Time will tell. There are two schools of thought on kitesailing development. Ian Day, Dan Eisaman, Lee Sedgewick, and others are working within existing kite, hull and controls technologies to maximize actual kiteboat efficiencies and boat speeds, both on and off the wind and on both closed courses and blue water. Costs are reasonable and progress is rapid, but performance limitations, particularly with commercially available kites, are likely to curtail real breakthroughs. Giles Durand, Bruno and Dominique Legaignoux, James LaBouchere, and others are taking a basic research and development approach, designing and building purpose-built, efficient kites from scratch and using them to pull sometimes very innovative hull platforms.
Progress is slow but impressive.
We believe that the sport worldwide will soon see dramatic breakthroughs in both technology and performance. We have traced the development of kitesailing through history, discussed the kitesailing adventures of the authors over the past ten years, and hinted at what the future might hold. If we have stimulated your curiosity, then we have been successful. Roeseler spent 22 years in the Structures Staff at Boeing after receiving his Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT in 1966. His sailing research began in 1975, towing his young son, Cory, behind his Hobie 18 on water skis.