Ben Franklin

Father of American Kitesurfing

Ben Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”

To which Franklin supposedly responded, with a rejoinder at once witty and ominous: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

More importantly, did you know Ben Franklin is also the Father of Kitesurfing? Fact!

(no you did not. I refuse to believe this)

OUR NATIONS FOUNDING KITESURFER:

Years before his famous experiment with a kite and a key, Benjamin Franklin made another groundbreaking kite discovery: kitesurfing.

The famous Philadelphian grew up in Boston, first on Milk Street and then in Haymarket Square. He learned to swim in the Charles River and created several swimming innovations, including oval palettes to fit on his hands and feet so he could glide through the water more quickly.

One day, he fancied flying a kite and floating at the same time as he sometimes found swimming tiresome).  He loosed his kite from the stick it was tied to and began to float. The kite began to drag him across:

I quothe:

“Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes round the pond,” he wrote, “I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the least fatigue and with the greatest pleasure imaginable.”

(end of quothe. I have now queethed)

He even believed that, with a little luck and a good wind, you could cross from Dover to Calais thanks to kite-power.

to wit: (from Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 1)

The attempt was a success!

“The kite ascended to a very considerable height above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being desirous of amusing myself with my kite, and enjoying at the same time the pleasure of swimming, I returned, and loosing from the stake the string with the little stick which was fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found, that lying on my back, and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner.”

Franklin then asked an observer to take his clothes to the other side of the pond. “I began to cross the pond with my kite,” he writes, “which carried me quite over without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable.” He then nonchalantly retrieved his clothes and called it a day.

While he never tried kite swimming again, Franklin guessed it “not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais.” His prediction, in a way, came true. In 2012, billionaire (and Franklin-esque bon vivant) Richard Branson kitesurfed across the English Channel:

Furthermore, Ben Franklin may also be the author of the now ubiquitous phrase “Just Do It”. He is rumored to have expressed this sentiment elegantly by exclaiming “Evenso Yea Venture Ye Forthwith” which is exactly the same thing when asked “how do I get started with kite surfing”?

“Evenso Yea Venture Ye Forthwith, forsooth!”

-Ben Franklin on Kitesurfing

Have you tried any combo of kite and surfing? Leave a comment below!