--- title: The Sporting Sail: Speed, Wind and Skateboards | TIME description: Thrill-seeking brothers Billy and Nick Smith show off their invention - The Sporting Sail - designed to optimize the skateboarding experience canonical: https://time.com/video/rem8ivRU/ og:title: The Sporting Sail: Speed, Wind and Skateboards og:description: Thrill-seeking brothers Billy and Nick Smith show off their invention - The Sporting Sail - designed to optimize the skateboarding experience og:url: https://time.com/video/rem8ivRU/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/rem8ivRU/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Sporting Sail: Speed, Wind and Skateboards twitter:description: Thrill-seeking brothers Billy and Nick Smith show off their invention - The Sporting Sail - designed to optimize the skateboarding experience twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/rem8ivRU/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # The Sporting Sail: Speed, Wind and Skateboards > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Sporting Sail: Speed, Wind and Skateboards [Watch (HLS stream): The Sporting Sail: Speed, Wind and Skateboards](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/rem8ivRU.m3u8) (3:35)  _Published 2011-05-13. Thrill-seeking brothers Billy and Nick Smith show off their invention - The Sporting Sail - designed to optimize the skateboarding experience_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:13 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Japan's Yuto Horigome Is the New King of Skateboarding After Winning the Sport's First Olympic Gold Medal](/video/pBEO3M3k/) ### Japan's Yuto Horigome Is the New King of Skateboarding After Winning the Sport's First Olympic Gold Medal [Volvo Ocean Race: Annie Lush on Women in Sailing](/video/neG8wffd/) ### Volvo Ocean Race: Annie Lush on Women in Sailing [Australian Reporter Gets Hit in Head with a Skateboard](/video/5CmTA9YX/) ### Australian Reporter Gets Hit in Head with a Skateboard --- ## Transcript So, here we go. You gonna make sure you take, On a foggy morning in coastal northern California, brothers Billy and Nick Smith are gearing up to ride down a treacherous winding road. We got that When you're bombing that hill you're always focusing, you know, three inches in front of you. You're looking for the pebble, the next dip in the road. These brothers are chasing adrenalin. But with a colorful twist. [ NOISE ] You can go in on steeper runs on smaller skateboards, and as a result you can reinvent your whole slalom deck. You can challenge steeper terrain like a toe- in surfer would do on a smaller, squirrelier set up. At first glance, you may think you've spotted a superhero on four wheels, but that's no cape, it's a sporting sale. Billy and Nick designed the device, which attaches to the body allowing for increase break control and maneuverability. What we've added into the feeling is, is the idea of harnessing the wind, to be able to challenge new terrain depending on the wind conditions of that day. And they say the ability to harness that wind is redefining the downhill experience. You know, no one goes skateboarding that says, hey, it's a northwest wind coming in at 13 knots, I should go skate, you know, for a Cronkite Hill. But now we start to think that way. Yeah. 15 knots, coming from the west. And that's where we've kind of developed this understanding with resistance. Not necessarily having to put our hands and feet down on the ground, but more hands and feet up in the air and feel it. But Billy and Nick are not the first Smiths to mix wind and action sports. Their grandfather H. W. Smith Jr. witnessed downhill skiers using sails while on an Austrian mountaineering trip in the 1960's. And brought them back to Colorado and started testing them with his friends. Add in some boyhood curiosity 40 years later, and you have a family tradition. Nick and I were just done skiing throughout the day, having a nice time leisurely in the attic of our grandfather's home [ CROSSTALK ]. Looking for fireworks actually. [ CROSSTALK ] But After dusting off an old box and testing the sales on the slopes, Nick had a thought. This is a blast, it's slowing us down. And this would be great on a skateboard. Billy and Nick packed up their big dreams and headed South. Where they now deploy off the sunny Malibu coast. I would love to see this in the Olympics, and I believe that not only would it be an awesome ceremony, you know, imagine that. Yeah. That would be awesome. You got the whole country. Every single person in their country representing. There's a flag of their sail. The Smith's synergy is quite jocular, but they are not all about fun and games. Nick is finishing up his business degree at USC this year. And Billy works as a wet suit developer at outdoor adventure company Patagonia. It's still something that we do for fun, but we took it to the market. And I think that's the biggest different between our grandfather ski clipper and the current day sporting sail. Still, the sail seems to be just an excuse for two brothers to continue adventuring, laughing, and living. Working with Nick is keeping us together in a different level that we normally wouldn't have had. Now we have this great brain child that we can build together and collaborate with for as long as we live. Yeah. For Time video, Sean Donnelly, reporting from Malibu, California. 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