Peter Chilvers was an inventor, engineer and promoter of sailing and windsurfing. He is credited with an early version of a sail powered surfboard. He died from lung cancer on 26 February 2015. [1]
Chilvers had been an engineer for Lotus and founded a sailing and windsurfing centre in London. Chilvers is credited with creating a crude sailing craft propelled by a free-sail system while living on Hayling Island in 1958. His craft was recognized as prior art in later court cases in England regarding sailboard patents and royalties.
The windsurfing centre in London's East End was founded by Chilvers [2] as a philanthropic venture to promote sailing and windsurfing amongst underprivileged children of the East End in the 1970s. He created and maintained the centre for over 25 years.[ citation needed ]
Chilvers headed the bid for a £40 million sailing and windsurfing centre on Hayling Island to regenerate the area and recognise it as the place where Windsurfing was invented and where he grew up. [3]
Chilvers came into the public eye in the 1980s as the result of patent infringement lawsuit brought by Windsurfing International, Inc. against Tabur Marine, a competing manufacturer. Tabur disputed the validity of the patent, and presented to the courts evidence of a creation by Chilvers, who, in 1958, on Hayling Island, assembled a board powered by a freesail system 10 years before Windsurfing International filed for its patent for the Windsurfer. Although the Chilvers Sailboard differed in some respects from the Windsurfer it had all the elements of a modern Windsurfer. The court ruled for Tabur. [4] This case set important precedents for patent law in the United Kingdom, originating the well-known Windsurfer Test regarding the steps of inventiveness and non-obviousness.
The case, Chilvers, Hayling, and a replica of Chilvers' original board, were featured on an episode of The One Show in 2009. [5]
Hayling Island is an island off the south coast of England, in the borough of Havant in the county of Hampshire, east of Portsmouth.
Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the water, on ice (iceboat) or on land over a chosen course, which is often part of a larger plan of navigation.
Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the Californian aerospace and surf culture. Windsurfing gained a popular following across Europe and North America by the late 1970s and had achieved significant global popularity by the 1980s. Windsurfing became an Olympic sport in 1984.
A jibe (US) or gybe (Britain) is a sailing maneuver whereby a sailing vessel reaching downwind turns its stern through the wind, which then exerts its force from the opposite side of the vessel. Because the mainsail boom can swing across the cockpit quickly, jibes are potentially dangerous to person and rigging compared to tacking. Therefore, accidental jibes are to be avoided while the proper technique must be applied so as to control the maneuver. For square-rigged ships, this maneuver is called wearing ship.
Planing is the mode of operation for a waterborne craft in which its weight is predominantly supported by hydrodynamic lift, rather than hydrostatic lift (buoyancy).
Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing craft, whose next destination is into the wind, turns its bow toward and through the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side of the boat to the other, allowing progress in the desired direction. Sailing vessels are unable to sail higher than a certain angle towards the wind, so "beating to windward" in a zig-zag fashion with a series of tacking maneuvers, allows a vessel to sail towards a destination that is closer to the wind that the vessel can sail directly.
Sidney Newman Darby Jr. was an American inventor best known as the inventor of the sailboard.
Speed sailing is the art of sailing a craft as fast as possible over a predetermined route, and having its overall or peak speed recorded and accredited by a regulatory body. The term usually refers to sailing on water, even though sailing on land and ice is progressively faster because of the lower friction involved. The World Sailing Speed Record Council is the body authorized by the World Sailing to confirm speed records of sailing craft on water.
Bloubergstrand is a seaside suburb of the City of Cape Town, South Africa, along the shores of Table Bay, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) due north of the city centre of Cape Town. The name Bloubergstrand literally means "blue mountain beach" in Afrikaans, and is derived from Blaauwberg, a nearby hill. Bloubergstrand is mainly a residential area, and attracts large numbers of visitors especially kitesurf enthusiasts. The beach at Bloubergstrand is a popular location for a classic view of Table Mountain across the bay and is one of the world's top kitesurf destinations. Robben Island is located 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand.
A sailing hydrofoil, hydrofoil sailboat, or hydrosail is a sailboat with wing-like foils mounted under the hull. As the craft increases its speed the hydrofoils lift the hull up and out of the water, greatly reducing wetted area, resulting in decreased drag and increased speed. A sailing hydrofoil can achieve speeds exceeding double and in some cases triple the wind speed.
Vasiliki (Greek: Βασιλική, Vasilikí; formerly Voivoida is a town in the municipal unit of Apollonioi, on the island of Lefkada, Greece. It is situated on the south coast, 4 km south of Agios Petros and 25 km southwest of Lefkada.
Jim Drake was an American aeronautical engineer who is widely credited with the invention of the sport of Windsurfing. He patented his windsurfing concept in 1968. Drake conceptualized, designed and hand built the first board and articulating sail rig prototype in his garage. He started the sport's first company, Windsurfing International. He produced multiple championship winning windsurfing board designs throughout his career, as well as created a popular offshoot of windsurfing with the world's first un-masted wing sail. Drake would go on to become an altruistic figure head for the sport he pioneered over the course of his lifetime.
Forces on sails result from movement of air that interacts with sails and gives them motive power for sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and sail-powered land vehicles. Similar principles in a rotating frame of reference apply to windmill sails and wind turbine blades, which are also wind-driven. They are differentiated from forces on wings, and propeller blades, the actions of which are not adjusted to the wind. Kites also power certain sailing craft, but do not employ a mast to support the airfoil and are beyond the scope of this article.
Windrider is a 1986 Australian romantic comedy film directed by Vincent Monton and starring Tom Burlinson, Nicole Kidman, and Bud Tingwell. It was filmed in Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Windsurfing has been one of the Olympic sailing events at the Summer Olympics since 1984 for men and 1992 for women. All sailors use the same One Design boards, daggerboards, fins and sails. The equipment is chosen to allow racing in a wide range of sailing conditions, as during the Olympic Games events must take place as scheduled whether or not there is enough wind for planing.
Hayley Victoria Chan is a Hong Kong windsurfer, who specialised in Neil Pryde RS:X class. She captured a silver medal in windsurfing at the 2010 Asian Games, and later represented Hong Kong at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Chan trains for the Windsurfing Association of Hong Kong under her personal coach Chan Hai Shun. As of September 2013, Chan is ranked fourth in the world for the sailboard class by the International Sailing Federation, following her successes at the One World Championships in Boracay, Philippines and at the World Championships in Buzios, Brazil.
A waterstart is a key windsurfing maneuver for recovering after a fall and getting back into sailing position by using wind. It is more efficient than uphauling the sail, but requires a minimum level of wind to perform. Variations of waterstarting include the clew-first waterstart and the light wind waterstart.
Kaep is a traditional type of double-ended Proa sailboat native to Palau. Some of the essential design elements have also been adopted as a modern smaller multihull prototype variant.
Jonathan "Jono" Dunnett is a British-born Spanish-based adventurer, writer and windsurfing instructor. In May 2019, he has completed a solo expedition to windsurf the European mainland coastline on a windsurfer, landing at Batumi, Georgia.
Wing foiling or wing surfing or winging is a wind propelled water sport that developed from kitesurfing, windsurfing and surfing. The sailor, standing on a board, holds directly onto a wing. It generates both upward force and sideways propulsion and thus moves the board across the water. The recent development of foilboards, which plane very early on a hydrofoil fin and thereby lift off the water producing low friction, represent the ideal complementary hydrodynamic platform for wings.