Neil Pryde Ltd. the world’s leading manufacturer of windsurfing sails and
rigs, has announced plans to actively invest in the research and
development of foil technology, aimed at significantly boosting the
performance of boards on water.

"The Neil Pryde company and its brands are involved in a variety of high

performance watersports outside of our traditional base in windsurfing."

explains Founder & Managing Director Mr. Neil Pryde. "Today we’re actively

supplying products to surfers, wakeboarders, waterskiers as well as
windsurfers and we’re also now pushing the performance frontiers in the
fast-growing sport of kitesurfing, too."

"We’ve found that in several of our markets products have reached maturity.

Clearly there’s a technology plateau which most of the leading companies in

the business have now reached. This in turn, has lead to a noticeable
levelling-off in product performance."

"The market is now saturated with products that have reached a high level

of performance and we’re keen to see things leap ahead again – and this
requires investment in new ideas and new technology".
NeilPryde Ltd has invested in a Maui-based development programme
spearheaded by Rush Randle, a well-known performance pioneer and all-round
waterman.

Kevin Ozee, Manager of the Neil Pryde flagship retail store on Maui is
close to the project and helped nurture the connection between the Neil
Pryde organisation and Randle’s fledgling foil development programme.

"We’ve seen Rush on the cutting edge of many of the new developments in

watersports and I could see that the work he’s already done on foils looks
really impressive." Recalls Ozee. "The foils he’s developing for use
with
kites already greatly improve the speed and performance potential of
existing kite boards – we would like to see this developed further and we
see great potential for this in Surfing, Kiteboarding and Wakeboarding and
later in windsurfing, too."

Compared to what’s currently feasible above the water line, the performance

gains that are possible through below-the-surface developments are still
relatively uncharted. The Neil Pryde R&D staffers are convinced that this

foil development programme has the potential to make a huge impact on the
sport in the very near future.