JP Australia is working hard to make windsurfing great again. And the company's eyes are on futuristic concepts like "Project Spaceship."
"Project Spaceship" has a radical design. It is a 100-centimeter wide, 150 liter windsurf board with a unique bottom shape featuring a two-step hull.
The concept board was developed secretly. Nicolas Prien, one of JP's team riders, had the chance to test in late 2018, but his test and feedback were only made public in March 2019.
The German windsurfer thinks that this board is not going to go into production, though.
"It didn't work out as good as it should because it was hard to get it up foiling. It has a lot of volume in the back, and you need to press down hard on the tail of the board for the foil to lift," explains Prien.
"Once I was up foiling over the water, it gave me good leverage. But other than that, and for racing, it's not the best board."
The board resembles JP's Hydrofoil model but was shaped with more aggressive channels in both the deck and bottom. It also looks like a crossover between an Optimist and a 49er sailing dinghy.
JP Australia will not make "Project Spaceship" available in the market, but the brand's innovation labs will continue developing and testing avant-garde windsurf board concepts.