A closer look
Steering a boat with a rudder is apparently too mainstream. In the 1920s, Catalan beachgoers invented the Patín a Vela, a wooden catamaran completely devoid of a rudder, boom, or centerboard. You control this chaotic wind-powered vehicle entirely by violently shifting your body weight across the deck and manually hauling the single sail. Originally designed just to sail past the filthy, polluted shoreline waters of Barcelona, it accidentally birthed an extreme, physically brutal sailing tradition that laughs at modern navigation tools.
