hard, unpadded rods and jam all your extremities.

Unfortunately, no-one back then had the idea of simply removing the mast or constructing an inflatable wing - and so it took over 30 years for wingsurfing to conquer the water sports world. But better late than never...

Here you can see Tom Magruder in action with his Wind Weapon: