S. Newman Darby of Pennsylvania is generally credited with inventing the sailboard. He'd worked on some prototype of the sailboard beginning in 1948, but finally finished it to his satisfaction in the 1960s. He began selling his sailboards in 1964, but did not patent the design. Consequently, others developed similar ideas, and the first actual patent for the sailboard was filed by Jim Drake and Hoyle Schweitzer in California in 1968.