JP and Neilpryde take the highly coveted PWA constructors championship titles following a year of world-class competition on the PWA World Tour.
The PWA Constructors Championship title is an extremely sought after award which represents the epitome of windsurfing development and manufacture. Throughout the year brands within the industry have the opportunity to gain points from their sponsored riders results at every single World Tour event. At the final showdown of the season, the points are totted up, and the prestigious awards handed out.
Board Brands – Overall
Following years of domination by Starboard, JP Australia has finally knocked their closest rivals off the top spot to claim the overall Board Brands title. Their team riders raked the points in throughout the year, with their biggest hauls in both waves and slalom. The 2009 constructors champions, Starboard finished an extremely close second with their strengths lying in freestyle and slalom. And, Fanatic ended the year in third, despite having world champions crowned in both men’s freestyle and men’s waves.
1st JP Australia
2nd Starboard
3rd Fanatic
4th Tabou
5th Patrik
JP brand manager, Martin Brander commented: “We at JP strongly believe in the professional side of windsurfing. We think to keep a sport interesting and make a brand a cool brand it takes personalities and success in professional competition. This is why we have a rather large team of PWA riders. Consequently it has been our goal since several years to win the PWA constructors ranking. This was a pretty ambitious goal as JP originally started out as a brand with mainly wave boards and a few freeride boards. Later we became really strong in the Freestyle area – largely thanks to Ricardo Campello and Josh Stone. But we only entered the Slalom market six years ago. After missing the Constructors World Championship Title in 2009 by only one point, we are very proud that we have finally achieved our goal, and we are especially proud that we also won the Slalom and Wave rankings. Finally the time and effort of all involved has paid off.
This success really is the success of our team and our shaper, Werner Gingler. The great thing is that our team riders are really a team, and not just a group of people who happen to be sponsored by the same brand. Whoever has seen Antoine Albeau caddying for and coaching Ricardo Campello in Waves, and Ricardo caddying for Antoine in Slalom knows what I am talking about. The same thing happens between all our riders. Robby Swift has lent equipment to his team mates so many times – several times he was simply too generous and he ended up without equipment. Our riders always help each other – physically and mentally. There is a true team spirit and this is great.
So I want to thank all those involved in this great achievement but especially the following people:
Werner Gnigler – who designed those great boards
Antoine Albeau FRA-192 – 2010 PWA Slalom World Champion
Micah Buzianis USA-34 – 4th in Slalom
Ricardo Campello V-111 – 2nd in Waves
Kauli Seadi BRA-253 – 4th in Waves
Robby Swift K-89 – 6th in Wave
Yegor Popretinskiy RUS-11 – 8th in Freestyle
Maarten van Ochten H-73 – 9th in Freestyle
Congratulation to all these guys, keep pushing & all the best for the coming season!”
Board Brands – Slalom
2010 slalom world champion, Antoine Albeau (JP, NeilPryde) along with team-mate, 2010 Turkey world cup champion, Micah Buzianis (JP, NeilPryde) can lay claim to the biggest contribution of points to JP, which enabled the brand to take the slalom board category from Starboard.
1st JP
2nd Starboard
3rd RRD
4th Tabou
5th Patrik
Board Brands – Waves
In waves three times former world wave champion, Kauli Seadi (JP, NeilPryde), along with 2010 vice world wave champion, Ricardo Campello (JP, NeilPryde, MFC), and 2009 wave world championship runner up, Robby Swift (JP, NeilPryde) launched JP into the lead after a huge haul of points at the Kia Cold Hawaii, as well as Pozo. Fanatic came a close second with 2010 wave world champion, Victor Fernandez (Fanatic, North, MFC) claiming the majority of their points, but the team couldn’t quite match the strength of JP.
1st JP
2nd Fanatic
3rd Starboard
4th Patrik
5th Tabou
Board Brands – Freestyle
The fleet in which JP made the least gains was that of slalom, which allowed Starboard’s team of freestyle whiz kids to take the lead ahead of Fanatic, and F2. Those that contributed the most were 2010 women’s freestyle world champion, Sarah-Quita Offringa (Starboard, Vandal), and 2010 Podersdorf champion, Taty Frans (Starboard, MauiSails, Mystic), along with his team-mate Kiri Thode (Starboard, Gaastra).
1st Starboard
2nd Fanatic
3rd F2
4th JP
5th Naish
Sail Brands – Overall
NeilPryde once again proved to have the strongest team of riders on the world tour with a world championship win in men’s slalom for the fifth year running, two podium positions in men’s waves, and two top ten riders in men’s freestyle. Their closest rivals this year were North, who move up the rankings to swap places with Gaastra who finish third this time.
1st NeilPryde
2nd North
3rd Gaastra
4th Severne
5th Simmer
Chief designer for NeilPryde, Robert Stroj commented: “Firstly I would like to thank all of our team-riders who gave their best through out the season to make this happen, our third year in a row! Our design team spent an enormous amount of time and effort on the development of new RS Racing EVO3, featuring the new Integrated Compact Clew system. Winning the PWA constructors championship together with Antoine winning the overall PWA Slalom title on our sails proved that this was a great step forward in sail design and was the best reward our design team could get!”
Sail Brands – Slalom
NeilPryde annihilated their closest rivals, Severne in slalom due to the ongoing achievements of both Antoine Albeau, and Micah Buzianis who between them won three out of the five counting events. The other two victories went to thirty-five times world champion, Bjorn Dunkerbeck (Starboard, Severne, Mystic), who along with 2010 women’s slalom world champion, Karin Jaggi (Patrik, Severne) helped their sponsors achieve second place.
1st NeilPryde
2nd Severne
3rd Gaastra
4th North
5th Loft
Sail Brands – Waves
In waves, the same team of Kauli Seadi, Ricardo Campello, and Robby Swift who launched JP into the lead in the board brands championship, along with 2009 Pozo champion, Philip Koster (Starboard, NeilPryde, Dakine) formed an unbeatable team to put NeilPryde well ahead of second place finishers, North. Although Victor Fernandez claimed the world title, he’ll never beat the strong team of NeilPryde single-handed!
1st NeilPryde
2nd North
3rd Severne
4th Simmer
5th Gaastra
Sail Brands – Freestyle
In a similar fashion to JP, NeilPryde’s downfall was in the freestyle discipline which allowed a new brand to take the top spot. With three fine freestylers in the top five, Gaastra have jumped into the lead due to the success of 2010 men’s overall freestyle runner up, Kiri Thode, 2010 Podersdorf world cup vice champion, Steven Van Broeckhoven (F2, Gaastra), and 2010 Lanzarote world cup runner up, Tonky Frans (F2, Gaastra). Just like the waves, North can lay claim to the 2010 men’s freestyle world champion, Jose ‘Gollito’ Estredo (Fanatic, North), but on his own he’ll struggle to win the constructors title.
1st Gaastra
2nd North
3rd MauiSails
4th Vandal
5th NeilPryde
