Eight Bells: Hoyle Schweitzer

Hoyle Schweitzer, a surfer and sailor who turned a garage experiment into a global sport when he and a friend, Jim Drake, developed the Windsurfer, a sailboard that made it possible to glide across lakes and choppy seas, died on May 31 in San Marcos, Calif. He was 93.

Mr. Schweitzer, who worked in the nascent computer industry, and Mr. Drake, a sailor and aeronautical engineer, patented the design for what became the Windsurfer in 1970. Working out of Mr. Drake’s garage, they created a board that had an asymmetrical sail and a hand-held wishbone boom, allowing riders to skim — or even race — across waters that were either too placid or too turbulent for conventional surfing. A universal joint made it easy to drop the sail and haul it back up.

Mr. Schweitzer and Mr. Drake called their creation the SK8 and the Baja Board before settling on the name Windsurfer. – Full report