In the 1960s, two California friends carried on a debate regarding the merits of surfing compared to sailing. Hoyle Schweitzer, vice president of a computer firm, argued that sailing was a better sport because surfers had to waste so much time waiting for the right waves and because the shore area was too crowded with other surfers. Jim Drake, an aeronautical engineer, believed just the opposite: surfers had the edge because their sport was so simple and much less time consuming than sailing.

Both men were creative thinkers who began thinking about some way to combine the positive elements of both sports into one new package--a sailing surfboard. Both men set to work. Drake exchanged new sailing ideas with another scientist, Fred Payne. Several ideas were discarded for one reason or another. In 1967, Drake and Schweitzer tried an enlarged surfboard, but they had problems steering it without a...