An accomplished surgeon, Karim Sarhane, MD, has treated patients at the United Arab Emirates’ Burjeel Royal Hospital since 2022. When he isn’t working, Dr. Karim Sarhane enjoys windsurfing.

While it is difficult to pinpoint a specific origin for most sports and athletic pastimes, experts generally agree that a single individual, Newman Darby, invented windsurfing in 1964. Frustrated by the lack of surfing waves near his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Darby attached a sail to a surfboard and developed a universal joint system to steer.

When he published his designs in a 1965 article in Popular Science magazine, Darby called his equipment a “sailboard” and its recreational use “sailboarding.” Over time, the act of using sail-captured wind and a simple rig to propel a single individual on a board over water became known as windsurfing. Unfortunately for Darby, he didn’t file a patent for his invention until the 1980s, allowing many other people to patent their own windsurfing designs.