THE VISION


Dominique and Bruno Legaignoux learnt their sailing skills at the age of ten on the coast of Brittany France.
They soon started competing in dinghy races and became  French Junior Champions in 1979.
After 10 years of dinghy racing (Optimist, Vaurien, Laser, 420, 470), they stopped racing and begame recreational sailors



Dominique ( left) in Casamance - Senegal


Dominique mainly surfed at the famous spot of La Torche, where several Funboard World Cups have been held since. In the meantime, they were preparing cruising boats for their "dream": a circumnavigation.




 

After a year of open sea cruising, they met in the Senegal.
Life was fine, and they spent hours discussing their mutual interest in high efficiency sails and high speed sailing craft

 

Dominique's drawings - 1983

 

Another rig inspired them. It was a cross between a boardsail and a kite.
It was patented and manufactured by the Brittain Roland Le Bail in 1982. The object of the system was to lift the pilot in order to make higher and longer jumps than a regular sailboard rig, but it had problems with larger sail sizes.
There was almost always someone sailing on Dakar's Hann Bay with a Birdsail when the Legaignoux brothers started their kite project.

 

From this, it's easy to see what had become of their Vision: one board, one kite..


Dominique drawing - 1984

 

Neither brother had ever flown a steerable kite so they made a dual-line one first to understand how that worked and how to go upwind with a kite.
The advantages of kites as sails very quickly became obvious, and so they soon planned to develop a marine wing.

Official patent drawing 








Bruno on his self-made wood-epoxy sailboard in 1982




Bruno's catamaran just before The Start.
4 custom made surf and windsurf boards were attached on the deck.









At first they considered rigid sails for their future cruising boat, but their discussions soon turned to kites as a natural extention of sails.
They recalled the Jacob's Ladder catamaran pulled by a stack of kites, seen at the Brest Speed Week. They reasoning was that since this boat was faster than an identical boat with a high efficiency standard sail (Tornado), kites were probably an alternative to complicated and costly high performance sails.




 


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CHAPTER III 
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