Windsurfjournal.com : You were successful racing for NeilPryde, why did you decide to launch a new brand 2 years ago ?
 Andrea Cucchi : NeilPryde was teaching me a lot about product development. I was in Maui and Garda testing with Jimmy Diaz and Antoine Albeau. I found I was good at testing, and that it  was the kind of job I really liked and had passion for. Every time I lent someone my gear, everyone was comfortable and fast on it, no matter their height or weight. This made me think as well. One day I realised I wasn't really going anywhere : same racing spots, same results, same money, same contacts... Every year a photocopy of the previous one. It was hard to get a bigger budget and support from the companies to obtain better results. There's only room for 1 or 2 riders at each manufacturer to get top treatment. I had to do something more to motivate my windsurfing career  and use what 12 years of professional racing brought me. NeilPryde in 2005 also sent out a letter saying that they were not sure about their future with racing sails. I had heard that Peter Munzlinger was free. I had used his Da Kine Sails and won  racing with them in 1997. I really liked Peter as a person and always had great respect for his way of working. He loves windsurfing and sail designing. He's like me : dedicating his life to windsurfing. I remember in my first PWA events, I was often getting knocked out in the early rounds in slalom, and Teriitehau was coming  to borrow my Yes Sails as they were better then his, designed by Peter. Robert was always making the final with them. It was great to see. Starboard's success story in breaking into the windsurf market, was an inspiration to me. I visited them in Thailand a couple of times and I liked their set up. I could see myself doing something like that with a brand of sails. I called Peter and presented my idea of making a product where the main objective was development for performance. A product without all the problems I had experienced in my  past. I made my name in Italy, I won 9 Italian Championship titles,  and as I was writing technical articles of 6-10 pages a month for Windsurf Italia magazine, I knew I could count on support from my windsurfing friends and Italian surfers to make the first step.

WJ : What is the most difficult when you start a new brand ? Coming up with designs, finding investors…?
AC : We were quite lucky with a lot of things. Thanks to Peter we had a good base to start from. We developed 150 protos in the first year from the base Peter had, plus all the alterations on those 150 protos. We were working each day till late at night, and testing for hours on the water. It was a lot of work, but fun ! Now we've got 11 models and 70 sizes after 2 year of development. Peter was well established in the manufacture of masts and sails. This made it easy to start the production of our Point-7 range. Roberto and Massimo are 2 very good friends who also believed in the project and organized all the financial matters. We've had lots of help getting Point-7 set up. We are now 10 people, each our precise role. The most difficult part, is to introduce the brand on the market. It’s a technical product and people want to be sure that it works before they invest their money in buying it. So you need to encourage people to test the sails before they buy them. The dealers wants to be sure that the windsurfers are happy to buy the product and that there be a second hand market for the sails later, before they stock them in the shop. Everyone is just waiting to see what is happening, so the hard part is to get them to act and support our work. It’s a small market, but also very active and observant about new developments and this made it easier. Riders who tried them were happy and spread the word. One funny step for me was to go back into racing this year. A lot of guys were waiting to see if I could still win not being on NeilPryde anymore. At the FW italian championships everyone had a big smile. I finally had the chance to beat Andrea ! I was rusty from over a year of no racing. I had sdpent a lot of time on the water, but always for testing and never had time to train as a racer. I also never tested the sails against other brands. We worked purely from our feelings and from what we wanted from the sails. I was entering the race with no idea how it was going to work out. The first start was terrible. I even got disqualified for taking out another racer on the jibe. It was like a cold shower that woke me up. Second race things immediately went back to normal.I  just started winning everything till the 8th race. The sail was fast and it was actually super easy to win ! This gave us a good feeling ! The week after José Bahadour won the first Speed World Cup in Karpathos in front of Dunkerbeck, Albeau and Maynard. More confirmation that the sail was also a fast slalom sail ! Then I finished second in slalom in the German Championship behind Bernd Flessner and in the top ten at the Formula Windsurfing Eurocup. This gave a boost to all our slalom lines and there was no more discussion about performance of the sails. The feedback from our customers after this summer was all positive and it's motivating us even more to go ahead with everything !

WJ : What are differences between Point-7 and other brands ?
AC : If you see one Point-7 sail among 1000 other sails,  you will spot it immediately !  It’s totally black metalized ! After you see this big visual difference, you will start to learn all its other qualities. It’s like spotting a special girl among many others, and finding out that she’s the right one for you. This black is incredible. It totally blocks the UV-Rays. If you leave the sail out the sun, you will see the transparent monofilm becoming damp, and the black staying dry underneath as no rays get through to burn it. Our AC-1 and AC-2 lines are competitive as can be seen from the results obtained in the first year. The AC-0 Slalom no cam is unique. Cruising as fast as a full racing sail, it also won  the Italian slalom championship against all the other cambered sails last year. Our freeride sails have high performance and are fully X-ply with anti UV-monofilm. We have 2 wave lines. Sado On-shore with constant pull, and the Swell side shore with the ON\OFF profile for sideshore wave sailing. We only use high quality materials and make no compromise on the construction. We have a great customer care service ready to help with any advice. I almost forgot : check out the prices !

WJ : You do the development on lake Garda and in Sardinia, is it important to stay in Europe or do you plan may be one day to have a loft in Maui like so many other brands ?
AC : We like to stay in Europe for many reasons. I spent some winters in Maui for training and testing in the past. The last few years, even before I had Point-7, I preferred to train in Sardinia.  Maui is nice but too far from our market reality. Sardinia and Garda are not a dream for windsurfers. These are actually places where most windsurfers go on holiday during the year. In the winter we are in Sardinia testing in hardcore conditions. We are in Cagliari and have our loft 30m from the water. We test very quickly by making the changes directly on the beach. Often we test all the flat water sails in Cagliari.  Development goes so fast there. Cagliari’s conditions reflect 90% of the surf spots in Europe. If we have waves we take our wave gear and in 1 hour we are in all the best wave spots and they are easily the same level as Maui. We take also our slalom gear to test it in harder conditions. In the summer we move to Garda to complete our sail range. Garda is packed with windsurfers, and I spend a lot of time with everyone on the beach, taking feedback on everyone's product. It’s the best feedback. You meet surfers from all over Europe : the biggest windsurfing market and real enthusiasts. From Garda it's also easy to travel around the many windsurfing events during the summer.
 
WJ : Next year, you're making a come back in main international events, why ?
AC : Sure ! Competing is part of myself and of the game ! I love it ! It’s extremely important for me to be there to learn about the performance of my sails at the highest racing level. This helps bring the latest technology to the brand. I’m totally excited about racing on our own products. Now I have a real motivation to get back into serious training this year !!!!
 
WJ : Point-7 is a new challenge but isnt it very different from the kind of competition you're used to ?
AC : It’s exactly the same. If you have competition in your soul, you have it with everything you do. Being a racer is like running a small company. The results are part of the job, but there is a lot of organization behind it. There are no managers. You do it yourself. The sponsors will come if you give them a return, so it’s a lot of work to do to maintain the sponsorships, specially with no proper TV coverage of the sport. With Point-7 we have goals to reach and we have to keep up the work to satisfy our target market. We are all windsurfers at heart at Point-7. It's exactly the challenge my team and I were looking for !