Letters

Sailboard inventor was also a sign painter

SignCraft reader Steven Jacobson, Steve’s Pinstriping & Signs, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, sent us an interesting newspaper obituary for S. Newman Darby, who died recently at 88. Newman was a second-generation sign painter by trade who built sailboats in his spare time.

In 1964, his experimenting led them to create the first sailboard, which he sailed on lakes near his home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In 1965, he wrote an article for Popular Science magazine, telling how he developed the sailboard. He went on to build and market them, but was ahead of his time, and the company closed a few years later.